5. Nina Simone recorded a song to memorialize his loss.
Nina Simone has been on everyone’s minds lately with the controversy over Zoe Saldana’s portrayal being played out in the news and on social media. Much of the disagreement is rooted in Simone’s deep ties to civil rights and the struggle for racial equality. Just a few days after Dr. King was killed, she sang the question that the whole world was asking: Why (The King of Love is Dead).
As Nina Simone states in the video, this heartbreaking song was written by her bass player, Gene Taylor, one day after the news of Dr. King’s assassination spread. They debuted the song at the Westbury Music Fair in New York on April 9. In an interview aired on PBS, Simone reminisced on the Civil Rights era, saying: “It was bigotry that sealed his fate.”
