Remembering 40 Years Ago

A lot of commemorations of the death of Martin Luther King. I had started work at USDA in Jan. 1968. I'd heard the news of his murder on the radio (didn't have a TV yet) in my efficiency apartment on 13th St NW. The next morning I went as usual to work--sometimes I'd walk through downtown DC and across the Mall to the Auditor's Building (right across 14th Street from the USDA South Building). Other times I'd go over to 14th St and catch the 50 or 52 bus. Don't know which I did that morning.

By 10 or so the rumors were flying. A bit later you could look north east across the Mall (it was a great location) and see smoke rising. Supposedly someone had set fire to Hecht's, one of the big department stores at that time located on 7th street (I think). I tried to ignore the commotion, finding security in keeping to my routine. (Or rather, since I'd spent 10 weeks circulating among the branches in the division, to understand the work and figure out where I should work, I was still getting used to the work in the Directives Management Branch, and to my co-workers. There were only a handful of blacks in visible posts in the Administrative Services Division, one clerk-typist who'd been hired 2 years before in my branch, a veteran who worked in printing (he later retired to Germany), and a couple others. There were others, not visible--a moving crew, mailroom staff, and file section.)

By 1 or so word came down that the government was closed and we were to go home. (That was my first experience of the government closing.) I knew the buses wouldn't be running on a rush hour schedule, assuming that they would run (at that time I seem to remember the drivers on the 50/52 routes were white). So I ended up walking up 14th street.

The first looting I saw was on Franklin square, between 13th and 14th--a D.J.Kaufmann's store was broken into and two or three people (young men) were moving in and out. I averted my gaze (if I didn't see them, they wouldn't see me) and walked on pretty quickly. I got to my apartment without incident, perhaps hitting the small grocery next door for food, and didn't leave for a couple days. The government resumed work only after the National Guard had been called in and was patrolling the streets.

The riot wasn't a particular surprise, or shouldn't have been. I'd been in Rochester in 1964 which suffered an early riot ("early" that is, in the sense of being early in the 1960's series of riots). Martin Luther King had to maneuver between the anger on the streets and the resistance and inertia of the society--something he managed to do for a while, something we like to mis-remember him as doing throughout his life.