Associates of
Martin Luther
King Jr. point
toward the sound
where the
gunfire
originated just
moments after
his
assassination at
the Lorraine
Motel on April
4, 1968, in
Memphis,
Tenn.Joseph Louw
/ The LIFE
Images
Collection via
Getty
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A wreath
sits
below
The
Statue
of Hope,
a
monument
of Civil
Rights
Leader
Martin
Luther
King Jr,
at his
memorial
on the
Tidal
Basin in
Washington,
D.C. The
nation
on
Monday
marks
the 38th
annual
Martin
Luther
King Jr.
federal
holiday.
File
photo by
Bonnie
Cash/UPI |
|
56 years
later:
The
assassination
of
Martin
Luther
King,
Jr.
April 4,
1968
MEMPHIS,
TN - At
6:05
P.M. on
Thursday,
4 April
1968,
Martin
Luther
King was
shot
dead
while
standing
on a
balcony
outside
his
second-floor
room at
the
Lorraine
Motel in
Memphis,
Tennessee.
News of
King’s
assassination
prompted
major
outbreaks
of
racial
violence,
resulting
in more
than 40
deaths
nationwide
and
extensive
property
damage
in over
100
American
cities.
James
Earl
Ray, a
40-year-old
escaped
fugitive,
later
confessed
to the
crime
and was
sentenced
to a
99-year
prison
term.
During
King’s
funeral
a tape
recording
was
played
in which
King
spoke of
how he
wanted
to be
remembered
after
his
death:
“I’d
like
somebody
to
mention
that day
that
Martin
Luther
King,
Jr.,
tried to
give his
life
serving
others”
(King,
“Drum
Major
Instinct,”
85).
King had
arrived
in
Tennessee
on
Wednesday,
3 April,
to
prepare
for a
march
the
following
Monday
on
behalf
of
striking
Memphis
sanitation
workers.
As he
prepared
to leave
the
Lorraine
Motel
for a
dinner
at the
home of
Memphis
minister
Samuel
“Billy”
Kyles,
King
stepped
out onto
the
balcony
of room
306 to
speak
with
Southern
Christian
Leadership
Conference
(SCLC)
colleagues
standing
in the
parking
area
below.
An
assassin
fired a
single
shot
that
caused
severe
wounds
to the
lower
right
side of
his
face.
SCLC
aides
rushed
to him,
and
Ralph
Abernathy
cradled
King’s
head.
Others
on the
balcony
pointed
across
the
street
toward
the rear
of a
boarding
house on
South
Main
Street
where
the shot
seemed
to have
originated.
An
ambulance
rushed
King to
St.
Joseph’s
Hospital,
where
doctors
pronounced
him dead
at 7:05
P.M.
President
Lyndon
B.
Johnson
called
for a
national
day of
mourning
to be
observed
on 7
April.
In the
following
days,
public
libraries,
museums,
schools,
and
businesses
were
closed,
and the
Academy
Awards
ceremony
and
numerous
sporting
events
were
postponed.
On 8
April
King’s
widow,
Coretta
Scott
King,
and
other
family
members
joined
thousands
of
participants
in a
march in
Memphis
honoring
King and
supporting
the
sanitation
workers.
King’s
funeral
service
was held
the
following
day in
Atlanta
at
Ebenezer
Baptist
Church.
It was
attended
by many
of the
nation’s
political
and
civil
rights
leaders,
including
Jacqueline
Kennedy,
Vice
President
Hubert
Humphrey,
and
Ralph
Bunche.
Morehouse
College
President
Benjamin
Mays
delivered
the
eulogy,
predicting
that
King
“would
probably
say
that, if
death
had to
come, I
am sure
there
was no
greater
cause to
die for
than
fighting
to get a
just
wage for
garbage
collectors”
(Mays, 9
April
1968).
Over
100,000
mourners
followed
two
mules
pulling
King’s
coffin
through
the
streets
of
Atlanta.
After
another
ceremony
on the
Morehouse
campus,
King’s
body was
initially
interred
at
South-View
Cemetery.
Eventually,
it was
moved to
a crypt
next to
the
Ebenezer
Church
at the
King
Center,
an
institution
founded
by
King’s
widow.
Shortly
after
the
assassination,
a
policeman
discovered
a bundle
containing
a 30.06
Remington
rifle
next
door to
the
boarding
house.
The
largest
investigation
in
Federal
Bureau
of
Investigation
(FBI)
history
led its
agents
to an
apartment
in
Atlanta.
Fingerprints
uncovered
in the
apartment
matched
those of
James
Earl
Ray, a
fugitive
who had
escaped
from a
Missouri
prison
in April
1967.
FBI
agents
and
police
in
Memphis
produced
further
evidence
that Ray
had
registered
on 4
April at
the
South
Main
Street
roominghouse
and that
he had
taken a
second-floor
room
near a
common
bathroom
with a
view of
the
Lorraine
Motel.
The
identification
of Ray
as a
suspect
led to
an
international
manhunt.
On 19
July
1968 Ray
was
extradited
to the
United
States
from
Britain
to stand
trial.
In a
plea
bargain,
Tennessee
prosecutors
agreed
in March
1969 to
forgo
seeking
the
death
penalty
when Ray
pled
guilty
to
murder
charges.
The
circumstances
leading
to the
plea
later
became a
source
of
controversy,
when Ray
recanted
his
confession
soon
after
being
sentenced
to a
99-year
term in
prison.
During
the
years
following
King’s
assassination,
doubts
about
the
adequacy
of the
case
against
Ray were
fueled
by
revelations
of the
extensive
surveillance
of King
by the
FBI and
other
government
agencies.
Beginning
in 1976
the
House
Select
Committee
on
Assassinations,
chaired
by
Representative
Louis
Stokes,
re-examined
the
evidence
concerning
King’s
assassination,
as well
as that
of
President
John F.
Kennedy.
The
committee’s
final
report
suggested
that Ray
may have
had
co-conspirators.
The
report
nonetheless
concluded
that
there
was no
convincing
evidence
of
government
complicity
in
King’s
assassination.
After
recanting
his
guilty
plea,
Ray
continued
to
maintain
his
innocence,
claiming
to have
been
framed
by a
gun-smuggler
he knew
as
“Raoul.”
In 1993
Ray’s
lawyer,
William
F.
Pepper,
sought
to build
popular
support
to
reopen
Ray’s
case by
staging
a
televised
mock
trial of
Ray in
which
the
“jury”
found
him not
guilty.
In 1997
members
of
King’s
family
publicly
supported
Ray’s
appeal
for a
new
trial,
and
King’s
son
Dexter
Scott
King
supported
Ray’s
claims
of
innocence
during a
televised
prison
encounter.
Despite
this
support
Tennessee
authorities
refused
to
reopen
the
case,
and Ray
died in
prison
on 23
April
1998.
Even
after
Ray’s
death,
conspiracy
allegations
continued
to
surface.
In 1999,
on
behalf
of
King’s
widow
and
children,
Pepper
won a
token
civil
verdict
of
wrongful
death
against
Lloyd
Jowers,
owner of
Jim’s
Grill, a
restaurant
across
the
street
from the
Lorraine
Motel.
Although
the
trial
produced
considerable
testimony
that
contradicted
the
original
case
against
Ray, the
Justice
Department
announced
in 2000
that its
own
internal
investigation,
launched
in 1998
at the
King
family’s
request,
had
failed
to find
sufficient
evidence
to
warrant
a
further
investigation.
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