I'm Matt Fry live in Memphis, Tennessee. Welcome to BBC World News.
Remembering Martin Luther King on the spot where he was murdered 40 years ago today.
The poor and the powerful alike make a pilgrimage to honour a civil rights hero.
We'll introduce you to two of the men that Martin Luther King came to Memphis to help
and hear their view of how much has changed and how much hasn't.
Chilling new details of an alleged terror plot.
Prosecutors in England charged that these suspects were targeting much more than airlines.
Good evening from Memphis, Tennessee.
Almost exactly 40 years ago, Dr Martin Luther King was hit by an assassin's bullet
as he stood on the balcony behind me at the Lorraine Motel.
Thousands of people from poor to powerful have braved the grey rainy day to mark a grim anniversary
and to pay their respects to the hero of the American Civil Rights Movement.
Our correspondent Matthew Price has been covering today's events in Memphis.
He joins me now.
Matt, it's been a day of speeches and of services.
It's also been a day of commemoration and celebration.
A lot of events have taken place right the way across the United States,
but they have all been focused here in Memphis and specifically right behind me
at the spot where Martin Luther King was killed.
They waited patiently in the rain, young and old, black and white.
He's like a great man because he's part of the reason why we can all stand here together
and just be together.
I think he still signifies hope, which we hear a lot about today in our political elections,
and I think that's what he still brings is hope for many issues.
It's great joy. A lot has been accomplished, but there's a lot more that needs to be done.
I simply adore Dr King and I like his philosophy.
He was the man who helped to start a revolution, the man who helped free America
from the racist laws that existed here less than 50 years ago,
the man who inspired a vast civil rights movement that continues to this day.
In April 1968, he checked into the Lorraine Motel in Memphis.
There had been several threats against him. That night, he spoke about them.
I'm not worried about anything. I'm not feeling any man.
My eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.
The next day, he was dead. He was shot as he stood on the balcony outside his motel room.
He died aged just 39 years old. In the coming days, riots spread across the country.
Forty years on, and from a very public death to a very personal mourning,
Martin Luther King's relatives commemorated what for them is a family tragedy.
They laid a wreath at his grave in Atlanta.
And back at the Lorraine Motel, back up on that balcony outside room 306,
others came to honor and presumably to woo voters.
Back in 1983, John McCain, now the Republican nominee for president,
voted against creating a national holiday in honor of Martin Luther King.
Today he apologized for that. Some were not impressed.
I was wrong. I was wrong. We all make mistakes. We all make mistakes.
The one politician you might have expected to see in Memphis today didn't turn up.
Barack Obama stuck to the campaign trail. He held a moment's silence
and then said that America's politicians had failed to live up to the dream of Martin Luther King.
And that too was how Hillary Clinton played it in Memphis.
She chose today to announce that if president, she would appoint a poverty czar.
And then she spoke of Dr. King.
One thinks of his life, such a short life, going by in just a moment of time,
but having such a profound and lasting impact on all of us.
Forty years ago this was a place of horror and of grief.
Today it was a place to remember.
It is well worth pointing out that while today is a hugely significant day for African Americans,
indeed for the whole of this diverse country, it's also been a very important day globally
for those who really hold Martin Luther King up as a global icon of the civil rights movement.
Matthew, I guess what makes this day different, not just for the people here,
but for the entire country, is Barack Obama, who wasn't here today, of course.
Absolutely. There is a t-shirt seller who's about 100 yards down the road there.
He's selling t-shirts with Barack Obama's face on it and Martin Luther King's face on it.
And I said to him, what do you see as the connection?
He said, look, 40, 45, 50 years ago Martin Luther King was talking about having a dream
of a country in which black and white were equal.
And he said that in a year when Barack Obama could become the next president of the United States,
he said for him that is the fulfillment of Martin Luther King's dream.
There are many, many ways, of course, of looking at this.
Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and countless others here today have been talking about
the fact that there is still a long way to go in America.
But I think that t-shirt seller perhaps sums up the feelings at least of the African American community.
Matthew Price, thanks very much for joining us.
On the night of Dr. King's death, then-President Lyndon Johnson dispatched a delegation to America
to convey his condolences to the slain leader's family.
Roger Wilkins, who worked for the Justice Department at the time, was part of that delegation
and went on to become a civil rights leader in his own right.
He joins us now live from our studio in Washington.
Thanks, sir, Mr. Wilkins, for being with us.
Just paint us a picture of that day.
