Dr. Martin Luther King’s Funeral and Assassination
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.
A single shot killed 39-year-old Martin Luther King Jr. on April 4, 1968. At the Lorraine Hotel in Memphis, Tennessee, a sniper from about “50-100 yards away,” shot and struck Dr. King’s neck, while instantaneously killing him (“Martin Luther King Slain” 139). From the crime scene, F.B.I. investigators traced a “white Mustang automobile,” and an “‘unusually large’ amount of physical evidence” (Waldron 1). With fingerprints, the actual rifle, and eyewitnesses as definite pieces of evidence, F.B.I. agents concluded that a Caucasian man executed the assassination and that he would be very easily caught (Waldron 1). Eyewitness testimony even stated that the “saw a white man [ran] from the house immediately after the shooting” (“Martin Luther King Slain” 140). As a shocking and horrific event, the assassination of Dr. King proved to test the nation’s character.
Shortly after the news of Martin Luther King’s assassination spread, “sporadic violence erupted in Harlem and Brooklyn’s . . . section . . . in two predominantly Negro communities” (Johnson 1). With a total of twelve men arrested and violence brea...
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.... Killing the Dream: James Earl Ray and the Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.. New York: Random House, 1998.
Ripley, Anthony. “50,000 Expected for Funeral of Dr. King in Atlanta Today.” New York Times 9 Apr. 1968: 1-2. ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times. Library Gateway, Champaign-Urbana, Illinois. 11 Apr. 2004
Ripley, Anthony. “Funeral Is Ignored by Whites But Some Atlanta Stores Close.” New York Times 9 Apr. 1968: 1-2. ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times. Library Gateway, Champaign-Urbana, Illinois. 11 Apr. 2004
Waldron, Martin. “Clark Is Sure Killer Will Soon Be Seized.” New York Times 6 Apr. 1968: 1-2. ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times. Library Gateway, Champaign-Urbana, Illinois. 11 Apr. 2004
In the 2005 documentary, The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till, Emmett’s mother Mamie states that Sheriff Strider of Charleston decided to have her son’s body buried immediately there in Mississippi instead of sending it back to her in Chicago. It took Mrs. Till’s rallying of Officials in Chicago, where she lived, to have the burying of her son halted at the moment his body was about to be lowered into the ground. She went to great personal expense for her son to be shipped home to her. Upon receiving the box she wanted to see her only child one last time and see what his murderers had done to him. Opening the box and viewing the corpse revealed that ghastly truth of what had happened to her precious boy. In an astounding move she decided to have an open casket viewing. When asked by the funeral director if she wanted him to try to clean up the b...
also exemplifies a compassionate leader, but another leadership quality of King’s was his unmatched trustworthiness amongst the black people of the 1950’s and 60’s. Martin Luther King Jr. lived during a time of severe segregation and hate toward the African-American people of the United States. Many African-American civil rights activists- such as Reverend George Lee, Lamar Smith, and NAACP State Director Medgar Evers- were victims of gruesome murders due to their efforts in the Civil Rights Movement (Austin, 2002). Martin Luther King Jr. too was killed as a result of his efforts as one of the leaders of the movement, and every time that King organized a demonstration, his followers also risked their lives by participating. Their trust in Martin Luther King Jr.’s non-violent demonstrations was eventually rewarded, as now the African-American people comprise an important part of
‘Fire in a canebrake’ is quite a scorcher by Laura Wexler and which focuses on the last mass lynching which occurred in the American Deep South, the one in the heartland of rural Georgia, precisely Walton County, Georgia on 25th July, 1946, less than a year after the Second World War. Wexler narrates the story of the four black sharecroppers who met their end ‘at the hand of person’s unknown’ when an undisclosed number of white men simply shot the blacks to death. The author concentrates on the way the evidence was collected in those eerie post war times and how the FBI was actually involved in the case, but how nothing came of their extensive investigations.
"Emmett Till." American Decades. Ed. Judith S. Baughman, et al. Vol. 6: 1950-1959. Detroit: Gale, 2001. Gale Biography In Context. Web. 23 Feb. 2014.
