The Best of Mike Royko 
Editor's
note: The
Chicago Daily News published this column April 5, 1968, after the assassination
of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
FBI
agents are looking for the man who pulled the trigger and surely they will find
him.
But it
doesn't matter if they do or they don't. They can't catch everybody, and Martin
Luther King was executed by a firing squad that numbered in the millions.
They took
part, from all over the country, pouring words of hate into the ear of the
assassin.
The man
with the gun did what he was told. Millions of bigots, subtle and obvious, put
it in his hand and assured him he was doing the right thing.
It would
be easy to point at the Southern redneck and say he did it. But what of the
Northern disk-jockey-turned-commentator, with his slippery words of hate every
morning?
What
about the Northern mayor who steps all over every poverty program advancement,
thinking only of political expediency, until riots fester, whites react with
more hate and the gap between the races grows bigger?
Toss in
the congressman with the stupid arguments against busing. And the pathetic
women who turn out with eggs in their hands to throw at children.
Let us
not forget the law-and-order type politicians who are in favor of arresting all
Negro prostitutes in the vice districts. When you ask them to vote for laws
that would eliminate some of the causes of prostitution, they babble like the
boobs they are.
Throw in
a Steve Telow or two: the Eastern and Southern European immigrant or his kid
who seems to be convinced that in 40 or 50 years he built this country. There
was nothing here until he arrived, you see, so that gives him the right to
pitch rocks when Martin Luther King walks down the street in his neighborhood.
They all
took their place in King's firing squad.
And
behind them were the subtle ones, those who never say anything bad but just nod
when the bigot throws out his strong opinions.
He is
actually the worst, the nodder is, because sometimes he believes differently
but he says nothing. He doesn't want to cause trouble. For Pete's sake, don't
cause trouble!
So when
his brother-in-law or his card-playing buddy from across the alley spews out
the racial filth, he nods.
Give some
credit to the most subtle of the subtle. That distinction belongs to the FBI,
now looking for King's killer.
That
agency took part in a mudslinging campaign against him that to this day demands
an investigation.
The
bullet that hit King came from all directions. Every two-bit politician or
incompetent editorial writer found in him, not themselves, the cause of our
racial problems.
It was
almost ludicrous. The man came on the American scene preaching nonviolence from
the first day he sat at the wrong end of a bus. He preached it in the North and
was hit with rocks. He talked it the day he was murdered.
Hypocrites
all over this country would kneel every Sunday morning and mouth messages to
Jesus Christ. Then they would come out and tell each other, after reading the
papers, that somebody should string up King, who was living Christianity like
few Americans ever have.
Maybe it
was the simplicity of his goal that confused people or the way he dramatized
it.
He wanted
only that black Americans have their constitutional rights,that they get an
equal shot at this country's benefits, the same thing we give to the last guy
who jumped off the boat.
So we
killed him. Just as we killed Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy. No other
country kills so many of its best people.
Last
Sunday night the President said he was quitting after this term. He said this
country is so filled with hate it might help if he got out. Four days later we
killed a Nobel Peace Prize winner.
We have
pointed a gun at our own head and we are squeezing the trigger. And nobody we
elect is going to help us. It is our head and our finger.
© 1997
Chicago Tribune