I mean, there was the grief, clearly, but there's also the spasm of violence
that ensued almost as soon as news spread of his death.
Tell us about it.
When we came down to Memphis that morning, there was just grief.
Everybody we saw was benumbed, and we greeted Mrs. King when she came in from Atlanta
and gave her the President's and the nation's condolences.
And then we talked to the leaders of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference,
and they were, they just were numb with grief.
So it wasn't much of a conversation, and there was some hugging and some crying.
We all knew each other and worked together for years.
And then the delegation from Washington, that is, the Attorney General Ramsey Clark,
Clifford Alexander, who was head of the Employment Commission, and myself,
went to see Mayor Loeb to try to persuade him to do what Martin had come to ask him to do,
which was to enlarge the amount of pay and relieve the terrible working conditions
of the sanitation men in the South, in Memphis.
These men had to march with signs that said, I am a man.
And to see those men marching with those signs on the day after Martin was killed
almost killed me emotionally.
I almost cried right there on the street, but did not.
And Mr. Wilkins, tell us about the scenes of violence that you saw as you flew into Washington.
Say again, please.
Tell us about the violence that you saw.
You had that very powerful image as you flew into Washington, briefly.
We began to hear from our offices in Washington that there was violence around the city,
around the country.
And then they said, late in the afternoon, they said, we're having a rough time here.
We have window breakage.
We have vandals running everywhere.
We have some fires.
The President then ordered us to come home that night, and we were flying in an Air Force plane.
And as we came up the Potomac River, I could see out of the window of the plane an orange glow
that seemed to have a needle sticking through it, and I couldn't figure out what I was looking at.
But as we got closer, I realized that the orange glow was Washington on fire,
and that there were lots and lots of fires, and that the needle that I thought was in this orange glow
was not a needle at all.
It was the Washington monument.
We flew over.
Mr. Wilkins, if I could jump in, unfortunately, we haven't got a lot of time for this,
but if you could sum up fairly briefly what, in your opinion, has changed and what has not changed
in the last 40 years, as it were.
In two sentences.
What has changed is enormous opportunities for well-educated black people like me,
but an end to the poverty movement that the government was proposing in carrying out
and that Martin was proposing to carry out.
That stopped, and we've now got a bifurcated country in which the Bear Stearns people
can make multigazillions of dollars, and then there are just terrible poor people,
terribly poor people, who are no better than when Martin was trying to work for them.
Mr. Wilkins, I'm afraid I'm going to have to leave it there.
I can barely hear you with the sound of the ceremony going on behind us.
Thank you very much for joining us from Washington.
You're very welcome.
We'll speak to you again soon.
Thank you so much.
Well, as you can see, it's all started behind us.
There was other news to talk about, and let's try and go to some of that news
from around the world, as it were.
It is clear tonight that Bill and Hillary Clinton have no economic worries.
The couple have released their tax returns for the past seven years,
and they show that together they had an income of nearly $110 million.
About half of that, nearly $55 million, came from speaking fees paid to the former president.
Round two, Zanupi's Politburo in Zimbabwe has agreed to back Robert Nugaba in a run-off election,
despite there still being no official results in the first ballot last week.
According to law, the vote should be held within 21 days of the first election,
but there is speculation that there will be a 90-day delay to give time for the security forces
to clamp down on the situation.
A US B-1 bomber caused fire after it came into land at a US air-pacing cutter.
The official says that no one was hurt and all four crew members are safe.
The incident is being investigated.
The gang accused of plotting to blow up flights from Heathrow to several North American cities
allegedly made suicide videos caught in London her today.
The videos, which were shown to the jury, warned of martyrdom operations
and rained down on non-believers.
The ace men deny conspiracy to murder and plotting to endanger aircraft.
When heavy restrictions on carrying liquids on aircraft were introduced overnight in 2006,
it was because police believed a group of men was planning to kill hundreds of airline passengers
with liquid explosives.
The trial of eight of those men was in its second day today,
and it was even more sensational than the first.
In this East London flat, the prosecution say, the security services heard the men
discussing whether to take their children on their suicide missions.
Umar Islam was asked about his wife and said,
if this was a significant operation, she might find it in herself to join us.
The property where that was recorded is at the heart of the case,
and the BBC has gained exclusive access.
The prosecution say that it was here in this upstairs flat
that the men had established what was in effect a bomb factory.
Here, thanks to an MI5 bug, they're seen in the kitchen sitting room
apparently experimenting with their devices.
