Posted on 04/02/2018 10:39:08 AM PDT by Red Badger
Rhonda James (Source: WMC Action News 5)
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MEMPHIS, TN (WMC) -
Rhonda James has been living with a painful secret for 50 years.
"It was just what my mother wanted, my parents wanted for us. She wanted us to go on and go to school and go to college and have a regular life."
James is a grandmother who has lived in Memphis her whole life.
She was 8 years old in 1968 when the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. came to Memphis to support the Memphis sanitation workers in their strike for higher wages and better working conditions.
She has never before shared publicly what she experienced on the night of April 4, 1968.
"It's a special thing for me. It's something that has been secretly tucked."
For her, thinking back on that time brings back bad memories.
"It is PTSD, because it was a traumatic experience."
James is the daughter of saxophone player Ben Branch.
Branch loaded James and her 11-year-old brother into his car and drove them to Mason Temple for a sound check and the opportunity to meet the famous civil rights leader.
"We knew he was going to play Precious Lord for Dr. King that night," James recalled. "He said, 'You guys want to go with me?' We said, 'Yeah!'"
"Take My Hand, Precious Lord" was King's favorite gospel song. Branch was scheduled to play it during a rally for sanitation workers later that night.
After the sound check, James said she remembers getting into the car with her father and following King to the Lorraine Motel.
It would be the last time she'd go to the Lorraine Motel for 50 years.
"They went upstairs and as they went upstairs, we were sitting in the car, me and my brother, we were just looking. We were excited," James recalled.
She and her brother were sitting in the back seat of their grandmother's car, which was parked beneath room 306 at the motel.
"Dr. King hollered down to my father. He said, 'Ben.' My dad had the car door open. We were looking up at his face and all of the gentlemen were standing up there. 'I want you to play Precious Lord like you've never played it before. Play it real pretty.'"
Those were the last word's King would ever say.
A bullet fired from a Remington Model 760 rifle that was pointed out of a second story window at a rooming house across the street from the motel stuck King.
"Everybody pointed and we looked, you know, we were little kids. We were in the car. We looked back," James said. "It was traumatic, because when he got shot, lying on that concrete and seeing all that blood and everybody was over him."
James said she and her brother sat traumatized in their grandmother's car for six hours.
"We couldn't move. They were around us with flashlights and everything and the police were investigating what had happened in the scene, and we were little kids. My dad kept coming to the car asking, 'You alright?' Trying to keep us comfortable. He couldn't leave because they were, you know, talking to him."
James remembers never feeling hungry, never needing to use the restroom. She said she can still recall the stench of garbage in her nostrils--garbage that hadn't been picked up in weeks because of the sanitation strike.
"When we left here the National Guard had to take us home, because the streets were shut down and garbage was everywhere...but you just imagine going through every stop point, and we had to stop and check in with those police to let them know where my father was taking us."
James and her brother didn't go to school for two days.
"The day I got back to school, they took me in the office, and I cried like a baby," James recalled. "I cried for the first 10-15 years [when] I heard Precious Lord. I couldn't deal with it for a long time. Even sometimes now it makes me sad, because you've got to think about [it], that was the last request for my father."
Branch's saxophone is now part of a new exhibit inside the National Civil Rights Museum.
As for James, her first time back to Lorraine Motel was to commemorate the 50th anniversary of that night.
"Just so many emotions. Right now it's like (holds stomach), I'm like turning right now. Just to bear thoughts of what it was," James said during an interview at the motel.
There's no official record--just as her mother wanted--of James or her brother being there during the assassination, only a photo of her father talking with police.
James reflects on her mother's decision to hide their presence with gratitude.
"I'm grateful, because I had a chance to live my life. I've had a chance to do what I need to do in life."
Wow. That’s a powerful story. Thanks for posting it.
Something that horrible is hard on little kids. Wise mother. I wish this lady the very best......
I wanna know.
How did James Earl Ray know where MLK was gonna be and when he was gonna be there?
Lyrics
Precious Lord, take my hand
Lead me on, let me stand
I’m tired, I’m weak, I’m lone
Through the storm, through the night
Lead me on to the light
Take my hand precious Lord, lead me home
When my way grows drear, precious Lord linger near
When my light is almost gone
Hear my cry, hear my call
Hold my hand lest I fall
Take my hand precious Lord, lead me home
When the darkness appears and the night draws near
And the day is past and gone
At the river I stand
Guide my feet, hold my hand
Take my hand precious Lord, lead me home
Precious Lord, take my hand
Lead me on, let me stand
I’m tired, I’m weak, I’m lone
Through the storm, through the night
Lead me on to the light
Take my hand precious Lord, lead me home (lead me home)
Songwriters: Thomas A. Dorsey
He didn’t.
The FBI did....................
Wow. That is tough on kids that age. Hell, any age. Wow
Just what I was thinking.
The political conditions for the Democrats (and other DC elite) in 1968 were not terribly dissimilar from what exists today and why gun control was pushed then and now. There were serious divisions between the pro Vietnam War wing of the party (LBJ, Hubert Humphrey, and others) and the anti Vietnam war and more radical hippie left (RFK, the Chicago Seven, etc). Also, race riots plagued many cities like Detroit, Los Angeles, etc.
Nowadays, it is the BLM violence in places like Baltimore and elsewhere, the Democrats facing very serious public questions concerning illegal operations with the FBI and other government agencies with the Awan brothers and other activities, and also serious division between the more establishment type of Dems (Hillary, et al) versus the more progressive left members (Bernie Sanders). Gun control is simply the attempt to divert attention from these issues, as it was used to create the 1968 Gun Control Act.
Supposedly, James Earl Ray told the King family, just before he died, that he didn’t kill their father. He told them who, but they have not revealed who he pointed out. My guess is the FBI, under Hoover, and Ray was a patsy, set up to take the fall, and be killed ‘attempting to escape’....................
4/4/68...was just getting out of basic...
“My guess is the FBI, under Hoover”
Man, the KGB really scored big time when they made up those rumors about Hoover. People are ready to believe any evil of him.
Soviet lies: the gift that just won’t stop giving.
On the afternoon of April 4, Ray checked into a boardinghouse in Memphis, with a bar called Jim’s Grill on the first floor. He paid $8.50 for a week’s stay. The rear of the boardinghouse faced the Lorraine Motel across Mulberry Street.
According to the criminal justice system of the state of Tennessee, James Earl Ray fired the shot from the second-floor bathroom of the boardinghouse. He then grabbed some belongings in a blanket, stashed the rifle in it, left the building and dropped the bundle in the doorway of a nearby building.
He drove away in a white Ford Mustang before the area was barricaded, went to Atlanta and then to Canada and England before being arrested in July 1968.
See post 13. I meant to include you but forgot to. 8>)
Deep Moaning Blues--Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, with the Tub Jug Washboard Band (1928)
According to a story this weekend in the Atlanta newspaper, King was hit in the chin and his face destroyed by the bullet. The original intent was to have a closed casket funeral as a result but the leading black funeral home in Memphis worked all night to restore his face and they were able to open the casket for mourners to pass.
The KGB certainly had a motive to go after Hoover after the FBI nabbed a bunch of their agents and gelded the Communist Party. But for this, and for rolling up the Axis spy rings during WWII, he remains a hero to me.
The ‘secret’ is there were two children as witnesses in the parking lot of the Lorraine Motel that evening in
Memphis, scared to death and alone in their car........Until this story I did not know and apparently no one outside her family did either..............
That Ford mustang is owned by a collector of mustangs east of Atlanta. To my knowledge it has never been put on display.
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