The Ghosts Of Memphis

By David Von Drehle

Martin Luther King Jr. was 26 years old when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on the bus and 39 when he was murdered. Prodigies in music and math are familiar, but moral genius we typically associate with age. The gap between the brevity of King's life and its consequence is easy to state but hard to fathom, like the speed of light.

"We were all young people," the Rev. Billy Kyles muses as he recalls the colleagues surrounding King that fatal evening in Memphis, Tenn. They were vivid, vigorous, virile young men. In his last hour alive, King and his friends had a pillow fight in his motel room. History records that his last thoughts encompassed gospel music, neckties, soul food and the high price of righteousness. "I'd rather be dead than afraid," this threat-haunted man explained to his friends that day.

What would an older, time-tempered King think if he had lived to see today's world, with its black governors, black CEOs and Barack Obama? "You've made significant progress," King's close associate Andrew Young imagines him saying, "but you've still got a long way to go."

Now we mark the 40th anniversary of his assassination at about 6 p.m. on April 4, 1968. King has been dead longer than he lived. All but four of the top aides with him that evening have joined their leader in death. Some might say King is frozen in time, forever urgent and perspiring, but no--he's beyond time. On the night before his death, he said, "Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place." That place is nothing, though, compared with the brief, fierce blaze of the genuine hero.

The Rev. Billy Kyles

THAT DAY

I thought I was having a nightmare. Forty years ago, I had no words to express my feelings. Forty years later, I still have no words to express how I felt.

SINCE THEN

"We've made tremendous progress, there's no question about it, and people who say it's worse now can say that because they weren't here then. But he would be terribly disappointed with the behavior of the children of the black nation and all this anger that they feel."

WHAT HE'S DOING NOW

Kyles, 73, still occupies the Memphis pulpit he stepped into nearly 50 years ago. He recalls showing the Lorraine Motel to Nelson Mandela, who wept as he said, "This is where Martin died."

The Rev. James Bevel

THAT DAY

I got this friend named Bernard LaFayette, and Bernard would always do tricks. So my first impression was that Bernard had shot a firecracker. But it was like, Martin doesn't play like that.

SINCE THEN

"I think the big mess was not that King got killed. The big mess is that we didn't make sure that the man who was accused of killing him got his day in court. That summarily ended the nonviolent movement, when we would not stand up for the justice question."

WHAT HE'S DOING NOW

A brilliant tactician, Bevel, 71, has remained an activist. He is scheduled to stand trial April 7 for committing incest with one of his daughters when she was a teenager. He says he is not guilty.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson

THAT DAY

The police were coming toward us with their guns drawn. We were saying "It came from that way! You should be running with the guns toward where the bullet came from!"

SINCE THEN

"We are a better nation 40 years later. We're free but not equal. We've won the laws against barbarism and indecency. Now we must focus on the economic investments to close the gaps--he talked about that."

WHAT HE'S DOING NOW

Jackson became the most renowned civil rights leader of the 1980s and the first black candidate to win a presidential primary. Now 66, he still meets "every Saturday morning" with the group of Chicago activists he organized as King's lieutenant in 1966.

Andrew Young

THAT DAY

When he came out, he didn't have a topcoat, and I said, "It's cool. You better go back and get your topcoat." And he was saying "Do I really need a coat?" And then the shot rang out.

SINCE THEN

"We continued to make progress for black people who have a college degree. They have moved comfortably into the political and business life of America. But very few people have been able to deal with the poorest of the poor, which is what Martin was doing at the time of his death."

WHAT HE'S DOING NOW

A former Congressman, ambassador and mayor of Atlanta, Young, 76, is co-chairman of GoodWorks International, a consulting firm.

With reporting by With Reporting by Madison Gray