Martin Luther King Jr Assassination

1051 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: The impact of Martin Luther King Jr

Martin Luther King Jr, (MLK) was born on January 15,1929 in Atlanta, Georgia. He was born to Martin Luther King and Alberta William King.. His grandfather left an impression on Martin Luther King Jr. that sense of class superiority was very frowned upon. When Martin Luther King Jr, was 12 his grandma died and he was going against his parents wishes, with the news, young Martin Luther King Jr, jumped from the second story window of his home attempting suicide(N.D). In 1951 Martin Luther King Jr. was valedictorian of his college class, and was also elected student body president.Martin Luther King Jr, became the pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church of Montgomery, Alabama, in 1954(N.D.). He was only 25 years old and he was completing …show more content…

gave his first speech as leader of the Civil Rights Movement in Alabama, and said “ we have no alternative but to protest. For many years we have shown an amazing patience. We have given our white brothers the feeling that we like the way we were being treated. But we come here to be saved from that patience that makes us patient with anything less than freedom and justice,” (King, 1955,p.4). Throughout the time of the Civil Rights Movement, Martin Luther King Jr. was always encouraging nonviolent protests to help make colored people equal to whites. The Assassination of M.L.K. Martin Luther King, Jr. was standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis Tennessee on April 4, 1968 when he was suddenly struck in the head with a bullet. The gunshot was fired from the motel bathroom where they found the shell casing and fingerprints (N.D). After Martin Luther King Jr. was killed parts of the city were on fire, dark black smoke heaving into the sky, smell of acid, and losers ransacking stores (2). There are two widely held conspiracy theories allegedly to the death of Martin Luther King Jr. The Accepted Government …show more content…

that he would have Martin Luther King Jr. murdered. The FBI said they would “attempt” to find Martin Luther King Jr’s killer, but they knew the truth so they did not want to put much effort into trying. At one point during the “attempt” to find Martin Luther King Jr’s killer, the FBI said that a Memphis police office was the one who shot and killed Martin Luther King Jr. According to Weisberg,1993 the justice department limited the investigation of Martin Luther King Jr’s assassination. With the FBI and justice department limiting the investigation of Martin Luther King’s death arose questions of who really assassinated him. During a court trial the FBI agencies that had something to do with the investigation got examined and they were not able to defend themselves. In 1999, the government was found guilty of conspiring to assassinate Martin Luther King Jr..(1) Before the government was found guilty of conspiring to assassinate Martin Luther King Jr., James Earl Ray was convicted of killing him. After the government was found guilty of conspiring to assassinate Martin Luther King Jr. the mainstream media suppressed that the government had played in any role of Martin Luther King Jr’s

Show More
Related

  • Martin Luther King Jr Thesis Statement

    470 Words  | 1 Pages

    Martin Luther King Jr. was born on January 15,1929 in Atlanta, Georgia. He was the middle child of three born to Alberta Williams King and Martin Luther King Sr. Martin’s parents were kind and loving and did their best to try to shield their children

    Read More

  • James Earl Ray's Assassination

    909 Words  | 2 Pages

    On April 4, 1968 shortly after 1800 hours, Martin Luther King Jr. was fatally shot while standing on the hotel balcony of his second story room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee (Saferstein, 2014). King was in Memphis to support a sanitation workers strike and was on his way to dinner when he was shot in the head and neck area. King was rushed to a Memphis hospital and was pronounced dead shortly after 1900 hours. Martin Luther King Jr. was only 39 years old when he was assassinated (History, 2017). Forensic specialists stated that the bullet struck him in the jaw and severed his spinal cord. King was in Memphis the day prior to his assassination giving a speech at the Mason Temple Church in Memphis. In his speech, he seemed to have

    Read More

  • Research Paper On Martin Luther King Jr

    776 Words  | 2 Pages

    Martin Luther King Jr was born on the 15th of January, 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia, United States, known as Michael Luther King Jr and was than assassinated on the 4th of April 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee, United States. The world renowned Baptist minister and social activist had a massive impact on the American civil rights movement from the mid 1950’s until his assassination in 1968. Martin Luther King Jr’s up bringing was fairly pleasant and he was brought up with a great education. However, he had his couple of prejudices and traumatic experience through out his life. One of these including one of his friends who was a fair skinned boy who was told to tell King that he was no longer allowed to play with him because the children were now attending

