Michigan State’s Independent Voice
MLK DAY ISSUE
THE MAN WHO BROUGHT KING TO MSU R
obert L. Green keeps datebooks going all the way back to the 1950s. They are all stored in a safe place, but there is one that sits in his desk inside his Las Vegas home. It is marked April 4, 1968. The entry reads, “King dead. Martin shot in Memphis.” Green received a call that afternoon from Jean Young, the wife of Andrew Young, the executive director of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference and future Ambassador to the United Nations. Jean told him she was on her way to Martin and Coretta Scott King’s home after Coretta called her with the news that her husband was shot. “She went to the house, I got a call, and she said, ‘Martin is dead.’ And my heart sank. I was very sad,” Green said. Green was then an assistant professor at Michigan State, with dual appointments to the School of Education and James Madison College. He had just gotten back from 14 months as the education director at the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, or SCLC, as one of King’s top lieutenants. But his interactions with King are only a small part of his story.
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ENGLER RESIGNATION READ MORE IN THE MSU PRESIDENTIAL UPDATE INSERT T HU R S DAY, JA N UA RY 17, 2 019
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