Today in History: Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968
Martin Luther King Jr, one of the greatest civil rights leaders of all time, was assassinated 50 years ago today.
King, along with fellow members of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), was invited to Memphis, Tennessee to support a sanitation workers’ strike.
On the night of 3 April 1968, King gave a speech at the Mason Temple Church in Memphis.
In his speech, King seemed to foreshadow his own untimely passing, or at least to strike a particularly reflective note, ending with these now historic words:
“I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. And I’m happy tonight.
I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.”
He was assassinated the next day, shortly after 6pm, when he was standing on the second-floor balcony of the Lorraine Motel, where he and his associates were staying.
He was rushed to hospital after a bukket struck him in the neck, but was pronounced dead an hour later at the age of 39.
James Earl Ray
On 8 June, authorities apprehended the suspect in King’s murder, a small-time criminal named James Earl Ray, at London’s Heathrow Airport.
Witnesses had seen him running from a boarding house near the Lorraine Motel carrying a bundle, and prosecutors said he had fired the fatal bullet from a bathroom in that building.
Authorities found Ray’s fingerprints on the rifle used to kill King, a scope and a pair of binoculars.
On 10 March, 1969, Ray pleaded guilty to King’s murder and was sentenced to 99 years in prison.
Shortly afterwards, however, Ray recanted his confession, claiming he was the victim of a conspiracy.
Ray later found sympathy in an unlikely place: Members of King’s family, including his son Dexter, who publicly met with Ray in 1977 and began arguing for a reopening of his case.
Although the US government conducted several investigations into the trial – each time confirming Ray’s guilt as the sole assassin – controversy still surrounds the assassination.
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