From the witnesses who testified and the court proceedings in 1999, my son Dexter and I pieced together the following account. It stands in stark contrast to the official reports, which concluded that James Earl Ray acted alone.
Thursday, April 4, 1968, is a date that still torments Memphis detective Ed Redditt and fireman Floyd Newsum, the only two blacks assigned to provide security for my husband’s stay in Memphis. According to their testimony, both Redditt and Newsum were supposed to be working out of Fire Station No. 2 that night, directly across the street from the Lorraine Motel at 422½ S. Main St., where Martin was slain. The fire station’s location made it ideal for surveillance: it was built on an embankment that raised it high above the street, affording it an eye-level view of, among other things, the motel’s second-floor balcony.
But after comparing notes in the aftermath of the assassination, Redditt and Newsum learned that both of them had been pulled off their detail that night, ensuring that they would be nowhere near my husband when the shot was fired.
On Wednesday night, April 3, Newsum had gone to hear my husband speak. When he returned home at 10:30 p.m., he received a message telling him not to go to Fire Station No. 2 the next day; he was directed to another location, ostensibly because of a problem with understaffing. When he reported for duty at the other station, No. 31, however, he found not understaffing, but overstaffing. In fact, his assignment there meant that another man had to be detailed out. For years, Newsum wondered if events would have taken a different turn if only he had been at Fire Station No. 2.
No doubt, Redditt similarly thought, “If only I had been there!” On April 4, Redditt was at his post, in charge of stationary security for my husband. He was invaluable to this assignment. From his years of experience in town, Redditt knew everybody, from the Invaders (a black youth group) to the Klansmen, from ministers to militants. He was also such a loyal follower of my husband that he called himself one of Martin’s disciples. On the morning of April 4, Redditt was surprised to learn that the King detail had been cut from ten people to two; he and his partner were it. Redditt testified that about two hours before the shot was fired, he received a call from his boss, Frank Holloman, director of the Memphis Police and Fire Department, telling him to report to headquarters. He told Holloman he was reluctant to leave his post, but he had to follow orders. When he arrived, he was taken into a conference room. Holloman identified one of the people in the room as a Secret Service agent and told Redditt that the agent had come from Washington to Memphis to warn Redditt that there was a contract out on his life.
Why would a Secret Service agent, whose job was primarily to guard the president and his family, be concerned with a lowly Memphis detective? Even if there was concern, why would an agent come personally? Redditt was told that until the danger passed, he and his family were going to be moved to a safe location for their own protection. Redditt strenuously objected, but was overruled. Several police officers escorted him to his home. Once there, he heard over the radio that Dr. King had been shot.
With Newsum and Reddit out of the way, who did see what happened? By the time the state presented its case, a man named Charles Stephens, a resident of the rooming house from which the fatal shot was, allegedly, fired (our family maintains that the shot came from the bushes), had become one of the state’s most important witnesses. There were no fingerprints from James Earl Ray in the rooming house; nor was there evidence to prove that Ray’s rifle fired the bullet that struck Martin. But there was Charles Stephens’s “eyewitness” testimony. Initially he said he saw a very short, slightly built man run past his door (though James Earl Ray was five foot ten and well built). Meanwhile, at about 4:00 p.m. (two hours before the shot was fired), a Yellow Cab driver was dispatched to 422½ S. Main St. to pick up a fare, who turned out to be Charles Stephens, who was reportedly so drunk, so intoxicated, that he couldn’t get off his bed. The cabbie refused to transport the drunken Stephens, returned to his cab, and drove away. Shortly after the shooting, when reporters tried to question Stephens, they found him in jail, being held “for his own protection,” according to some accounts, and to improve his memory, according to others.
