Updated 4/3/2009 4:55:21 PM
ATLANTA Ga. -- Andrew Young was a youthful soldier in martin Luther King Junior's civil rights army. He was with King at the Lorraine motel that night 41 years ago, in Memphis.
He sees Dr. King's assassination and the images from that night in religious terms: as part of the upcoming Easter holiday -- the assassination as crucifixion, and where we are today as resurrection.
NBC has acquired the rights to eight of the 13 pictures appearing on the Life Magazine Web site. They are never-before-seen images taken in the moments following Dr. King's murder. Some are graphic.
Andrew Young believes all are necessary.
"I think it's important that we not forget," Young said. "I can never forget."
In one of the pictures, Young is seen in a room at the Lorraine motel later in the evening of April 4, 1968. The picture captured the moment when the American civil rights movement committed to King's legacy.
"As soon as we got back from the hospital, the first thing we did in coming together was say, 'It's our job to say that he did not die in vain. And that everything he gave his life for, happens'," said Young.
Young admits to a surprising reaction that night.
"At the moment of the assassination I was mad at Martin for getting killed and leaving us here," said Young. "And I said doggone it, you going on to heaven and leaving us here in hell."
At the time, Andrew Young did not know how he and the rest of the civil rights movement would make it without Martin Luther King, Junior.
Now he understands that from tragedy comes knowledge.
He believes that the world did not truly understand the message of Martin Luther King, Junior until after his death...when they were moved to review his life and re-interpret his words.
Anything that encourages us to revisit Doctor King's message, Young says---like the release of these pictures---is appropriate.
"In Christian terms" says Young, "you know that after the cross there is the resurrection. In secular terms you learn to realize that without a storm there's no rainbows."
Upon the release of pictures from the moments just after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Junior....Andrew Young is seeing rainbows....
