Martin Luther King’s Day of Murder

In the history of inspirational rhetoric, Martin Luther King stands high. The magnificent speech of « I have a dream » in a huge crowd in Washington in 1963 was held from all over the world, remaining as a reference point for world claims.

King had first become known to the public as an inspirational leader during the boycott of buses at Alabama which began in 1955, when he was twenty -six years old.

Martin Luther King’s Day of Murder

Originally from Georgia, he was the pastor of the Baptist church of Dexter Avenue in Montgomery, Alabama, while both his father and his grandfather from his mother were Baptist priests.

In 1964 King won the Nobel Peace Prize, and as the decade progressed, he expanded his concerns, focusing on the problem of poverty, both between white and black, and opposition to the Vietnam War.

« Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legally, » he said.

In 1967 he announced the establishment of the Poople’s Campaign to push the federal government to take more effective action against poverty.

In an essay that was published long after his death, he argued that the political rights movement forced America to « deal with all its interrelated defects – racism, poverty, militarism and materialism ».

In the meantime, black fighters, angry by what they considered slow progress, were removed from him and the principle of his non -violence. « We have to accept the finite frustration, but never lose the infinite hope, » King argued.

The speech « I have a vision »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VP4IY1TTS3s

In the first months of 1968, King visited Memphis of Tennessee several times to support the strike of the city’s black workers.

A leading protest there in March, he opposed when some of the protesters began breaking windows and looting shops.

King disagreed with violence. Later, speaking at a rally in Memphis on April 3 about the threats of death against him, he said: « As everyone would like to live a long life. Longevity has its grace. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do the will of God, which allowed me to climb the mountain. And I looked and saw the land of the profession. I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we, as a people, will reach the land of the profession. « 

Martin Luther King and some of his friends spent that night at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis and around six the following night he was standing on the balcony outside the second floor room with a friend, Samuel Kilis, waiting to go out for dinner

Wikimedia commons

Martin Luther King and some of his friends spent that night at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis and around six the following night he was standing on the balcony outside the second floor room with a friend, Samuel Kilis, waiting to go out for dinner.

Kilis turned his back to go down the street, where a limousine was waiting for them, when a click was heard like a damaged car exhaust.

It was a shotgun shot, apparently out of the window of a pension opposite, and King fell on the balcony floor, deadly injured.

Another friend, Ralph Abernathi, who was in the motel room, ran to the balcony, saw King lying there with an open wound on his head and shouted: « Martin, Martin, I’m Ralph. Do you hear me? I’m Ralph. « 

King’s lips moved, but he was unable to speak. They called an ambulance, but King died before he arrived. It was thirty -nine years old.

Wikimedia commons

Mahalia Chakson sang King’s favorite anthem, « Take my hand, precious lord », at his funeral in Atlanta, Georgia.

Conspiracy theories about the murder have flourished since then, but at that time the killer was recognized as a white minor criminal by Tennessee named James Earl Rey. He popped it in England, but was arrested in London and was released back to Memphis, where he was tried in 1969, he said guilty of the murder and was sentenced to ninety -nine years in prison.

He later complained about his innocence, but few believed him and died in prison at the age of seventy in 1998.

« If you haven’t discovered what you would die you are not capable of living, » Martin Luther King wrote in his autobiography.

*With details from Historytoday.com | Home Photo: Martin Luther King, shot on the balcony of the Lorraine motel in Memphis, April 4, 1968 / Wikimedia Commons