(ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION) The last thing Martin Luther King Jr. ever wanted to do was get arrested.
So on Oct. 19, 1960, when he and dozens of young protesters were arrested in downtown Atlanta for participating in a sit-in demonstration at Rich’s department store, setting off a series of historic events, he was devastated.“King didn’t like to be arrested. He was not like John Lewis,” said King’s biographer Clayborne Carson, referring to a later conversation King had with his wife, Coretta Scott, where he said that the loneliness of prison was too difficult to bear, adding: “He just broke down and cried and then he felt so ashamed of himself.”