Martin Luther King Jr & Richard Nixon

April 4, 1968: Just after 6 PM, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated as he stood outside his room of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. Dr. King was pronounced dead at 7:05 PM.

On May 15th, Dr. King wrote to the Vice President, taking him up on his suggestion that they meet in Washington, and proposing three possible dates.

The meeting lasted well beyond the allotted time. Nixon, as was his custom, asked questions and listened. He made several pages of notes reflecting King’s conversation.

Two days after their meeting, Nixon wrote to King saying how much he enjoyed their conversation and enclosed copies of speeches he had made dealing with civil rights.

On August 30th, King wrote a two-page letter to Nixon. After explaining his silence since their June meeting (because of his busy schedule), he brought Nixon up to date on the civil rights situation as he saw it. He described his conviction that the impact of the 1957 Civil Rights Act that Nixon had been instrumental in successfully steering through Congress, would depend “on the program of a sustained mass movement on the part of Negroes.” In the letter’s last two paragraphs, King wrote positively about his impression of, and hopes for, the Vice President as a positive and proactive force for civil rights.

Nixon replied to King’s August 30th letter on September 17th. He wrote that they both agreed the Civil Rights Act of 1957 “was not as strong as we would have liked.” He added that they were also in agreement that the Act was “much better than no bill at all…” Nixon appreciated King’s “generous comments” regarding his role in the 1957 Civil Rights bill, and added, “My only regret is that I have been unable to do more than I have. Progress is understandably slow in this field, but at least we can be sure that we are moving steadily and surely ahead.”

A year would pass before Nixon wrote again to King. His letter of September 22, 1958, instead of being sent to the King residence in Montgomery, was sent to King’s room at Harlem Hospital. On September 20th, King was at Blumstein’s department store in Harlem to sign copies of his book about the 1955-56 Montgomery Bus Boycott, Stride Toward Freedom. A mentally unstable woman stabbed him in the chest with a steel letter opener. The would-be assassin almost succeeded. Dr. King later quoted his doctor as saying that if he had sneezed before his chest could be opened and the wound treated, he would have drowned in his own blood.

There was no communication between the former Vice President and Dr. King during Nixon’s Wilderness Years (1960-1968). In the Nixon archives there is an internal rough draft for what might have been a personal message to Mrs. King.

Richard Nixon is engulfed in a sea of people as he is escorted to Ebenezer Baptist Church for the funeral of Martin Luther King, Jr.

After the funeral service at Ebenezer Baptist Church, Nixon joined the marchers behind Dr. King's casket - on a plain wooden farm wagon pulled by two local mules - on a three mile procession through the streets of Atlanta, Georgia. Nixon marched alongside basketball legend Wilt Chamberlain.