Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Assassination and NCSU's Reaction
January 20, 2011
post contribution by Josh Hager .
This week, we commemorate the birth of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. His influence on campus mirrored his prominence nationwide. No event speaks more to the importance of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to the Wolfpack student body than the reaction on campus to Dr. King’s tragic assassination of Thursday, April 4, 1968. However, the events around Raleigh on that most tumultuous weekend after the murder also merit our attention.
In the wake of the assassination, Raleigh’s community was ablaze with fury. Despite a city-wide curfew imposed by the mayor to help keep the peace, the campus of Shaw University became the focal point of rioting that included several buildings being lit on fire. A prominent minister argued that no drinking had influenced the rioters; rather, their intense emotional reaction to the perceived “failure of non-violence” led to acts of violence. The riots apexed during the weekend following the assassination when members of the Raleigh Police Department and the National Guard confronted Shaw students, leading to the shooting of one student who suffered minor injuries. Relative calm set in on Sunday, April 7. Meanwhile, the president of St. Augustine’s College, Dr. Pressel Robinson, began the campus’s Easter Break early to help diffuse the “highly charged situation.” He also proclaimed that non-violence had not failed, as protesters may have believed, but rather that “positive action [was] needed” to help confront the reactions of radicals to non-violence.
The reaction to the assassination on the campus of NC State was not quite as tumultuous as on Raleigh’s other campuses, but students massed in protest nonetheless. During the weekend, approximately 200 well-dressed white students and faculty (from UNC and Duke as well as NCSU) amassed in the University Plaza (the Brickyard) intending to march on the State Capitol Building in an attempt to speak with Governor Dan Moore. The ultimate goal of the march was to present a petition to the governor that “show[ed] the Negro community that concern exists among whites by presenting written grievances to the governor.” However, the march did not go forward as planned. After the Raleigh Police Department stopped the group at Winston Hall, Chancellor John Caldwell personally led with protesters to disperse peacefully, saying, “I wept tears when Martin Luther King died; I loved that man. But you don’t have to demonstrate by breaking the law.” With threats of arrest looming, and National Guard troops waiting at the Velvet Cloak Inn to intercept the march should it reach that point, the protesters dispersed as requested. The following Monday, a smaller group went to the Capitol and presented the petition to an aide to the governor, who promised that the governor would read it.
The coda to all of the above chaos was a peaceful memorial and contrition service for Dr. King held in Raleigh’s Memorial Auditorium. Approximately 3,000 locals attended the event. Local and state officials attended; both white and black speakers from a wide range of faiths proclaimed the wisdom of non-violence and the continued need for its practice. No National Guard troops were needed to maintain the peace; the only purpose of the Raleigh Police Department at the event was traffic control. This event, a peaceful declaration of grief that simultaneously called for non-violence, may perhaps best encapsulate Dr. King’s legacy amidst the rest of the local reaction. 42 years later, we honor the memory of Dr. King and once again uphold the doctrine of non-violence.
(All quotations are from The Technician of April 5 & 8, 1968.)
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