Democracy Now! Friday, April 4, 2008

Today's Headlines

• NATO Backs US Missile System in Eastern Europe
• Iraqi PM Halts Raids on Shia Forces
• Official: 1,000 Iraqis Deserted Anti-Shia Crackdown
• KBR Faces New Rape Allegations in Iraq
• Zimbabwe Police Raid Opposition Party, Journalists
• Chinese Human Rights Activist Jailed for Government Criticism
• Venezuelan Parliament OKs Oil Profits Tax
• Officials, Execs Defend Bear Stearns Bailout
• Poll: 81% Believe US on Wrong Track
• Carter Suggests He Backs Obama
• Lawsuit Challenges Legality of Immigration Raids

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  Democracy Now! Special: Martin Luther King's Life and Legacy 40 Years After His Assassination

  The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated forty years ago today. He was in Memphis, Tennessee to march with sanitation workers demanding a better wage. We spend the hour on his life and legacy. We hear from the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who was with King at the Lorraine Motel, where he was killed; Harry Belafonte, who was with Coretta Scott King at the King home in Atlanta on April 4, 1968; Dr. Vincent Harding, a close friend and colleague of King’s who wrote King’s major antiwar speech, “Beyond Vietnam;” Taylor Rogers, a former sanitation worker in Memphis; Charles Cabbage, a longtime activist and community organizer in Memphis who met with King hours before he died; Jerry Williams, one of the only African American detectives in the Memphis Police Department in 1968; Judge D’Army Bailey, a circuit court judge in Memphis and co-founder of the National Civil Rights Museum; and we hear King in his own words, giving his major speech against the war in Vietnam and his last public address given the night before his death in Memphis, Tennessee. [includes rush transcript]