On the morning of April 3, Loyd Jowers, owner of Jim’s Grill, which was across the street from the Lorraine Motel, received from a man who was going by the name Raul the rifle that would be used in the assassination of my husband. In the court transcripts, Jowers says he put the rifle in a box under the counter. He said that he had been given one hundred thousand dollars by a man with Mafia connections to help provide a cover for the shooting, for which a “patsy” would be provided. A few minutes after 6:01 p.m., when Martin was shot, Jowers took the gun, which was “still smoking,” from the shooter and hid it back under the counter. It was picked up the next morning by the shooter, a man Jowers went on to identify as a police officer.
In the late 1990s, Don Wilson, an FBI agent working in the Atlanta bureau, told me that immediately after the shot was fired, he watched FBI agents laugh and joke about the murder of my husband. Wilson, now retired, was the agent who searched James Earl Ray’s car, which was found at an Atlanta housing project several days after Martin was assassinated. In it, he found pieces of a handwritten note with the name “Raul” written on it.
My lasting wish is that an open investigation into my husband’s death will be carried out by a national commission modeled after the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, to break down this wall of state secrecy about my husband’s murder and follow up on the evidence put forward at the civil trial. Some six hundred thousand-plus pages of government records and files relating to the surveillance and murder of Martin exist. These files must be made fully available to the public, either by being released in full without review or with the appointment of an independent civilian review board to oversee the release process. This investigation and process should provide immunity for those who are willing to come forward and finally lay out all facts pertinent to the truth of who killed my dearly beloved Martin.
“Truth crushed to earth shall rise again.” My husband said that many times. My lasting wish is that this truth, too, shall rise.
* * *
TRUTH, EQUALITY, FAIRNESS, justice—these are the causes to which I’ve tirelessly dedicated myself. But in the thick of these pursuits, there would come a point where I had to make some serious lifestyle changes.
First, in the late 1980s and early ’90s, my parents were declining and needed more attention, and this turned out to be one of the most challenging times of my life. At first Edythe, Obie, and I thought our mother was just showing ordinary signs of senility, but in 1988 we learned that she was suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. On some of my visits, I recall that she would put on a sweater and get her purse and say, “I need to go home. My parents are looking for me. My parents are worried about me.” I would tell her, “You are already at home. This is Coretta, your daughter,” but I wasn’t able to reassure her. Around 1990, I moved her from Alabama to Atlanta, to my home for a few months. Then, when she began to need more care than I could provide at the house, I moved her to a nursing home associated with Georgia Baptist Hospital near the King Center, where it would be easy for me to visit her. As her health declined, I would sometimes sleep at this facility with her. On some occasions, Laura Brown would stay in my stead. Later, I moved her to a different home, one associated with Emory University, so that she could receive the around-the-clock care she needed. Some friends helped me with the expenditures. I tried to pamper her. I threw parties for her. I visited her practically every day. Although my family provided some support, I had hired caregivers to attend to my mother 24/7. I could have been comforted even more by visits from my pastors and members of my church family, but it just didn’t happen. This was a very lonely and extremely difficult time for me. It was not easy, but neither was it a burden. I was often sad as I faced the reality that I was losing my parents, but I also found joy in being there for them. They had always been
there for me. My mother passed in February 1996, a few weeks after her ninety-second birthday. Dad kept on working at his general store way into his early nineties, until I decided to intervene and stop him, because he was becoming frail and not as mentally sharp. Many customers were taking advantage of his weakened state, cheating him. In 1998, after a brief stay in the hospital, he died in his sleep on the Sunday before Thanksgiving. He was ninety-nine years old.