    Read More

  • James Earl Ray

    1705 Words  | 4 Pages

    A Shot Against Freedom: The Assassination of Martin Luther King James Earl Ray was the perfect man to fit the description of King's murderer. He was a white, racist, petty criminal, an army throw-away, a nobody trying to make a name for himself. He left the perfect evidence behind as well, a rifle with his prints, and a personal radio with his prison ID engraved on it. James was also quite an unstable individual. At his own request, in 1966 Ray began psychological counseling to quiet the voices in his head (Gribben 2005).

    Read More

  • Dr. Martin Luther King’s Funeral and Assassination

    1592 Words  | 4 Pages

    Word spread like wildfire when the news of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination hit the public. As the leading civil rights activist in the 1960s, Martin Luther King Jr. preached words of peace and understanding among races. A well known name throughout the North and South, King gained extreme popularity within the African American community. When Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated a wave of sorrow spread across the nation. With rage, sadness, and hopelessness in the public eye, clearly the assassination hurt more than just one man, it hurt a nation.

    Read More

  • John F. Kennedy's Assassination

    463 Words  | 1 Pages

    Some theories are that it was organized by the CIA, Fidel Castro, an Anarchist group, even by Vice-President Lyndon Johnson. However, once all the evidence is examined, it appears that the assassination was done by a lone man. So much of the evidence, from the way the assassination occurred, to the details of the alleged assassins’ life, and even to the official government findings and a film of the assassination, all point to the fact that there was no conspiracy and that Kennedy was killed by a lone gunman, Lee Harvey Oswald. Evidence that proves Oswald’s guilt are as follows; Oswald was pro-Communist, and hated America. He was in the Depository at the time of the assassination, and searches of the building found evidence of his work. The rifle with his finger prints on it was found by a make-shift snipers nest.

    Read More

  • Who Killed Martin Luther King

    2636 Words  | 6 Pages

    Martin Luther King Jr. was a civil rights leader during the middle part of the twentieth century. He gave many speeches and led peace marches to gain equal rights for African Americans. I chose to research the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. I guess I knew that he was assassinated but I didn’t know the details. I wanted to know who killed him, when, where, and how King died. The Purpose of this paper is not to determine if James Earl Ray did in fact kill Martin Luther King. Rather, it is a dissection of characters and events utilizing the ideas of the illustrious James Baldwin. In the early part of 1968 he was interested in producing another civil rights march for the poor. Before that could happen, the sanitation workers of the city of Memphis, Tennessee, summoned him. He arrived in March in ord...

    Read More

  • The Assassination Of John Kennedy

    1748 Words  | 4 Pages

    From examining John F. Kennedy’s assassination, many people have come to the conclusion that there was a second party involved in the shooting of the President of the United States. The writers give great theories and facts leading people to believe that the Warren Report was false and later used to cover up the death of John Kennedy. With this great information out to the public it is obvious that the mob was involved with the planning assassination. After, all this evidence it only makes sense that the Warren Report is false, and that the mob was involved the whole time.

    Read More

  • Martin Luther King Assassination Research Paper

    1665 Words  | 4 Pages

    Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated on the evening of April 4, 1968 while exiting his hotel room. The news of King’s assassination left the African-American community shocked, disappointed and outraged. The assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. triggered various responses from the black and white communities. The black community’s main response was widespread violence throughout the United States, resulting in demises and military involvement, while a few decided to hold peaceful protests in King’s memory. Many in the white community celebrated, while others feared for their lives. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination fashioned a divide amongst the black and white populations, destroying lives, property, and necessitating the government’s

    Read More

  • Birmingham Jail Research Paper

    652 Words  | 2 Pages

    On April 4th, 1968, Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated in Memphis while preparing for a march on behalf of striking sanitation workers in the city. After Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered in 1968, riots and violence ensued in many cities and states across the United States of America. His death caused a media firestorm that portrayed African Americans in a violent and negative light. While there were many cities affected by his death, Greensboro, North Carolina had the most varied reactions due to its college students. Although these people responded in different ways to the tragedy, they reinforced the need for more representation and unification of students and rioters across the country.

