On CNN.com, a Life magazine photographer recounts the evening he went to the hotel where King was assassinated. These photos have never been released.

We’re nearing the anniversary of King’s assassination (April 4). It’s a sobering day. I hope we never have another assassination in the US. Gandhi, too, was assassinated. Was Socrates?

King begins:

Something is happening in Memphis; something is happening in our world. And you know, if I were standing at the beginning of time, with the possibility of taking a kind of general and panoramic view of the whole of human history up to now, and the Almighty said to me, “Martin Luther King, which age would you like to live in?” I would take my mental flight by Egypt and I would watch God’s children in their magnificent trek from the dark dungeons of Egypt through, or rather across the Red Sea, through the wilderness on toward the promised land. And in spite of its magnificence, I wouldn’t stop there.

I would move on by Greece and take my mind to Mount Olympus. And I would see Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, Euripides and Aristophanes assembled around the Parthenon. And I would watch them around the Parthenon as they discussed the great and eternal issues of reality. But I wouldn’t stop there.

Here is the text of King’s last sermon, the night before he was assassinated. (There’s also an audio clip of a small part of the sermon.)

Lots of folks have been asking about doing the creative projects. Here are the instructions.

In my last lecture I sketched out the history of “ancient Greece”. I don’t think I peddled these “myths“. I do want to contextualize the ancient world of Socrates and Plato for students. Certainly we need to do a much better job at highlighting the genuine multicultural aspects of the region.

Paul Cartledge, the first ever professor of Greek culture at the University of Cambridge, aims to promote the public understanding of the Greek world.

On the Guardian post, they have a photo from the film 300. I had mentioned that film in class. I’ve only seen a tiny bit of the movie on TV. Waaaaaaay to gorey for me. See!

MLK III, King’s eldest son, on a visit to India where he traced his father’s trip to Gandhi’s memorial.

King, who was 2 when his father came to India, visited several sites including the place where Gandhi was cremated, his memorial and an exhibition of pictures put on by the American Embassy in Delhi.

Another account here and one here that focuses on the jazz musicans, such as Herbie Hancock, who were involved in the trip.

We read a bit of King’s “Our Struggle” this week. King speaks of “injustice” and “self-respect”. He writes that “many black men lost self-respect.” He ends the essay by saying that the conflict really isn’t about the buses.

Yet we believe that, if the method we use in dealing with equality in the buses can eliminate the injustice within ourselves, we shall at the same time be attacking the basis of injustice–man’s hostility to man. (Emphasis mine)

While I have thought about the ills of not having self-respect, I never thought of it in terms of doing an “injustice” to one’s self. We have images in our minds of those who fought for civil rights. But we also should have an image of ourselves fighting for our own self-respect.

The day after President Obama’s inauguration there was a prayer service at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC. The Very Rev. Samuel T. Lloyd, the Dean of the Cathedral, in his introductory remarks said that Dr. King’s last Sunday sermon, March 31, 1968, was at that very Cathedral, in that very pulpit, I would imagine. Four days later he would be assassinated on April 4, 1968. (There’s a Flickr photo of statuary in the Cathedral of Dr. King.)

A photo of King preaching that Sunday in the Cathedral. March 31, 1968

Dr. King at National Cathedral

Obama was visibly moved by this information. This surely added to the convergence of King’s efforts and life and that of President Obama’s election.

I’ve got the text of King’s sermon in a book of his collected works. I’ll post it soon.

Welcome to the Spring 2009 Introduction to Philosophy class! I’m looking forward to our time together examining the thoughts of Socrates and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Links to the PHIL 101 course materials will be posted on the right sidebar.

My contact info is at:

http://www.profpam.com/contact.html

Best wishes,

Prof. Pam