After Martin Luther King was shot, time moved very slow for blacks.

There wasn’t an apology from White America for killing a leader of peace.  The government responded to the Negro riots by enlisting blacks into the Army and shipping them to Vietnam.  Those who didn’t go were harassed by the police and the courts.  Those who survived that became victims of the CIA and FBI.  The CIA allowed drugs to flourish in the ghettos.  The FBI used traitors and gangs to start “dirty wars” in black communities. 

There was no freedom under Richard Nixon and J. Edgar Hoover. 

Dr. King’s assassination created a void in black leadership. Five years earlier, we lost Medgar Evers. Three years earlier, we lost Malcolm X. The ones who lived were in jail, in hiding or exiled.  A lost hope was replaced with widespread dope. 

Drugs killed off a generation of potential leaders.  It criminalized the young militant wanting change.  In 1966, Huey Newton took his college education and helped found the Black Panther Party.  In 1989, he was shot dead in an apparent, “drug deal gone bad”.  Earlier it was alleged, he suffered through a debilitating, heroin addiction.  Nonetheless, he was a sworn foe of California law enforcement. 

King’s death brought forth the 1968 Voting Rights Act. It guaranteed EVERYONE the right to vote. An investigation into the “long, hot summer” riots of 1967-1968 blamed the upheavals on the one culprit; white racism. The Kerner Commission said that white racism against African Americans along with crime, unemployment, inadequate housing, police brutality led to the riots.

America didn’t offer freedom for killing Dr. King.  They just killed and imprisoned more.  Black Panthers found themselves assassinated in police raids like Fred Hampton and Mark Clark.  They found themselves battling in state courts on drummed up charges.  To avoid the harassment, a few such as Eldridge Cleaver emigrated to Cuba.  Stokley Carmichael fled to Guyana.  The choices were to be assimilated in white culture, incarcerated in America’s prisons or assassinated in their nieghborhoods.  There was to be no black militancy or revolution. 

In rare occurrences, a few achieved some success in politics. In 1970, Carl Stokes and Charles Evers won mayoral elections in their respective cities of Cleveland (Ohio) and Fayette (Miss). Shirley Chisolm became the first woman, let alone black woman, elected to Congress. Two years later, she embarked on a courageous run for the presidency. She challenged GOP (Grand Old Party) incumbent, Richard Nixon and Democratic candidate, George McGovern. Chisolm’s ran on the Freedom Party ballot. She got annhilated in the polls, but earned points for making the attempt.

Some mid-level, black leaders emerged. Medgar’s brother, Charles Ever won the mayor post in Fayette, Miss.  Andrew Young won the mayor job in Atlanta, Georgia (1983). Rev. Jesse Jackson founded Operation PUSH and his Rainbow Coalition. He ran ran for president in 1984. Representative, Alan Keyes and Rev. Al Sharpton also grabbed the African American leadership helm.

Mrylie Evers-Williams, the widow of Medgar Evers, obtained NAACP’s (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) director seat. Coretta Scott King, widow of Dr. King, continued with her late husband’s Poor Peoples’ Campaign. She raised monies for a Civil Rights Memorial. The memorial honored the victims who died during the Movement’s era.

The victories, though few, were significant.  They led to the eventual political and social shift in 2008.  Four decades after King’s assassination, Barack Obama became America’s president and Commander-in-Chief.