Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is assassinated
The body of the slain Civil Rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. lies in state at the R.S. Lewis funeral home in Memphis, Tennessee. Hundreds of mourners filed in on April 5, , before his body was sent to Atlanta for burial.
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Crowds of mourners took to the streets around the country on April 7, , like this crowd seen in Harlem. This crowd was on their way to a memorial service for Dr. King being put on in Central Park that would pull in thousands across the city.
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Soldiers stationed in Vietnam during the war attended a memorial service as well on April 8, The chaplain eulogized King as “America’s voice for the wisdom of non-violence.”
Eddie Adams/AP Photo
The first funeral was held for a group of family and friends at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia, where King and his father had both served as pastor. Coretta Scott King, his wife, requested that the church play a recording of “The Drum Major Instinct,” a sermon her husband had delivered earlier that year. In it, he said he didn’t want a long funeral or e
The Assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Photo by Getty Images/Bettmann Archive
On April 4, , at pm, James Earl Ray, a white drifter and petty criminal, raised a bathroom window at the rear of Bessie Brewer’s Rooming House on South Main Street in Memphis, TN and aimed a Remington Model rifle across the street at the Lorraine Motel.
When he saw Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. step onto the balcony of room , he pulled the trigger. A fraction of a second later, a single caliber bullet from his weapon struck the civil rights leader in the head. At pm, doctors at St. Joseph’s Hospital pronounced Dr. King dead. He was
Photo by Getty Images/Bettmann Archive
As word of the tragedy spread throughout Memphis, a pall of shock and sadness blanketed the black community. Anguish soon turned to anger. Fearing a riot, the Memphis police went on high alert. But calm prevailed.
Local civil rights activists, who for the past two months had been leading a full-scale grassroots mobilization to support striking black sanitation workers, channeled raw emotions into peaceful marches and public remembrances.
Nonviolence, however, did not win out everywhere. At least U.S. cities explod
Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.
April 4,
At P.M. on Thursday, 4 April , 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 American cities. James Earl Ray, a year-old escaped fugitive, later confessed to the crime and was sentenced to a 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 to speak with Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) co
There were early signs of rioting in Memphis after Dr King's death and 4, members of the National Guard were drafted into the city.
A dusk-to-dawn curfew has been ordered to ward off disturbances.
The US President, Lyndon Johnson, has postponed a trip to Hawaii for peace talks on Vietnam.
The president said he was "shocked and saddened" by the civil rights leader's death.
"I ask every citizen to reject the blind violence that has taken Dr King who lived by non-violence," Mr Johnson said.
Bus boycott
Dr King, 39, had previously survived several attempts on his life including the bombing of his home in
The charismatic civil rights leader joined the crusade for equal rights for black people in America in the mid s.
He first came to national prominence as one of the leaders of the Alabama bus boycott in
In Dr King led a massive march on Washington DC where he delivered his now famous "I have a dream" speech.
Dr King advocated the use of non-violent tactics such as sit-ins and protest marches.
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