They talk about Lincoln freeing the slaves. John Kennedy freed me.In the wake of the RFK assassination, hit songwriter Richard Holler penned a tune titled “Abraham, Martin and John,” which reflected on the assassinations of Presidents Lincoln and Kennedy, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, and Senator Robert Kennedy. He got his friend and songwriting partner Phil Gernhard to produce a recording of it by Dion DiMucci, formerly the lead singer of Dion and the Belmonts.
–Comedienne Moms Mabley (rn, Loretta Aiken), stand-up routine.
The song constituted a severe departure of style for all three men. Somber in its tone, its sound and lyrical gravitas stood in polar opposition to Gernhard and Holler’s biggest hit, “Snoopy vs. the Red Baron.” DiMucci’s prior work epitomized the bubbly doo-wop sound of the late-1950s and early-1960s, with such hits as “The Wanderer,” and “Runaround Sue.”
They released the song as a single for Laurie Records in August 1968, merely two months after Bobby Kennedy died. Before year’s end, it would peak at #4 on the Billboard charts. Tom Clay, Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, and the above-cited Moms Mabley would chart cover versions over the following two years, with numerous performers performing it live in concerts and commemorative events (a good sampling of which you can find on YouTube).
The success of this song most likely reflected a conscious and/or unconscious public sensibility that connected the assassinations of these four men. All four had advanced the cause of African American civil rights. All four had very vocal critics among the hard-right of American politics. The lyrical refrain, “He freed a lot of people/but it seems the good die young.” hints at the belief that their deaths were somehow motivated by hostility to their progressive tendencies. They were, in a sense, martyrs, neither the first nor last, but certainly the most visible. Unlike the other three, however, Lincoln’s death was officially ruled a conspiracy. In 1968 (and later) there remains much unofficial belief that the other three died from conspiracy as well.
Of course, 1968 seemed to represent the apotheosis of what I like to call The Golden Age of Political Assassination, occurring not just in the United States, but globally. And like the 1961 assassinations of Dominican President Rafael Trujillo and Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba, the deaths of Dr. King and the Kennedy brothers spawned whispered, then later boldly declared suspicions that the Central Intelligence Agency, its employees or its contractors had some connection in these slayings.
Of course, there were assassinations and assassination attempts that went well beyond the 1960s. But I often wonder if the public disbelief in a lone-assassin narrative was so great that it finally dawned on black operators that the act of assassination was counterproductive in an age where public relations plays a more critical function as a mechanism for social control. It becomes harder to buy that amateur misfit killers who have yet to taste blood are remarkably skilled in taking out the most conspicuous leaders of their generation. Credulity becomes further strained when it simply becomes the same old cookie-cutter story, rife with factual and evidentiary contradictions, premature pronouncements and so on. That’s a PR nightmare.
One might be tempted to see the song’s widespread appeal and hotcake sales as a form of silent protest against an institution (or power) that the public cannot directly criticize or scrutinize. I don’t know if that’s actually the case. What I can say is linking the three latest deaths to one that everyone now concedes was a conspiracy leaves the strong implication that like Abraham, Jack, Marty and Bobby fell victim to the same motive force that lay behind political violence.
A motive force that compels us to resist not only with brain and muscle, but with heart.
If you don’t believe me, just ask Emmylou. She knows.