Faculty recalls King’s death 33 years later

To this day, Howard Gotlieb, Boston University’s Director of Special Collections, has no trouble vividly remembering where he was on April 4, 1968.

“I was in my office at BU, and I received the first report from the Associated Press, which telephoned me immediately,” Gotlieb said. “His lawyer, people at the University and people elsewhere telephoned me. We were in turmoil.”

The news Gotlieb received in those phone calls was that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had been assassinated by a sniper in Memphis, Tenn., as he spoke in support of black garbage workers who were on strike.

Saying he was shocked and appalled upon hearing of the assassination, Gotlieb yesterday remembered his close relationship with King and its quick and abrupt conclusion.

“I knew Dr. King quite well, since I was curator of his papers,” said Gotlieb. “He was a warm, bright, extremely nice man. I enjoyed him, and I liked him very much.”

Joseph Boskin, professor and Director of Urban Studies at BU, is one of those who still remembers first hearing about what happened on that fateful day in 1968, recalling its tragic irony.

“I was at a civil rights conference in St. Louis with scholars, both black and white,” Boskin said. “Total silence befell the 20 or 25 people in the room, and some of the people began to tear up. It was totally shocking.”

Like Gotlieb, Boskin also remembers King as much more than a civil rights activist. “I remember Dr. King as an extraordinary human being,” Boskin said. “He’s one of the great giants of the 20th century.”

Boskin said he saw King as a strong-willed person who did something no one thought he, or anyone else, could ever accomplish.

“He did something very few people in American — or any — history were able to do,” Boskin said. “He led and embodied a non-violent movement in America. It’s an astonishing feat.”

Gotlieb said he felt the civil rights movement was dealt a tremendous blow by King’s assassination.

“I think the movement is not the same as it was at one time,” Gotlieb said. “The movement suffered an extraordinary loss when King was assassinated. I don’t think it can even recover from the loss of his leadership”

Boskin agreed, saying though the actual movement was already slowing by the time of his death, King’s ideas remain alive today.

“When King was assassinated, the civil rights movement was already in decline as a movement, but not as an idea,” Boskin said. “His death was a great tragedy because he was trying to extend the civil rights movement to other groups.”

Gotlieb compared King’s assassination with that of John F. Kennedy, saying the close proximity of the events made each significantly worse and harder to accept.

“I think the fact that these two major assassinations had occurred within the same decade made it even more horrible in both cases,” Gotlieb said.

King received a doctoral degree in systematic theology from BU in 1955, and over 83,000 of his papers remain on display at the University’s Department of Special Collections, located on the fifth floor of the Mugar Library.

After the assassination, however, Gotlieb was weary the papers may not survive the journey from King’s residence to Boston. The papers were transported by truck, and Gotlieb said he was concerned the truck carrying the papers would be the target of a hate crime.

“I worried that one of the many hate groups in America would attempt to destroy these papers, so I advised the truck drivers to take the back roads,” said Gotlieb. “After weeks and weeks of no contact with the truck drivers, the papers finally arrived in Boston.”