King and Lincoln: Dark April DaysApril is the cruellest month, and ain't that the truth in the restless churn of American history. Strange symmetry, that our most magnificent speechmakers were murdered and martyred on an April day. Martin Luther King Jr. was slain in Memphis on April 4, 1968. In other words, 45 years ago this week. A girl in Wisconsin, I wept for the magical voice gone. Shattering. President Abraham Lincoln was actually laughing at a play the moment he was assassinated on April 14, 1865. The Civil War had just ended. Washington was going wild with joy (mixed with smoldering Southern pride) when he became the ultimate casualty. These figures are forever linked in American aspirations and memory, kindred spirits in freedom and justice. King became a Nobel laureate champion for peaceful change; Lincoln won a bloody war that took a toll of 620,000 lives — but freed millions of enslaved people. On his last night alive in April 1968, the Southern Baptist preacher and civil rights leader gave a prophetic speech as a deluge pounded on a Mason Temple roof. Soaring and symphonic, King, 39, trembled as he told people he wasn't concerned about dying young: "Because I've been to the mountaintop. ... And I've looked over. And I have seen the promised land." The new King Memorial is aptly near the Lincoln Memorial. King preached a visionary secular sermon at the majestic shrine honoring the 16th president. Tens of thousands had converged for the March on Washington in 1963. In other words, 50 years ago, in their rhyme in time. The speech, "I Have a Dream," was King's dialogue with the past, represented by Lincoln, and with the future. Lincoln's monumental gift to the ages, the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation, was issued 150 years ago. It marked the start of a rocky journey. In the "Dream" speech, King spoke of collecting the "promissory note" to black Americans as a way to say that America had not yet lived up to its promises on paper.
King felt he was furthering the groundwork of the 19th century abolitionists. And he was up against the same old story as Lincoln — the American crucible of race down South. In the same states of the Confederacy, the struggle shifted to the color line in everyday life: in buses, schools, diners, restrooms, drinking fountains, you name it. Change came hard. A century apart, King and Lincoln wrote and spoke astonishingly wise, bittersweet, ringing words — whether from a Birmingham jail or a train leaving Springfield, Ill. Foreshadowing his fate, President-elect Lincoln bade farewell to a throng of friends: "I know not how soon I shall see you again." He came home again on his funeral train. On March 4, 1865, America heard Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address, masterful prose streaked with poetry: "Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away." Like King, Lincoln glimpsed the goal he laid down his life for. When his heart stopped, the nation wept like rain. The tragedy resembled "Macbeth," Lincoln's favorite play — of a good king's brutal murder. At 56, he felt old, yet deathbed doctors were struck by his youthful body. Other than the Roosevelts, King and Lincoln are most akin of all the men in marble on the National Mall. In character, they are closer than either is to Thomas Jefferson. The third president was a poor public speaker who lived to be 83 at home in mountaintop Monticello. From the Lincoln-King Mall vantage points, the Jefferson Memorial lies across the water, pristine in the distance — appropriately. In 1776, Jefferson wrote the words King and Lincoln, men of the people, eloquently acted upon, moving us forward forever. The scenes enchant, especially when the cherry blossoms come — in cruel April. To find out more about Jamie Stiehm, and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit www.creators.com. COPYRIGHT 2013 CREATORS.COM 
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