The recent passing of the Rev. Samuel “Billy” Kyles brings into focus the steady loss of civil rights stalwarts who bravely fought against Jim Crow in a segregated nation not that long ago.
Kyles became a witness to history when he watched a bullet rip through the air and strike his friend, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., on a Memphis motel balcony in April 1968.
King and the Revs. Ralph David Abernathy and Jesse L. Jackson were headed to Kyles’ home for dinner when the shots rang out on that fateful day and forever changed history.
“I’ve asked many, many times, ‘Why was I there at that crucial moment in time?’” Kyles has often recounted in scores of interviews across the decades. “Over the years, God has revealed to me why I was there. Crucifixions have to have witnesses.”
The soft-spoken preacher, who led Monumental Baptist Church in South Memphis for more than five decades, was lauded by both activists and scholars who studied the civil rights movement. He was a courageous foot solider, they said, who aggressively battled racial discrimination.
