On April 4, 1968, at 6:01 p.m. CST, Martin Luther King Jr., an American civil rights activist, was fatally shot at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. He was rushed to St. Joseph's Hospital, where he was pronounced dead with mortal injuries at 7:05 p.m. at age 39.
The assassin, James Earl Ray, an escaped convict from the Missouri State Penitentiary, was arrested on June 8, 1968, at London's Heathrow Airport, extradited to the United States and charged with the crime. On March 10, 1969, Ray pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 99 years in the Tennessee State Penitentiary. He later made many attempts to withdraw his guilty plea and to be tried by a jury, but was unsuccessful, before he died in 1998.
The King family and others believe that the assassination was the result of a conspiracy involving the U.S. government, the Mafia, and Memphis police, as alleged by Loyd Jowers in 1993. They believe that Ray was a scapegoat. In 1999, the family filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Jowers for the sum of $10 million. During the trial, both sides presented evidence alleging a government conspiracy. The accused government agencies could not defend themselves or respond because they were not named as defendants. Based on the evidence, the jury concluded that Jowers and others were "part of a conspiracy to kill King" and awarded the family the symbolic $100 they requested in damages. The allegations and the finding of the Memphis jury were later disputed by the United States Department of Justice in 2000 due to a perceived lack of evidence.
The assassination was one of four major assassinations of the 1960s in the United States, coming several years after the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963 and the assassination of Malcolm X in 1965, and two months before the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy in June 1968.
As early as the mid-1950s, Martin Luther King Jr. had received death threats because of his prominence in the civil rights movement. He had confronted the risk of death, including a nearly fatal stabbing in 1958, and made its recognition part of his philosophy. He taught that murder could not advance the struggle for equal rights. After the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963, King told his wife, Coretta Scott King, "This is what is going to happen to me also. I keep telling you, this is a sick society."
King traveled to Memphis, Tennessee, in support of striking African-American city sanitation workers. At the time, Memphis paid black workers a wage of just $1 an hour. There were also no city-issued uniforms, no restrooms, no recognized union, and no grievance procedure for the numerous occasions on which they were underpaid.
These unethical conditions were imposed by mayor Henry Loeb, and during his tenure, conditions did not significantly improve. This, along with the deaths of two workers in a garbage-compacting truck on February 1, 1968, caused laborers to conspire to stage a protest on February 11, 1968. The strike took place the following day, and lasted for over two months.
After being contacted by the Reverend James Lawson Jr., King would fly out to Memphis on March 18 to help the strikers, and announced that he would head a march in a few days. On March 28, King and the Reverend Ralph Abernathy, a colleague and friend of his, then began this peaceful march at the Clayborn Temple. Six thousand people participated in this march, but it would end in violence.
King was deeply upset by the failure of the march and left Memphis the following day, but would return along with Abernathy and administrative assistant Bernard Scott Lee on April 3, although their flight had been delayed due to a bomb threat. King then checked into room 306 at the Lorraine Motel at about 11:20 a.m., before leaving shortly past 12 p.m. to go to a meeting, announcing that he would head another march on April 5.
By that time, tornado warnings had been reported that afternoon, and heavy rainfall hit the city by that night. Despite the weather, King managed to arrive in time to make a planned speech to a gathering at the Mason Temple (also known as the world headquarters of the Church of God in Christ), where around 2,000 people were waiting for him.
"I've Been to the Mountaintop" speech
At the Mason Temple on the night of April 3, King delivered his famous "I've Been to the Mountaintop" speech, which soon proved to be his last. King had initially asked Abernathy to speak for him, but after seeing the enthusiasm of the crowd at the temple, Abernathy called King and urged him to address the people instead, to which he agreed.
During the speech, he recalled his 1958 attempted assassination, noting that the doctor who treated him had said that because the knife used to stab him was so close to his aorta, any sudden movement, even a sneeze, might have killed him. He referred to a letter written by a young girl who told him that she was happy that he had not sneezed. He used that reference to say:
I, too, am happy that I didn't sneeze. Because if I had sneezed, I wouldn't have been around here in 1960, when students all over the South started sitting-in at lunch counters.... If I had sneezed, I wouldn't have been around here in 1961, when we decided to take a ride for freedom and ended segregation in interstate travel.
As he neared the close, he prophetically referred to the threats against his life:
And then I got to Memphis. And some began to say the threats ... or talk about the threats that were out. What would happen to me from some of our sick white brothers? Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And 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 so 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!
Events before the assassination
After the night of April 3 went into April 4, King's brother, A. D. King, checked into room 201 at the Lorraine Motel at roughly 1 a.m. after coming from Florida. After King woke up, Walter Bailey, the owner of the Lorraine Motel at the time, later stated that King seemed particularly happy that day. King, a regular smoker, had gone out to the balcony to smoke a cigarette, a habit he hid from the public.