Off camera, they're heard recording their so-called martyrdom videos.
And today, those suicide videos were played to the jury as they were seen in public
for the first time.
In his, Umar Islam says,
Operation upon master operation will keep on raining on these kufa until they leave our lands.
I say to you disbelievers that as you bomb, you will be bombed,
and as you kill, you will be killed.
If you think you can go into our lands and do what you're doing in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine,
and think it will not come back onto your own doorstep, may you have another think coming.
Most of you too busy, you know, watching Home and Away and EastEnders,
complaining about the World Cup and drinking your alcohol to even care anything.
The videos had been found during searches at this house in High Wycombe.
In his, Abdullah Ahmed Ali, sitting in front of a black flag with Arabic script says,
You show more care and concern for animals than you do for the Muslim Umar.
Expect floods of martyr operations against you,
and we will take our revenge and anger ripping amongst your people
and scattering your people's body parts.
The prosecution say the men's primary targets were seven or more flights from London to North America,
and that the videos were designed to be released after the men had destroyed the planes in mid-air,
killing themselves and all those on board.
Six men had made videos.
On his, Ibrahim Savant says,
All Muslims feel the need to dust their feet in the training camps of jihad where men are made.
I've not been brainwashed. I've been educated to a high standard.
I am old enough to make my own decisions.
In a huge search of woods in High Wycombe after the men were arrested,
the prosecution say police found stashes of bomb-making chemicals hidden in the undergrowth.
Daniel Sanford, BBC News, at Woolwich Crown Court.
You're watching BBC World News, still ahead on this programme.
How do black and white citizens here in Memphis deal with the issue of race?
40 years after the awful event that marked their city.
The business is now from New York. Here's Michelle.
Job losses in America pushed the country one step closer to recession,
and stocks end the day mixed but are higher for the week.
There's been a sharp fall in the number of people with jobs in the United States.
80,000 fewer were in employment in March than in the previous month,
and this is the third month in a row now that jobs have been lost
rather than created in the world's biggest economy.
There was also a rise in the unemployment rate.
It reinforced the views of a growing number of economists
who believe the country is in a recession.
The overall national economy is certainly going to continue to be weak.
Employment could continue to decline in April, in May, possibly June and July and August.
Not big declines, but steady, slow declines,
and keeping us in this low economic environment for a considerable period of time.
How should we read these numbers?
Well, fewer people in work means that Americans have less to spend
on the goods and services produced by U.S. business.
The Downbeat Jobs report also increases the chances of a further cut in interest rates
when the Federal Reserve's main policymaking committee meets at the end of the month.
In other news, shares in General Motors fell more than 5 percent
after a private equity group backed out of a deal with Delphi.
The struggling auto parts maker, which is trying to emerge from bankruptcy protection,
was spun off from GM in 1999 and is still its biggest parts supplier.
Turning to Wall Street, well, stocks finished the last session of the week mixed.
Shares of bond insurer, MBIA, took a hit after the ratings agency, Fitch,
downgraded the company's financial rating to double A from triple A.
Despite that news and the weaker jobs data, the markets were pretty stable.
The Dow slipped 16 points, dragged down by General Motors,
while the NASDAQ rose three-tenths of a percent.
Meanwhile in Europe, strong performances from drug makers and mining stocks helped stocks move higher.
On this anniversary of Martin Luther King's assassination and with ceremonies underway right behind me,
Memphis is as good a place as any in America to examine the issues of black and white,
of change and the lack of it.
America likes to think of itself as a melting pot, but when it prays it does so apart, not together.
Martin Luther King once said that 11 a.m. on a Sunday morning was the most segregated hour in America.
That was more than four decades ago, but it still holds true today.
Just look at the congregation and the Greater Middle Baptist Church in Memphis.
The man on the screen is Pastor Frank Thomas.
He believes that in the year 2008, race relations have descended into a gridlock of mutual suspicions.
When whites express their pain, we're like, you got white privilege, what are you hurting about?
I mean, immigrant pain, what are you talking about?
We had the pain, slavery was the pain, you know, racism is the pain.
So he shuts down the conversation on the other side as well.
Memphis is still a tale of two cities.
African Americans make up the majority here, but they also dominate in other categories.
This is one of the poorest and most crime-ridden cities in America.
The official segregation of the past has been replaced by the de facto segregation of today.
The Memphis Tattoo Parlor is just a few blocks from downtown where some of the greats of rock and roll first strum their guitars.