After my parents passed, there came a point when I needed to slow down, to take care of myself and my health. Following in the footsteps of my son Dexter, I became a vegan. In those years, when I spent so much time visiting my mother at the nursing home, I started getting stiff, very stiff, in my legs and my knees. I could hardly get up and down. Dexter said, “Mother, you know your body is breaking down. You’re too young to allow yourself to do that.” He is a vegetarian and follows a holistic regimen, and he thought I should try it. At first I eliminated red meat, except I was still eating barbecue. But eventually, I found a nutritionist. I worked with her for a year, and she started me on a raw food diet, about 80 percent raw food. I gave up meat, and I don’t miss it. Dexter also introduced me to blue-green algae, a sea vegetable packed with nutrients. Once I turned from relying on prescription drugs to using alternative medicines, a more holistic approach that includes exercise together with a vegan diet, I began to feel much better and I have a higher level of energy. I use a mini-trampoline for exercise. I raise my heels up and act like I’m jogging, but I don’t go very high up off the trampoline, because that would be a little too much for me. I am also into reflexology treatments, which I get from a massage therapist. I underwent a major lifestyle adjustment, and I enjoy talking about it.
In 2004 it was finally time to leave the home I’d shared with Martin and my children. I moved into a spacious condo, more than thirty floors up, with a glorious view, morning and night, that Oprah Winfrey had obtained for me quietly, without fanfare. I enjoy being able to wake up every morning and open my blinds and look out over the city, and in the evening, I love watching the beautiful sunset.
My friendships also have nourished my soul, and been a source of comfort and delight for me throughout my life and especially in my later years. One of the highlights was my “girls’ weekends” with Myrlie Evers and Betty Shabazz. We met occasionally in one of the nicer Florida health spas, on the pretext of losing weight and eating healthy. Very seldom did we achieve our goals, but oh, what fun we had together! During our outings, at least one of us would usually wear a disguise: a long wig, sunglasses.
One particular trip, in May 1997, stands out in my mind. Ingrid Jones, a close friend and then vice president at Coca-Cola, generously covered the costs, and we stayed at the Doral Country Club and Spa in Florida, near Miami Beach. Myrlie arrived first, so excited. She knew how to swim, so she stayed in the pool until Betty and I arrived. When we were together, the three of us rarely talked about our status as widows, although this was the initial bond that brought us together. Myrlie’s husband, Medgar, an NAACP field director, was murdered in front of their home in Jackson, Mississippi, on June 12, 1963, reportedly by a white Klansman. A black member of the Nation of Islam murdered Betty’s husband, Malcolm X, on February 21, 1965. And Martin was murdered on April 4, 1968. Our experiences were so deeply engrained in our individual consciousness that there was no need to speak of them. To do so would have been like talking about the air inside our suite, the grass outside our door, the sky above. They were an ever-present given. So it was liberating at times to be oblivious. We were not Mrs. King, Mrs. Shabazz, or Mrs. Evers. Just Coretta, Betty, and Myrlie.
At the Doral, basketball had our attention. The Bulls were playing. We screamed, we hollered; it didn’t matter who won. That wasn’t what we’d come for. We came to enjoy not being in charge of anything. We came because we loved one another unconditionally, despite negative news reports about how we’d tried to upstage or jealously compete with one another over the limelight. Imagine that anyone would actually want to rise to prominence on the basis of losing the man she’d loved!
When you can relax, let your hair down, and share your secrets—that’s real friendship. At the end of our trip in May 1997, we took care to schedule our next girls’ getaway. None of us could have imagined that a tragic turn would upset our plans.
A week after our trip, I received a call letting me know that Betty had been the victim of a fire. She’d suffered burns on more than 80 percent of her body and was in intensive care at Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx. I dropped everything and prepared to go the hospital, hoping and praying that even with such severe burns, Betty, my dear fun, kind, friend, would live. I could not accept the fact that something like this could happen; I kept hoping that her condition had been exaggerated.
The idea of going to the hospital seemed unbearable. I called the poet and writer Maya Angelou, another close friend, and broke the news. Maya was very emotional, but said she would meet us at Jacobi. I called Bernice, who insisted upon flying to New York with me, along with my devoted special assistant, Kelvin (“Lynn”) Cothren, to see Betty.
