It was after Martin Luther King’s mother was murdered (while playing the organ at her church) that this print titled “Together Again” was presumably created featuring both Martin Luther King, Jr. and his mother. Alberta King was shot and killed on June 30, 1974, at age 69, by Marcus Wayne Chenault, a 23-year-old black man from Ohio who had adopted an extremist version of the theology of the Black Hebrew Israelites. Chenault’s mentor, Rev. Hananiah E. Israel of Cincinnati, castigated black civil rights activists and black church leaders as being evil and deceptive, but claimed in interviews not to have advocated violence. Chenault did not draw any such distinction, and actually first decided to assassinate Rev. Jesse Jackson in Chicago, but canceled the plan at the last minute. Two weeks later he set out for Atlanta, where he shot Alberta King with two handguns as she sat at the organ of the Ebenezer Baptist Church. Chenault said that he shot King because “all Christians are my enemies,” and claimed that he had decided that black ministers were a menace to black people. He said his original target had been Martin Luther King, Sr., but he had decided to shoot his wife instead because she was near him. He also killed one of the church’s deacons, Edward Boykin, in the attack, and wounded another woman.
Martin Luther King Sr. said “I cannot hate any man” in relation to Chenault at her funeral but resigned as a pastor at the Ebenezer Church the next year. This ended a period where three generations of her family were pastors at the church since 1894.
The lower left corner of the print reads “1000 v Together Again”
Civil Rights Heritage Museum Online 