Category: History

The assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., the most prominent leader of the American civil rights movement, happened on April 4, 1968, as he stood on the second floor balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. He had come to Memphis to lead a march by striking sanitation workers. In response to King’s death, more than 100 American inner cities exploded in rioting, looting, and violence. James Earl Ray, a career small-time criminal who became the object of a more than two-month manhunt before he was captured in England, pled guilty to the shooting. Continue reading