The Assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

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Martin Luther King, Jr. was an American clergyman, activist, and prominent leader of the African-American civil rights movement and Nobel Peace Prize laureate who became known for his advancement of civil rights by using civil disobedience.

A Baptist minister and founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), King had led the civil rights movement since the mid-1950s, using a combination of powerful words and non-violent tactics such as sit-ins, boycotts and protest marches (including the massive March on Washington in 1963) to fight segregation and achieve significant civil and voting rights advances for African Americans. His assassination led to an outpouring of anger among black Americans, as well as a period of national mourning that helped speed the way for an equal housing bill that would be the last significant legislative achievement of the civil rights era. In early April 1968, shock waves reverberated around the world with the news that U.S. civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. had been assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. He was assassinated at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee on April 4, 1968, at the age of 39. He was shot in the neck as he stood on a hotel balcony and Reverend Jesse Jackson was on the balcony with Dr King when the single shot rang out. "He had just bent over. I reckon if he had been standing up he would not have been hit in the face," said Mr Jackson. King was rushed to St. Joseph's Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 7:05PM that evening.

James Earl Ray, a fugitive from the Missouri State Penitentiary, was arrested in London at Heathrow Airport, extradited to the United States, and charged with the crime. On March 10, 1969, Ray entered a plea of guilty and was sentenced to 99 years in the Tennessee State Penitentiary. Ray later made many attempts to withdraw his guilty plea and be tried by a jury, but was unsuccessful; he died in prison on April 23, 1998, at the age of 70. The King family and others believe that the assassination was carried out by a conspiracy involving the US government, as alleged by Loyd Jowers in 1993, and that James Earl Ray was a scapegoat. In a 1999 civil trial that did not name the US government as a defendant and sought $100 from Jowers, with both the family and Jowers cooperating together and the only presenting parties, the jury ruled against Jowers and Unidentified Coconspirators.

Martin Luther King, Jr.'s death shocked a country rocked by riots, civil discord, and a controversial war. Four thousand National Guard troops were ordered into Memphis by Gov. Buford Ellington after the 39-year-old Nobel Prize-winning civil rights leader died. A curfew was imposed on the shocked city of 550,000 inhabitants, 40 per cent of whom are Negro, and his death sparked nationwide protests, a two-month manhunt and an outpouring of grief for the slain civil rights leader who continues to stand for equal rights, peaceful protests and justice for all.

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On April 4, 1968, LIFE photographer Henry Groskinsky and writer Mike Silva, on assignment in Alabama, learned that Martin Luther King, Jr., had been shot at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis. The two men jumped into their car, raced the 200 miles to the scene of the assassination, and there — to their astonishment — found that they had unfettered access to the motel’s grounds; to nearby abandoned buildings from which the fatal rifle shot likely came; to Dr. King’s motel room; and to the bleak, blood-stained balcony where the civil rights leader fell, mortally wounded, hours earlier.

“I was astonished by how desolate it all was,” Groskinsky, now 79 years old, told LIFE.com when asked about the mood in the neighborhood around the motel. “Then again, everyone probably thought that the person who shot Dr. King might still be out there somewhere.”