Much had been made of the role of youth in the civil rights movement prior to King’s death. Lizzie Mae lived at Fowler Homes, a public housing complex near Mason Temple. Larry split his time between them but lived mostly with his father in the Westwood community. He was one of nine children born to Lizzie Mae and Mason Payne, who lived separately. GIF by Andrea Morales.īy all accounts, Larry was well-liked at Mitchell Road High School.
This account is curated with assistance from from archival reports, letters, transcripts newspaper clippings from The Commercial Appeal, The Memphis Press-Scimitar and others.ĭaffodils sprouting on the road in Westwood where Larry Payne grew up. The actual ethos of King himself would amplify the unnamed, the unheard and the unseeen, and this is where the unreliable memories and bends of institutional racism requires us to lift the name and story of Larry Payne. The Great Man Theory of history would continue to center King in this story, despite the fact the Civil Rights Movement was comprised of workaday people, like Georgia Gilmore, a black cook who secretly fed and funded the effort.
LARRY THE LOOTER ON TV
But on March 28, 1968, he faced a cop with a gun and died surrounded by witnesses, accused of stealing a TV during looting, when earlier, he had been waiting outside historic Clayborn Temple with thousands of Memphians itching to hear what King might say. Memphis, New York, Chicago, and other cities, Larry took to the streets during a moment. Like young black Americans who sparked the Black Lives Matter movement and the teens who shook a nation during the recent March for Our Lives action in Washington, D.C. The deaths shook Memphis’ reputation as the “The City of Good Abode.” would be shot and killed while standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel. His death was a harbinger of how a brutal, racist dissonance would burrow itself into the American psyche and spark new movements aimed at protecting black lives, especially young ones. On April 2, 1968, Mitchell Road School classmates filed out of Clayborn Temple carrying a coffin containing the body of Larry Payne, 17. March 28 marks the day 17-year-old Larry Payne lost his life hiding from a policeman intent on tracking down looters The Mississippi River. Environmental Justice Open dropdown menu.On Losing Larry Payne - MLK50: Justice Through Journalism Close
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