    Read More

  • Martin Luther King Assassination

    3817 Words  | 8 Pages

    Just what exactly happened on April 4th, 1968 at 6:01PM? Just how many sides does this story have? The events surrounding Martin Luther King's death remain controversial to this day, after more than 30 years after the fact. The accepted story is a man named James Earl Ray was the assassin however, there are many contradictions to that conclusion. One must come to realize the accepted story is wrong, a cover up has deceived the public for over 30 years, James Earl Ray did not kill Martin Luther King; Martin Luther King was assassinated by a government conspiracy.

    Read More

  • The Kennedy Assassination

    1024 Words  | 3 Pages

    President John F. Kennedy was travelling along a predetermined motorcade route in Dallas, Texas when he was fatally shot, receiving wounds to the chest, back, and head. Shortly after the assassination, Dallas police arrested former U.S. Marine Corps Private Lee Harvey Oswald. On November 24 of the same year, Jack Ruby, owner of a Dallas nightclub, shot Oswald. Less than a year after the two murders, on September 24, 1964, the Warren Commission, headed by Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren, released a report stating their verdict that Lee Harvey Oswald killed President John F. Kennedy "alone and without advice or assistance" (Encarta). Now, thirty-five years after the assassination, many Americans still believe the commission's claim that Lee Harvey Oswald was the sole assassin of President Kennedy. However, all evidence points toward the more frightening reality that the United States government might have been involved in a conspiracy to kill the president and an ensuing cover-up. Thus, the question still remains: Who really killed J.F.K.? The day of President Kennedy's assassination, Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn into the office of president while flying back to Washington on Air Force One. Seven days later, Johnson appointed a commission of seven members, headed by Earl Warren, to investigate the assassination. After questioning 552 witnesses, the Warren Commission released their 296,000-word report on September 24, 1964 (Encarta). The Warren Report stated that Lee Harvey Oswald fired all three of the shots that killed President Kennedy from the Texas School Book Depository. This conclusion was accepted by the nation as proven fact until educated q...

    Read More

  • Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the Leader of the Civil Rights Movement

    1031 Words  | 3 Pages

    Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was an American baptist minister, Civil Rights activist, and humanitarian. He was born on January 25, 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia under the name of Michael King, Jr. Both he and his father later adopted the name of the German protestant leader Martin Luther in honor of him. King thrived at Booker T. Washington High School, graduating at the age of 15 before moving on to Morehouse College. For years, he had questioned religion, but in his third year of college, he took a bible class that renewed his faith. King later went on to study at Crozer theological seminary for three years. He met his future wife during his last year of seminary, and went on to receive his Ph.D in 1955 at the age of 25.

    Read More

  • The Influence of Martin Luther King Jr.

    812 Words  | 2 Pages

    To begin with, Martin Luther King Jr. was born in Atlanta, Georgia on January 15, 1929.2 His father, Martin Luther King Sr. who was a pastor, and his mother Alberta, who was a schoolteacher who raised both King and his two siblings.3 King was very religious because the three generations of men, starting with his great-grandfather, were all preachers. His younger brother and uncle were also preachers. Religion had a big influence on his life. King grew up in a neighborhood of average citizens. No great wealth or possessions, leaders, or anyone of great stature. His best friends were religious, attended Sunday school together and church which King was considered their second home.

    Read More

  • The Assassination of Martin Luther King

    1507 Words  | 4 Pages

    Convicted for armed robbery in 1960, James Earl Ray escaped from Missouri State Penitentiary on April 22, 1967. Ray’s hatred for the black population and support for Nazism fueled his drive to assassinate pacifistic leader, Martin Luther King, Jr. During the civil rights era, Martin Luther King, Jr.’s strong political and religious presence caused him to be a potential target as many denounced his promotion of equality amongst blacks and whites in America. Moreover, with the use of a Remington rifle, Ray shot King from a bathroom window of a hotel located across the street from the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, where he had a perfect view of King standing on the motel room balcony. On the eve of April 4, 1968, King was pronounced dead.

    Read More

More about Martin Luther King Jr Assassination

Open Document