Like many cities across the country, Augusta experienced a night of high anxiety after the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., was assassinated 40 years ago today.
Augusta Police Department officers blockaded 15th Street at Wrightsboro Road about four hours after Dr. King was shot in Memphis, Tenn., at 6:01 p.m. on April 4, 1968. Richmond County sheriff's deputies barred traffic at 15th Street and Milledgeville Road, according to news reports in The Augusta Chronicle .
At least four people were injured in scattered incidents that police attributed to racial unrest. According to newspaper accounts, police were kept busy all night, at one time rushing to Ninth and Gwinnett (now Laney-Walker Boulevard) streets to respond to reports of rocks and bricks being thrown at passing cars.
The next day, leaders in the "white and black" communities called for calm among residents.
Matthew Mulherin, the chairman of the Richmond County Commission, called Dr. King's shooting a "despicable and shameless" act, and pledged to keep order in the county. The Rev. C.S. Hamilton, the pastor of Tabernacle Baptist Church and president of the Augusta branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, went on local television and radio stations to remind people that his mentor was a man of peace.
"Our pastors will be urging calm from the pulpits throughout the weekend," the Rev. Hamilton said. "This is what Dr. King would have wanted. Dr. King's attitude would be nonviolence. He would stress love."
-- Mike Wynn, staff writer
LOCAL LEADERS RECALL DR. KING'S ASSASSINATION
Joe Scott
Vice president of the Richmond County School Board
Age at time: 30
Where he was when he found out: "I was in graduate school at South Carolina State University. We were driving back from a class to Augusta.
"There were four of us in the car. Some of them wept. Some of us were in disbelief. It was shocking, we just had to pull over and listen."
His reaction: "I couldn't believe that a person of that caliber who preached nonviolence would die this way. I just thought back to the time when the lady stabbed him in New York. It starts to become a reality."
Progress made toward Dr. King's dream of racial equality: "I think we've come a long way. I think we're coming bit by bit. It's a work in progress."
PAULWYN BOLIEK
Retired pastor at the Lutheran Church of the Resurrection and a co-chairman of the Mayor's Blue Ribbon Committee on Race Relations.
Age at the time: 33
Where he was when he found out: "I was a young pastor in Charleston, S.C. I was in the car, and I heard it on the radio."
His reaction: "I was very upset by it. I was afraid of what was going to happen to the country. I thought we were going to disintegrate."
Progress made toward Dr. King's dream of racial equality: "I think we've made progress, but I think we have a ways to go yet. I don't think we really know each other. We work together. We go to school together, but we don't really socialize at deep levels as peers. That's one area where there's still a big gap."
GEORGE C' DE BACA
Past vice president of the Hispanic Cultural Association
Age at the time: 34
Where he was when he found out: "I don't remember exactly where I was. I was probably listening to the news and that's when I heard."
His reaction: "I was shocked and mad that something like that would happen, especially after the assassination of both Kennedys. You get frustrated and mad with what's going on in the country."
Progress made toward Dr. King's dream of racial equality: "I miss a leader like that in the black community. I wish we had more like him. I think we're very close, but not quite there."
MICHAEL FIRMIN
Executive director of Golden Harvest Food Bank
Age at the time: 21
Where he was when he found out: " I was a junior in college at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C."
His reaction: "I guess my mind was emotionally reeling with the news, because Dr. King stood for gospel justice. I saw in Dr. King a person who was a prophetic voice who was calling the whole of society to reach a high benchmark, so when he was assassinated it was like the wind was knocked out of me, the rug was pulled out from me, so to speak. It was a traumatic time."
Progress made toward Dr. King's dream of racial equality: " Our country is way more diverse. It's not just the Caucasian and African Americans anymore. I think we have made tremendous progress in accessibility of everyone to the means of equality such as education and job opportunities, but it hasn't produced equality. I think that's a lot deeper work that has to go on in each individual."
MALLORY MILLENDER
Paine College journalism professor
Age at the time: 26
Where he was when he found out: "I was at home. I was living on the campus (of Paine College) on 15th Street."
His reaction: "I saw it as a challenge in that we had lost our great warrior in terms of the civil rights struggle. I saw it as a vacuum that each of us had to try to fill. It was a commitment to redouble my efforts to fulfill the void that he left."
Progress made toward Dr. King's dream of racial equality: "We haven't come close at all. We've made progress, there's no question about that, but the victories have primarily been legal victories. The communication, the interaction that's necessary to establish what he called the beloved community is sorely lacking.
"Dr. King talked about a just peace. In order to have real peace, you have to first have justice. When everyone feels that he is being treated fairly, then you have genuine peace. What we have today is an unjust peace and people just want you to be quiet about it."
RON CROSS
Columbia County Commission Chairman
Age at the time: 26
Where he was when he found out: "I was driving down Wrightsboro Road on the way to work, and I didn't know that it had happened before, and I heard it on the radio."
His reaction: "I remember exactly (what I thought), but it's not printable. It was pretty much, 'What kind of dumb son of a (expletive) would do something like that?' With all the other things, with the Kennedy assassination before, and then Robert, it just makes you sad that that's the way the world is."
Progress made toward Dr. King's dream of racial equality?: "I don't think it will ever happen to (the extent of) his dream, because people tend to associate and flock to their own, and I don't think that will ever change. But I think we can improve a great deal in tolerance and acceptance of each other, even though we remain different."
LARK JONES
North Augusta mayor
Age at the time: 18
Where he was when he found out: "I am guessing I would have been a freshman at the University of South Carolina in Columbia. I can still see the pictures of the people bending over him in the hotel there in Memphis. Those are the kinds of images you see and you don't forget."
His reaction: "I considered it, certainly, a tragedy. When stuff like that happened, it made you question, well, 'What's going on in this country? If we're so good, why are these things happening?' "
Progress made toward Dr. King's dream of racial equality?: "I think we have made tremendous strides. To give you sort of a poignant personal example, last weekend I went to a restaurant in Ridge Spring, S.C.
"Across from us there was a table of about eight or 10 kids sitting there with their prom outfits on, and there were black boys and black girls and white boys and white girls all sitting there and taking pictures, and going to the prom together. That certainly would not have happened in 1968.
"The governmental mechanisms, I think, are pretty much in place as far as they can. The thing that is drawing back full equality is more economic now."
GWEN FULCHER YOUNG
President and broker of Gwen Fulcher Young and Associates Real Estate Co.
Age at the time: "Barely in my 20s"
Where she was when she found out: "I believe that I was in my office (at Trust Co. Bank) and I heard all this buzz outside my door. And I went out to see what had happened. And everybody was talking about it, sort of hushed, waiting to see what was going to happen."
Her reaction: "I remember being afraid that the repercussions of this would impact people like me and my family, who had nothing to do with it. And I remember that sense of uncertainty, and that sense of unrest, because it was clear that it would have a huge impact on the country ... It was just another reminder of the hatred that some people feel toward other people who they don't even know."
Progress made toward Dr. King's dream of racial equality?: "I think we've made great strides toward that. I don't truly know what his dream was. That's something only he knew, how far things would have to go for his dream to be realized."
-- By Johnny Edwards and Stephanie Toone, staff writers
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