In the bar at the back, the mood is very chilled, but Sean, the owner's daughter, and Devin, one of the employees, are surprisingly frank.
There is a lot of tension between the black community and the white community,
but it's went from white people hating on black people to black people hating on white people.
The more racist there are black people now.
I don't understand it.
They blame us for what our grandfathers and great-grandfathers did to them, to their great-grandfathers.
So they want to hold it against us and treat us bad.
There are a few places in Memphis where the gap between black and white did melt away at about the same time as the Civil Rights Movement.
Stacks Records, the home of Southern Soul.
Sun Studios, a tiny place that gave birth to some of the greats of rock and roll.
Elvis' original mic is still here.
And they're still making music today.
We found local singer Amy LaVere at a recording session.
I'm not going to deny the fact that there's still a racial tension, you know.
But when you're in a musical environment, you're there to create an art and a craft, and there's no room for it in music.
It all started with the famous Memphis Sound, the fusion of white country and black soul music.
But today, on the subject of race, life stubbornly refuses to imitate art.
You're watching BBC World News, still ahead on this program, the Sanitation Men of Memphis.
It was their strike that brought Martin Luther King here 40 April's ago.
Now to India, where a Pakistani box office here has become the first film in more than four decades in that country to be released in theaters.
The film, In the Name of God, focuses on the struggles by moderate Muslims who preserved their religious beliefs following the 9-11 attacks on the United States.
Sanjay Mungunda reports from Delhi.
This week at the movies, a novel experience awaits Indians.
The Pakistani film, In the Name of God, releases across the country, overturning a ban that's been in place since the 1965 India-Pakistan War.
Fridays are when everyone flocks to the cinema to see the latest release.
This week, they're in for a special treat, a film from across the border, the first in more than four decades.
It's already made more than a million dollars in Pakistan, and the filmmakers are hoping that Indian audiences will be equally kind.
The initial signs are good. For many, the thought of watching a Pakistani film is an exciting prospect.
Movies produced by India's prolific film industry, Bollywood, have a huge following in Pakistan.
Much of it watched illegally, although in the past few months a couple of films have been officially released.
But at a special premiere of In the Name of God for Bollywood stars, there was plenty of praise.
It's a very good move, and more films like this should be made.
It's been appreciated very much wherever it is screened, and it's a very good bond between the two countries.
The film deals with the rift between radical and liberal Islam following the 9-11 attack.
It's a theme that audiences in India can easily relate to.
But many are hoping it'll also help heal the diplomatic divide between two long-standing adversaries.
Sanjay Majumder, BBC News Telly.
The name of Martin Luther King will be remembered as long as there is memory.
But how about these names? Ben Jones, Elmore Nickelbury.
Their stories also have a great deal to do with today.
After all, it was for them that Dr. King came here 40 years ago.
Being a sanitation worker in the city, it was real hard.
We got tired of ripping and running and waking in the rain and snow.
It was dangerous on the trucks, because a lot of times you get up on the trucks, ice on the trucks, sometimes people fall.
Then the waste would be up to my knee like that. Water, maggots.
And all that no breaks and all that kind of stuff. People are putting pressure on you all the time.
You didn't have no rights there, you couldn't talk back to the farmers or nothing.
Whatever they said, that's what went.
Most times they would call me, you ain't nothing but a stinky garbage man. That's all you were.
Old stinky garbage man. That's all they called me. You had people on the street call you that.
But I know when I went on garbage man, I was a man.
Mostly we stand up for our rights and we try to get a union.
And that's what triggered the whole thing, we tried to get a union.
Somewhere I read that the greatness of America is the right to protest for our rights.
He was the greatest man I ever known.
I was glad to see him. If it wasn't for him, we might still be on strike now.
He meant the world to me. When they would push him around and do, he never said a hard word.
He always said, I still love you.
You got black, you're hating some white, some white still hating some black.
But I tell you, it came a long way.
But we got a long ways to go. But it could be better. Especially in the South.
Now we should have had a painting a long time ago when I was tolling my tub on my head.
When Dr. Martin Luther King was here, we should have had that. But we ain't got it.
I have to keep working. I don't have a painter.
And my social security ain't not gonna take care of me.
And that makes me feel like I'm thrown away.
And that makes me feel like I'm thrown away.
And that's a Governor job there, the city there. So everybody's supposed to have a painting.
Much more than 30 minutes time when I'll be back with a special edition of BBC World News America.
As Memphis and America honor Dr. Martin Luther King.
Stay with us for that. Live from here. Next.