Silent March in Memphis, 1968

From Hellhound On His Trail: The Electrifying Account of the Largest Manhunt In American History, by Hampton Sides (Knopf Doubleday, 2010), Kindle pp. 268-270: Coretta King hadn’t really planned on coming back to Memphis to join Abernathy’s great silent march. She had a funeral to organize in Atlanta, she had a family to look after, and she had her own world of grief. But Memphis needed her there, she realized; the movement needed her, the garbage workers needed her. So that morning, Harry Belafonte had arranged a plane for her to return to the city of her husband’s murder. She arrived with the children, and her motorcade sped downtown, escorted by good-ol’-boy policemen astride fat Harley-Davidsons in swirls of flashing lights, and she saw for the first time the world of shadows that Memphis had become. She joined the march at Main and Beale—the literal and figurative intersection of white and black Memphis. It was the very spot where King had been when the rioting erupted during the…