Foster: We still have things to accomplish.
King: They’ll be done, just not with me alive. I was once the voice of the Negro in this country. That is not the case anymore. Other voices have risen louder. Ones that, sadly, shout destruction and violence. We have to silence them. As Gandhi said, There are many causes I would die for. There is not a single cause I would kill for. We have to make sure our folks don’t forget that.
Foster: Yet you ask me to kill you.
King: Yes, I do. And I apologize for that. But if a man hasn’t found something he’s willing to die for, he isn’t fit to live. My cause. My race. They are both worth dying for. I’m ready to be at peace, Ben. Something else Gandhi said has stuck in my mind of late. First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. I’m ready to win.
Foster: You have.
King: Not entirely.
[PAUSE]
Foster: Do you ever want the world to know what you did?
King: I’ve thought on that. So let me say this to those listening to this recording. If physical death is the price a man must pay to free his children and his white brethren from a permanent death of spirit, then nothing can be more redemptive. But that can only succeed if we take the high road. Leave the low road to others. If we stay the course that has already been set, I firmly believe we will see the promised land. Here’s my answer to your question. Wait fifty years before ever saying a word about any of this. If you survive to that day, make the decision then. My dream is that in fifty years the Negro will be in the promised land. If you come to join me with God before fifty years have passed, then only you and I will ever know what we’ve done. Take the secret to your grave. In this, Ben, I will trust you and you alone.
Foster switched off the machine. “I’ve respected his wish. It’s what he died for, so I could not violate that trust. I knew my life, from that day on, would come with conditions. Prudence being one of those. I’ve kept silent, and that silence included my wife and Coleen. A little over thirty years have now passed on the fifty, and I’m still breathing.”
The implications of what I was hearing weighed heavy. But I needed to know more. “Where did King get the idea to use the FBI to make it happen?”
“That was the ironic part. Hoover himself provided the spark. That note he sent to King’s house back in ’65, which suggested suicide.”
I recalled the wording.
King, there is only one thing left for you to do. You know what it is. There is but one way out for you. You better take it before your filthy, abnormal, fraudulent self is bared to the nation.
“Martin eventually came to believe Hoover was right. Death was the only route that would work, but not for the reasons Hoover wanted. That note, though, did convince Martin that Hoover wanted him dead. It’s what got him thinking in such a dark direction. Starting in late summer of ’67, he had me drop hints and suggestions to Jansen. Test the waters, lead them our way. Finally, as you heard on the cassette, I came right out and proposed it to them. They could have said no. Rejected the whole idea. But they didn’t. No one was more shocked by that than me. I was so hoping they would not go down that road.”
I saw the stress of the past few days etched into his face.
“Martin and I talked many times about mortality,” Foster said. “He meant what he said in Memphis the night before he died. There was something to be said for longevity. He would have preferred to live a long life. But he was smart enough to know when to quit, and persuasive enough to convince me that his way was the right way. So I did what he asked of me.”
“He just walked out on the balcony at the Lorraine Motel and stood there to be shot?”
“That’s exactly what he did. I was below in the parking lot with the others. When he came out to the railing, I said a prayer. He’d been specifically told not to be out in the open like that. But Martin did what Martin wanted to do, so no one questioned him. The mood that evening was light. Everyone felt good. We’d won in court. The second public march was going to happen. Things were working out. We were all headed to dinner at a local preacher’s house. Only I knew Martin would not be coming with us. Two hours earlier, Jansen had told me it was definitely going to happen.”
Foster’s gaze went distant.
“That rooming house, where Ray found his perch, offered the perfect angle to the balcony at the Lorraine. The bathroom had a straight line of sight, so Ray positioned himself there, standing in a tub, the rifle out the window. One shell loaded. That’s all. Just one. The man had confidence.”
Or was just an idiot.
Hard to know for sure.
“Martin was leaning over the railing when the bullet struck, his back toward Ray, proving what he’d said the night before at the Masonic Temple. A man can’t ride your back unless it is bent. Those words flashed through my brain the instant I heard the shot. I also recall him smiling. Just as he turned to go back into his room for a coat. He died with a smile on his face.”
Foster pointed at the recorder.
“There’s a little more on the tape.”
And he switched the machine back on.
King: I entered this fight when I was twenty-six, and destroying Jim Crow has been a hard battle. I’ve known since the first day that my life of nonviolence would end violently. Everyone thinks about dying.
Foster: You more than others.
King: I agree. I’ve often spoke of it. Probably too much. But they killed Kennedy. They killed Malcolm X. They killed Medgar Evers. They’ve killed little black children and white reformists. I think about Selma and Jimmie Lee Jackson all the time.
Foster: I do too.
King: I want to say this to the people listening to this tape. In 1965 we went to Selma to march for voting rights. Jimmie Lee Jackson was twenty-six years old. A farm laborer and church deacon. He marched with us that day to the Perry County Courthouse when the state troopers attacked with clubs. Jimmie saw his mother and grandfather being assaulted and rushed to help them. An Alabama state trooper shot him in the stomach, then they dragged him away so he could be arrested for assault and battery. It took hours before he made it to the hospital. He lingered in terrible pain for nine days before dying. Nine days after that we marched from Selma to Montgomery. Thousands of people came, outraged at the clubs, whips, chains, tear gas, and bullets they’d seen on television being used against defenseless marchers. One of those marching there that day, a white minister and father of four, James Reeb, was beaten to death by an angry mob of whites. A few days later a forty-year-old white mother named Viola Liuzzo was shot dead by several Klansmen. So many have died for this cause. People forget that this movement is stained with blood. I don’t want them to forget. Not now. Not ever. How many times have we seen men with rifles, perched in trees, as we marched, just waiting for a chance to take a shot at us? How many bomb threats have there been? Immortality is not gained by how much money you make during your life, or how many houses you own, or how popular you may be. It’s gained by service to the poor and lost, the heartbroken and despairing, the hungry and naked. Jimmie Lee Jackson, James Reeb, and Viola Liuzzo knew that. They gave their lives. What they lacked was notoriety. I have that. So my life will now be offered so that none of them will ever be forgotten.
[PAUSE]
Foster: What do you want us to say at the funeral?
King: I want it short with only a brief eulogy. I don’t want any mentions of my Nobel Prize or any of the other awards I’ve been given. Just have them say that I served and loved others. That I tried to be right on the war. I tried to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and visit the imprisoned. The more hate my enemies spat, the harder I pushed myself. The more they tried to stop me, the harder I worked. End it with I tried, with all my might, to love and serve humanity.