2:15 p.m., Feb. 25, 2010----When Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, a hand-written note was found in his jacket pocket immediately afterward that contained several names, including that of William W. Boyer, Charles P. Messick Professor Emeritus and visiting scholar at UD's Center for Applied Demography and Survey Research.

THIS STORY

E-mail

Print

Twitter

Boyer, who came to UD in 1969 to chair the Department of Political Science and International Relations, previously was a member of the Kansas State University faculty, where he also headed the All-University Convocations Committee that had invited Dr. King to speak on Jan. 19, 1968, in Ahearn Field House on Kansas State's Manhattan campus.

The paper found on the slain civil rights leader also contained the names of then-Kansas State University president James McCain; Homer Floyd, then-executive director of the Kansas Human Relations Commission; and George Haley, a Kansas state senator and brother of Alex Haley, author of Roots and The Autobiography of Malcolm X.

“I was a professor and the first head of the Kansas State University's new political science department,” Boyer said. “As I was the founder and first chairperson of Kansas State University's (KSU) Alfred M. Landon Lectures on Public Issues, I was later asked by KSU President James McCain to coordinate the convocation lectures.”

Boyer noted that it was in this capacity that he arranged for Dr. King to come to Kansas State University to give what would prove to be his last lecture at a university before he was killed.

The existence of the notes and names of the four individuals associated with Dr. King's visit to Kansas State University remained unknown until last November, when a KSU graduate noticed a story about three King documents that singer and activist Harry Belafonte was attempting to sell through the auction house at Sotheby's.

When the King family challenged his right to sell the documents, Belafonte withdrew them from Sotheby's.

“When [Kansas State] university found out about it last November, they got in touch with me,” said Boyer, who retired from teaching at UD in 1994. “The Archives Department at KSU asked me to write my memory of that day, and they asked me about the other notables who spoke at those lectures, including Sen. Robert Kennedy, who was assassinated on June 6, 1968, and former President Ronald Reagan.”

After meeting Dr. King at the Kansas City Airport, Boyer said the two men flew to Manhattan, Kan., as the only passengers on a small chartered plane.

“During our flight, I informed Dr. King that while I was a visiting Fulbright professor in southern India the previous summer, I had been asked to speak at the state capitol in Hyderabad, to commemorate the 20th anniversary of India's independence,” Boyer said. “I told him that the focus of my address for that occasion was how Mahatma Gandhi's unique 'satyagraha' philosophy of nonviolent resistance that he deployed in his campaign for India's independence from Britain, had also influenced Dr. King's civil rights movement in the United States. A lively discussion followed.”

Sitting on the platform as Dr. King spoke, Boyer said that he was amazed at the power of the talk given by an individual who, till that moment, had impressed him as being unpretentious and somewhat reserved.

“As he spoke, I became mesmerized by the power and eloquence of his riveting message, the lifting and cadence of his transforming voice, and the passion and meaning of his words,” Boyer said. “It was as if I was being swept by the sheer greatness of his presence, such as I have never before or since experienced.”

After the speech, Boyer asked an associate of Dr. King, how Dr. King was able to give such a wonderful address without any notes or text.

“His response was, 'That is the art of homilectics, something that is taught in divinity school,'” Boyer said. “I had never encountered that word before, and I later found it means the art of preaching a sermon.”

Boyer noted that KSU President McCain, himself a professor of English, said that Dr. King was “the greatest speaker he ever encountered, even equal to Winston Churchill.”

While Dr. King left no written or printed version of his Kansas State University talk, Boyer had arranged for the speech to be taped, and he edited it and included it along with other lectures in Issues 1968, a book published by The University Press of Kansas in 1968.

Boyer recalled that when he was taking Dr. King back to the Manhattan, Kan., airport following his speech, the civil rights leader said his next stop would be Gary, Ind. Dr. King did not mention anything about going to Memphis, Boyer added.

On April 4, 1968, Boyer said he was visiting with Gov. Alf Landon, when the latter received a phone message. “He turned to me and said, 'Martin Luther King has just been shot.'

“Only recently have I learned that when he was assassinated on that fateful day, he had a piece of paper in his pocket on which was printed the names of President McCain and Dr. Boyer. I surmise that King happened to be wearing the same clothes he wore at his Kansas State address a few weeks before.”

Boyer said he, like many Americans, remains devastated by the assassinations of Dr. King and Sen. Robert Kennedy in one of the most turbulent years in American history.

“It is a cruel irony that Dr. King's address, 'The Future of Integration,' was his last at a university,” Boyer said. “Sen. Robert Kennedy's speech, 'Conflict in Vietnam and at Home,' was the next lecture after King's talk and also was the first public address that launched his presidential campaign. They were my heroes.”

A graduate of the College of Wooster, with master's and doctoral degrees from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Boyer is an internationally recognized consultant, lecturer and scholar on developing countries. He also has written several books on public policy issues.

Boyer's most recent book is Delaware Politics and Government (Politics and Governments of the American States), with Edward C. Ratledge, director for UD's Center for Applied Demography and Survey Research, a unit in the College of Education and Public Policy.

Article by Jerry Rhodes
Photos by Evan Krape