In late March 1968, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. came to Paterson, N.J. and spoke to a standing room only crowd in the Community Baptist Church on Auburn Street. He came to drum up support for a march against poverty that was to be held in Washington, D.C. A few days later, Dr. King was assassinated in Memphis. In this episode, Russell Graddy, who was part of Dr. King’s security detail when he visited Paterson, talks about the Dr. King he had a chance to meet on several occasions and about the day he came to New Jersey. Then, Rev. Allan Boyer, the present pastor of the church Dr. King visited (now called the Bethel A.M.E. Church) and Rev. Michael McDuffie, President of the Paterson Pastor’s Workshop, talk about Dr. King’s teachings and whether they can be applied today to achieve racial equality.