When we reached the Jacobi Medical Center, we could tell that Betty’s daughters had been crying. The visibly distraught hospital administrator and PR person drew us aside. They tried to prepare us for what we were about to experience. “You will not be able to identify her,” they told us grimly. Of course, Betty’s six daughters, Attallah, Ilyasah, Qubilah, Malikah, Malaak, and Gamilah, knew who she was. We all knew who she was, yet we could not reconcile that image with the severely injured woman we would be seeing.
Yolanda, who was already in New York, soon joined us at the hospital. Phillip Mott, my cousin who lived in New York, and Maya, Bernice, Yolanda, my assistant Lynn, and I all labored to collect ourselves before entering Betty’s room. We needed strength, and I asked Bernice to pray for us. As expected, she rose to the occasion—she really is a prayer warrior. Her prayers lifted our spirits as we braced ourselves.
Before we entered Betty’s room, we had to put on face masks, sterile hospital gowns, paper slippers, and head coverings. When we entered the room, with one of Betty’s daughters, we found that Betty’s entire body had been wrapped in a heavy, gauzelike material. Only a slit exposed her eyes and mouth. Through our tears, we all managed to talk to her, hoping she was still able to listen. We told her how much we loved her, and how we were praying God would heal her. We felt that she heard us, and left feeling sure she would make it. When we came out of the room, we felt uplifted.
Although Betty never said a word, she must have been responding in some way. The doctor, who had given her no chance, started to express hope that she would make progress after skin grafts; over the next few weeks, her doctors performed five skin replacement surgeries.
However, sadly, on June 23, 1997, Betty made her transition. She died thirty-two years and four months after Malcolm X. Losing her was so hard. If anything could have made the situation worse, it was the revelation that it was her and Malcolm’s twelve-year-old grandson, Malcolm Shabazz, who had set the fire in her home in Yonkers, New York. He told police he was not trying to hurt his grandmother; that he was only trying to create a situation that would force him to be sent home to his mother, Qubilah, in Texas.
* * *
WHILE I AM speaking of personal matters such as friendship, people always want to know if I dated other men after Martin died or if I ever thought about remarrying. I’ve also been asked why my two daughters are thus far unmarried.
As for me, I have had dates but no serious marriage proposals. One of my very good friends since our days at Antioch, Dr. Lonnie MacDonald, a psychiatrist, and I would go see operas and plays together. When I was a UN public delegate living in New York, we would take long walks together. I also dated McHenry Boatwright, a bass baritone concert singer whom I met when we were both students at the New England Conservatory of Music. McHenry was a nice person with a beautiful voice, a great musician who also played the piano. He sang at the Whi
te House during the Carter administration. He tried his best to take me out shortly after Martin died. While I did go out with him once or twice, I did not have any strong feelings for him. And I believe it was too soon after Martin’s death for me to date seriously. Eventually he married Duke Ellington’s sister, Ruth. He died in 1994.
At this stage, just the thought of having someone in my bedroom when I’m in my seventies is not something to look forward to. The older you get, the harder it is to adjust to another person in your space. You have to wait on him, too. I waited on Martin hand and foot. He’d step out of his pajamas and leave them right in the middle of the floor, and I’d pick them up. I’d bring his food to him in bed if he felt like staying in bed. Can you imagine me doing all that now, at my age? Imagine two old folks together. I mean, what do you do?
Companionship is nice to have, of course, especially if it’s the right kind, with no responsibility, but that’s not possible. For the most part, my loneliness does not come from being without someone. It comes from being such a visible person: it’s hard to go somewhere and not be reminded of who you are, hard to be able to really enjoy yourself. Oftentimes, I didn’t go out because I didn’t feel like dealing with being a celebrity. To that extent, I feel isolated, because I cannot always find things to do that I really can enjoy without being interrupted.
As to why my daughters have not married—perhaps the answer lies in how they saw Martin. If you believe that a man like Martin comes along once in a millennium, and you hold other men to the standard of a Martin Luther King Jr., you will not find anyone. That might be what my daughters are coping with. Maybe that’s true for me as well.
My Life, My Love, My Legacy Page 38