Whenever Martin Luther King Junior, began to speak, he held everybody’s attention. This was the case in 1963 during the pinnacle of the Civil Rights Movement when Martin gave his career defining speech “I Have a Dream”. Over a quarter million people attended the protest, and the crowd varied in color as well as cause. A crowd of this size would certainly frighten most people; but Martin was not the type of man to be phased easily. Martin grew up on the racist streets of Atlanta, Georgia and faced much adversity in his life. Not even thirty-five Martin would give a speech that would shake an embroiled nation to its core. Martin Luther King Junior gave a speech to beautifully wove together the three appeals of ethos, logos, and pathos into one
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...
On a Humid Saturday Afternoon on September 20, 1958, Dr. King sat in a Harlem Department store signing copies of his book on the Montgomery bus boycott entitled “Stride Toward Freedom”. Amidst all the smiles and support of the crowd derived an obviously deranged woman. She approached Dr. King and inquired,”Are you Martin Luther King?” As Dr. King Replied, ”Yes“ She stabbed him in the chest with a letter opener. Dr. King was rushed to the Harlem hospital by ambulance where he was immediately prepped and admitted to the surgery ward. After hours on the operating table the head surgeon Dr. Maynard, had the saturnine duty of telling the King family that the totality of effort shown by he an his team were only able to slow Dr.
When Ta-Nehisi Coates spoke about the murder of his friend, Prince Jones, I felt the same pain and frustration he expressed in his essay. Though none have been acquaintances of mine, I too have mourned the deaths of Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice, and many others over the years. I realize increasingly that these deaths at the hands of police officers are not only mourned by those closest to them, but the black community as a
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.
It was a glorious April 4th evening as Martin Luther King and hundreds of followers were gathering for a civil rights march. Many cheered on as the civil rights leader graciously out step on the second floor balcony of the Motel Lorraine. Roaring cheers rose from the crowd rose up as Martin Luther King stand there waving his arm with his heart warming smile waiting for the uprising taper off so he can continue with his speech. When suddenly a piercing blast broke the noise and the crowd’s cheerful spirit died. A cold chill went through all who were present fore in the back of their minds there was no doubt that their King had just been shot.
This incident would have produced nothing more than another report for resisting arrest had a bystander, George Holliday, not videotaped the altercation. Holliday then released the footage to the media. LAPD Officers Lawrence Powell, Stacey Koon, Timothy Wind and Theodore Brisino were indicted and charged with assaulting King. Superior Court Judge Stanley Weisberg ordered a change of venue to suburban Simi Valley, which is a predominantly white suburb of Los Angeles. All officers were subsequently acquitted by a jury comprised of 10 whites, one Hispanic and one Asian, and the African American community responded in a manner far worse than the Watts Riots of 1965. ?While the King beating was tragic, it was just the trigger that released the rage of a community in economic strife and a police department in serious dec...
Exploring Why Martin Luther King Was Both Bitterly Criticised and Deeply Mourned by Black Citizens of the USA
Kirk, J. (2007). Martin Luther King, Jr. and the civil rights movement: controversies and debates. Basingstoke New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
On the morning of March 3rd, 1991 an African-American man led police on a high-speed chase through the city of Los Angeles. Approximately eight miles later police swarmed around the car and confronted the driver, who went by the name Rodney King. During the confrontation, officers tortured King until the point he was forced to seek medical care. A case was opened and the police officers were acquitted. This angered many people, specifically Blacks and led to the historical “L.A. Riots’’ , where they felt race had something to do with the case.
Recently, an Inglewood police officer was captured on videotape slamming a sixteen-year old boy on the trunk of a squad car and punching him in the face even though the youngster was handcuffed. A year after the King atrocity, two white Detroit police officers bludgeoned Malice Green to death with their flashlights tearing off part of his scalp. Three years later, five foot five inch-one hundred forty five pound Johnny Gammage was pulled over while driving through a predominantly white Pittsburgh suburb, only to be choked and beaten to death after allegedly attacking five white police officers. In 1997, a New York City police officer rammed a stick from a toilet plunger six inches into the rectum of Abner Louima rupturing his intestines (Troutt 6). To make matters worse the officer stuck the soiled stick into the victim's mouth. Two years later, Amadou Diallo and former pro football player Demetrius DuBose were murdered by New York City and San Diego police respectively. Diallo was shot by four white plain-clothes officers while standing in the vestibule of his own Bronx apartment building. According to the officers upon approaching the building Diallo stepped back inside as if to hide. When Diallo reached into ...