Source: smh.com.au
April 5, 2008
FORTY years after Martin Luther King was murdered, black Americans are torn between the hope that Barack Obama will reach the White House and the fear that he, too, could fall to an assassin's bullet.
Electing the first black president of the United States would be a dramatic step in achieving Dr King's dream of racial equality. But the anniversary of the 1968 killing of the civil rights leader in Memphis is a painful reminder of just how fragile that dream remains.
"You know it [an assassination of Senator Obama] can happen," said the Reverend Billy Kyles, who spent the last hour of Dr King's life with him. "It has happened for blacks who have done less than get that close to the presidency."
Senator Obama, 46, was given full Secret Service protection last May. It was the earliest juncture for any presidential candidate since the practice was introduced after the assassination of Robert Kennedy, two months after Dr King was killed by the racist escaped convict James Earl Ray.
The prospect of Senator Obama meeting a similar fate is etched deep in the collective psyche of many American blacks, particularly those old enough to remember the events of 1968.
Senator Obama tells anyone who raises the subject to take comfort in the knowledge that neither Dr King nor Senator Kennedy had the Secret Service with them. Though his wife Michelle has spoken of safety concerns, Senator Obama plays them down, partly for fear that some might be dissuaded from voting for him because of a misguided notion of protecting him.
At the Memphis bus station, the grim prospect was raised several times without prompting. "People say if he makes it, someone will have him killed," said Cheryle Boyd, 47, a cleaner.
Gregory Jiles, 44, said: "For us to be able to vote for him is the opportunity of a lifetime, but if something happened to him it would prove that the US hadn't moved forward at all."
Telegraph, London
