Anti-Apartheid Rallies in Tribute to King

Americans across the nation Thursday marked the 17th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. with protests against South African racial policies, and a huge rally was held outside the South African Embassy in Washington.

Marches and protests were staged in many other cities, including Memphis, Tenn., where the civil rights leader was shot to death April 4, 1968.

Services Held in L.A.

In Los Angeles, 500 persons attended memorial services organized by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference at Holman United Methodist Church on Adams Boulevard, during which the Rev. Thomas Kilgore recalled King’s long opposition to apartheid.

Those who attended the service were given a copy of a Dec. 10, 1962, address in which King said that it is “the shame of our nation that it is objectively an ally of this monstrous government in its grim war with its own black people.”

In Washington, government workers left their offices in droves for a midday rally, led by Mayor Marion Barry. About 4,000 persons turned out for the city-sanctioned protest, making it the largest rally outside the embassy since the almost daily anti-apartheid protests began there Thanksgiving Eve.

Police officers said they arrested 78 District of Columbia government employees for protesting within 500 feet of the embassy as they carried signs and chanted: “Freedom yes, apartheid no.”

“On April 4, 1968, we received the news that Dr. Martin Luther King had been assassinated. Here we are 17 years later, still carrying on the fight of freedom and democracy here and abroad,” Barry said.

Barry, who marched with King during civil rights protests of the 1960s, designated Thursday as “D.C. Government Employees Day against Apartheid.”

King, an outspoken critic of South Africa’s white-minority rule, urged an international economic boycott of that nation 20 years ago.

In Memphis, 400 persons marched into the parking lot of the small motel where King was murdered 17 years ago.

The protesters carried signs calling for more jobs and protesting apartheid during the annual march, which extends six blocks from the Clayborne Temple AME Church to the Lorraine Motel.

Maxine Smith, executive secretary of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People in Memphis, called King “the greatest hero America has ever known” and urged marchers to rededicate their lives to the struggle for civil rights.

Rosa Parks, who sparked civil rights protests in Montgomery, Ala., by refusing to move to the back of a city bus, led a rally in Berkeley, Calif.

Columbia Students Rally

In New York, 200 Columbia University students--some on a 10-day hunger strike protesting the school’s South African investments--chained the door to an administrative building and formed a human blockade outside.

Students in Amherst, Mass., staged a sit-in to protest University of Massachusetts’ investments in South Africa as well as rising school fees.