Thirty years ago, the assassination of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. ignited riots across the republic as cities from Boston to Oakland, from Chicago to Memphis, erupted in anger and frustration. Forty-six people were dead, and hundreds were injured. About 20,000 Army personnel and 34,000 National Guardsmen were pulled in for antiriot duty.
In the cataclysmic 12 months of 1968, King’s murder was part of a series of stunning events that rocked America and came to symbolize the entire, agitated decade. Robert Kennedy was shot and killed on the presidential campaign trail; Vietnam presented the Tet Offensive and My Lai massacre. Politics and culture seemed tinged by chaos.
Even with the passage of time, those milepost events still rest uncomfortably in the hearts of those who witnessed them.
But that wasn’t where 1968 began or ended.
Otis Redding made his lasting contribution to the world of R&B, the classic “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay.” The Rascals offered “People Got to Be Free” and the Beatles “Hey Jude.” The movies offered everything from the absurdity of “The Producers,” with its “Springtime for Hitler” production number, to “The Odd Couple” and on to “2001: A Space Odyssey” and “Rosemary’s Baby.” The revolutionary musical “Hair” opened on Broadway. Arthur Ashe, a black American, won the U.S. Open.
As U.S. politics intensified, some rock stars were lowering the volume: Bob Dylan released an acoustic masterpiece, “John Wesley Harding,” and the once-psychedelic Byrds went country-western with “Sweetheart of the Rodeo.”
At year’s end, there was some good news. U.S. astronauts returned to space after nearly two years, Apollo 7 and Apollo 8 paving the way for the moon landing a year later. By Christmas Eve, Apollo 8 was orbiting the moon, heralding man’s biggest step into space.
Still, it was hard to cheer at the end of that troubling year. “Where have you gone Joe DiMaggio?” asked Simon and Garfunkel on their 1968 album “Bookends.” “A nation turns its lonely eyes to you.” History does not change abruptly with the beginning of one year or the end of another. We just remember it that way.
MILESTONES FROM A TUMULTOUS YEAR
On the home front . . .
– North Vietnam’s Tet Offensive in late January explodes any idea of a quick end to the Vietnam War.
– Eugene McCarthy’s “Children’s Crusade” campaign against LBJ and his near-upset win in New Hampshire.
– Robert Kennedy enters the presidential race in mid-March. Lyndon Johnson bows out of the race at the end of the month.
– Martin Luther King Jr. is assassinated April 4.
– Columbia University students battle police after taking over the administration building.
– Robert Kennedy is assassinated June 5.
– At the GOP Convention in Miami Beach, Richard Nixon picks an obscure Marylander, Spiro Agnew, as his running mate.
– The Democratic Convention in Chicago turns violent, splitting the Democratic party. It’s a hollow nomination for Hubert Humphrey.
– George Wallace campaigns for president as an independent. He picks Curtis LeMay as his running mate. LeMay startles the press by saying he’d consider using nuclear weapons in Vietnam.
– After nearly two years, America returns to space with Apollo 7.
– LBJ announces a bombing halt in Vietnam, boosting Humphrey’s presidential chances.
– Nixon is elected president by less than 1 percent of the popular vote over Humphrey.
– Apollo 8 orbits the moon on Christmas Eve.
. . . and around the world.
– Students riot in France.
– Soviet troops overrun Czechoslovakia, ending the “Prague Spring.”
– Violence erupts in Mexico City before the Olympics as police fire on students.
On the marquee
– Movie releases include “2001: A Space Odyssey,” “Planet of the Apes,” “Funny Girl” “Rachel, Rachel,” “The Lion in Winter” and “Yellow Submarine.”
– Emmy awards to “Mission: Impossible,” “Get Smart” and “Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In” with Goldie Hawn.
– New rock albums include Simon and Garfunkel’s “Bookends,” highlighted by “Mrs. Robinson;” Bob Dylan going acoustic and spiritual with “John Wesley Harding;” The Byrds going country-western with “Sweetheart of the Rodeo,” and the Beatles ending the year with the “White Album.”
– Beatles win their first Grammy award, for “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.”
– “Hair” opens on Broadway. Slightly less controversial is “The Great White Hope” and Neil Simon’s “Plaza Suite.”
– Tom Wolfe’s “Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test”, Gore Vidal’s “Myra Breckinridge”and Norman Mailer’s “Armies of the Night” are published.
The daily news
– Frank Sinatra and Mia Farrow divorce.
– FDA declares IUDs “safe and effective.”
– Unemployment rate in December sinks to 3.3 percent, the lowest in 12 years.
– The FBI in December says the crime rate soared 19 percent in the most recent nine months.
– There are no executions in U.S. for the first time since 1930.
– Author John Steinbeck dies.
– Strom Thurmond, 66, marries 22-year old South Carolina beauty queen Nancy Moore.
– A Record 688 people die in Labor Day weekend auto accidents.
– Shirley Chisholm (the name as published has been corrected in this text)of Brooklyn is the first black woman elected to Congress.
-The Federal budget deficit of $25.4 billion is the highest since World War II.
– New Madison Square Garden opens.
The highlight film
– Green Bay Packers win their fifth world championship in seven years, beating Oakland Raiders in Super Bowl II in Vince Lombardi’s final game as Packers’ coach. Green Bay’s next title would come 29 years later.
– Houston ends UCLA’s 47-game winning streak before more than 50,000 fans in Astrodome. But UCLA hammers Houston by 32 points in NCAA semifinal. UCLA wins final over North Carolina with young Tar Heels coach Dean Smith making his first appearance in the championship game.
– O.J. Simpson leads USC to Rose Bowl win and national title on Jan. 1. That fall he wins the Heisman Trophy for 9-1-1 Trojans.
– Ohio State finishes No. 1 in college football, last Big Ten national champ for 29 years.
– In Year of the Pitcher, Detroit’s Denny McLain wins 31 games and St. Louis’ Bob Gibson has a microscopic ERA of 1.12.
– Arthur Ashe wins the first U.S. Open, the first black man to win a major tennis championship.
– At the Mexico City Olympics, U.S. male sprinters set world records in 100, 200 and 400 meters, plus 4X100 and 4X400 relays. But highlight of the Games is long-jumper Bob Beamon soaring 29 feet 2 inches to break the world record by nearly 2 feet. Record lasts until 1991.
– U.S. wins Davis Cup for first time in five years.
– A Baseball player’s minimum salary boosted to $10,000 a year.
