by Mikal J. Harris

DE Campus Life Editor

The 30th anniversary of the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was marked by King followers in Carbondale and across the nation Saturday.

Advertisement

About 45 students participated in the 19th annual campus March for Martin observance sponsored by the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity. Holding their small candles aloft while protecting flames from the chilled breeze, marchers kept a slow and steady pace from Grinnell Cafeteria to Quigley Hall.

King, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, also was a member of the national fraternity.

Fraternity member Michael Hoard, a second-year law student from Chicago, participated in the march for the first time Saturday.

I felt the need to recognize Dr. King’s death, he said. Once we realize what King actually did and went through, I believe we can find inspiration for solving many of the problems in the black community.

King’s influence has spread well beyond the African-American community.

On Friday, a nationwide poll reported that a majority of white American adults believe King’s life has influenced them. The poll, administered by the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion, found 53 percent of whites feel King’s influence compared to 89 percent of African-Americans. Sixty-two percent of white Americans believe race relations have improved since King’s death, while only 40 percent of African-Americans are of this opinion.

King, whose eloquence and espousal of non-violent tactics brought him international admiration, has often been honored by SIUC students. In 1986, 47 SIUC students traveled to Atlanta to participate in the historic first observance of a national holiday honoring King’s birthday. King’s birthday has been formally celebrated by the Carbondale chapter of the NAACP for 15 years.

Advertisement*

On Saturday marchers gathered around the Tree of Hope upon reaching Quigley Hall, a tree that was planted 12 years ago to honor the slain civil rights leader.

King was killed in Memphis while helping organize a strike by city sanitation workers. He had planned to lead the strikers in a protest march April 8.

Saturday in Memphis, about 4,000 marchers followed nearly the same route the original strikers’ march was take. In New York, thousands of observers marched to Times Square while about 300 people gathered at King’s tomb in Atlanta.

King’s family planned a private ceremony at the tomb Saturday. On Thursday, the family called for a national commission to investigate his assassination, citing a litany of unanswered questions persisting 30 years later. Family members say a trial for King’s convicted killer James Earl Ray, who is serving a 99-year prison sentence, would help answer those questions.

Ray, who now is 70-years-old and dying of liver disease, confessed shortly after King’s assassination, but immediately recanted. He has since maintained his innocence, but has never been to trial.

Several investigations have concluded that Ray acted alone, but King’s family says they remain unconvinced of that conclusion. They also question whether Ray committed the crime at all.

A Memphis businessman claims meetings to discuss King’s assassination were organized at his restaurant days before King was killed. The restaurant owner also said he was told to be at the back of the restaurant April 4, and that a police officer tossed him a smoking rifle.

Prosecutor Bill Gibbons dismissed the business man’s story, believing it to be fabricated for money.

Hoard says he believes the investigation should be reopened but doubts that King’ family’s wishes will be realized.

I think they should get the whole truth, he said. I think he (Ray) had a part in it, in terms of being the fall guy. But I don’t think they will open the investigation, even with all the pressure.