"You know they murdered King when he spoke out on Vietnam"

This past Wednesday, December 8, 1999, a Tennessee jury declared that the assassination of Martin Luther King was not the work of one man, but the work of a conspiracy that the King family claims involved the CIA, FBI, and other government agencies.� Quite simply put, this is a huge victory for those of us who believe in exposing injustice and it is further proof that the so-called "system" is not as invincible as it seems and that they are never capable of covering up their tracks completely.� The key point in the case came as former cafe owner Loyd Jowers admmitted he paid someone else other than James Earl Ray to committ the murder.� Jowers also admitted that the assasination was organized and ordered by local organized crime officals.� Whether or not this incriminates top government officials, who most certainly had a fear of what King represented, or if it clears Ray of the murder, and there is plenty of doubt to his guilt, this ruling has many effects.� One, it chillingly brings to light the obvious truth that too many people in high places thought King's enlightened message was apparently "dangerous" enough to warrant killing him.� But the ruling's biggest positive effect was it might end up being one of the biggest revealings of injustice in American history.� Who knows how this may snowball?� What if the American government was actually involved in the murder of King?� Suddenly those so-called "conspiracy theories" don't sound so crazy.� I don't have to tell you what the outcry would be like.� Little by little, the door seems to be opening and the truth is being revealed.� The King ruling gives hope that things aren't as bad it seems, and that at least some people are waking up.

"What was the price on his head?"

Martin Luther King, in the great tradition of Che Guevara, Karl Marx, and Mumia Abu-Jamal, knew that things quite simply had to change and then went out and accomplished all he could to achieve those changes.� It is almost frightening to consider the state of America today without the work and ideas of King.� He brought the plight of civil rights into the homes of many a person, white or black, latino or oriental, in a way that was more accessible than the militant, but as important, ideas of Malcolm X or the Black Panthers.� King was at the head of the charge to bring down the oppression that had been as much a part of America as anything else ever since the beginning.� This is what scared everybody in charge so much. They had gotten this power from being oppressive.� King was doing as much as anybody to make a large body of people very politically aware, aware enough to be able to see this oppression for themselves.� He was and still is one of the true great heroes in American history.� In his spirit and in his ideas, he showed the true sense of America:� a land where freedom does indeed reign greatly but a land where injustice has too much of a place, and where it is our right and our duty to fight down this injustice so that everyone will be treated equally and fairly.� This ruling is an extension of that fight, and it is a fight that is far from over.� It is something to be proud of, and it is also a real sign of hope.� You can never fool all of the people all of the time, and in the memory of King, we hold this week's ruling as a sign that the struggle of so many is indeed yielding results.� It only remains for the rest of us to wake up and join in, just like King would've wanted us to.

"What do I have to do to wake you up? To shake you up? To break the structure up?"