Channel 2 Action News is learning more about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s relationship with his best friend, the Rev. Ralph David Abernathy Sr.
Channel 2's Mark Winne spoke with Abernathy's widow, Juanita, in a sit down interview. Juanita Abernathy says her husband heard the shot that killed King. When he saw the soles of his shoes, that's when he realized what he heard, which sounded like a firecracker, was a shot.
Mrs. Abernathy says her husband's life was forever impacted by Dr. King's assassination.
The memories of Memphis never left Rev. Abernathy, nothing was ever the same
after he cradled his best friend, his partner and frequent cellmate in the Civil Rights Movement.
They were like brothers.
"He grieved as though he had lost a blood brother. He really mourned," Mrs. Abernathy said.
Mrs. Abernathy says the two men knew each other as students in Atlanta even before Rev. Abernathy helped usher Dr. King into the forefront of the Montgomery Bus Boycott when both were young pastors in 1955 and two years later they led the founding of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference together.
That same night she indicated her home was bombed.
"It was a God-fearing effort," she said.
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