Assassination attempt on Martin Luther King
The fatal assassination attempt on Martin Luther King occurred on April 4, 1968 at 6:01 p.m. local time (April 5, 1:01 am CET) in Memphis , Tennessee . It led to political unrest and continues to give rise to conspiracy theories to this day . In the United States , it is political murder that, along with the assassination attempt on John F. Kennedy in the twentieth century, has garnered great media attention and the individual consciousness of many. James Earl Ray was convicted of the crime .
attack
Martin Luther King decided, in view of the upcoming Poor People's March , to demonstrate first in Memphis , Tennessee, and to stand up again for the (social) equality of all American citizens of black skin color. Also, the Memphis visit could be seen as a kind of test of how strongly the masses would react to him.
On April 3, 1968, he said in his famous speech I've been to the mountaintop , that he the Promised Land (Original: Promised Land ) have seen. Many interpreted this sentence as a premonition of death. King spoke to the protesters again to persuade them of the non-violence and set April 8th as the new date for a demonstration.
On April 4, 1968 at 6:01 p.m. King was shot on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel . FBI agents who were watching him ran to King after the shot and were the first to try unsuccessfully to provide first aid. The National Civil Rights Museum has been located in the former motel since 1991 .
aftermath
After the murder of King, riots broke out in over 100 cities in which 39 people were killed, around 2,600 injured and around 21,000 people arrested. Washington, DC was rocked by very serious unrest. President Johnson canceled a planned trip to Hawaii to discuss the further course of the Vietnam War.
On April 8, 1968, Coretta Scott King led the planned protest march through Memphis in place of her husband. About 35,000 people took part peacefully in this; residents were forbidden to open their windows during the protest. On the same day, President Johnson wanted to make a speech promising a major aid program for blacks. However, since the situation normalized soon after King's death and Congress protested, the speech was first postponed and then canceled entirely. However, Congress later passed a law promoting equality in rental prices and home ownership in the Civil Rights Act of 1968 . A few months later the public was shaken again by the murder of Robert F. Kennedy .
burial
Martin Luther King Jr. was buried on April 9, 1968, attended by 50,000 people, in Atlanta in South View Cemetery, a cemetery for black people. The last words of his speech I Have a Dream are engraved in his gravestone in a modification: “Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, I'm free at last! ”(For example:“ Finally free! Finally free! Thank God Almighty, I am finally free! ”).
Many celebrities attended a funeral service in the church where he had served as a pastor, such as the then US Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey , Robert F. Kennedy , Richard Nixon and Nelson Rockefeller .
Lloyd Jowers
The discussion gained momentum when, in an interview in 1993, Lloyd Jowers claimed he had received $ 100,000 for recruiting a killer. Jowers, who ran a restaurant across from the Lorraine Motel, did not reveal the shooter's name but said it wasn't James Earl Ray. The family of Martin Luther King Jr., who did not believe in Ray's culprit, then brought a civil lawsuit for negligent homicide , whose jury agreed in 1999 that the assassination attempt on King was a conspiracy by members of the Mafia and the US Government acted. The jury mainly relied on the statements of Jower, who did not testify in court because of his state of health. Ray died in prison in 1998 and did not live to see the court verdict.
An 18-month re-investigation by the Justice Department rejected the results of the 2000 civil case on the grounds that it was based on hearsay and biased witnesses. In particular, the statements of the now deceased Jower did not seem credible, as acquaintances of him revealed that he had hoped for a contract on the film rights to his story. Most of the experts familiar with the case also did not believe the court's statements. Although there is no evidence of a conspiracy, not all of the inconsistencies in the case have been completely cleared up.
Web links
- “The conspiracy against Martin Luther King” , Berliner Zeitung , December 10, 1999
- Michael Schwelien: "The family of Martin Luther King want to reopen the murder case of 1968" , Die Zeit No. 16/1997
- Death of a dream. Martin Luther King was shot dead in Memphis 30 years ago. Even today, the events of that April day have not been fully clarified. In: Berliner Zeitung , April 4, 1998.
Individual evidence
- ^ Clay Risen: The legacy of the 1968 riots . In: The Guardian . April 4, 2008 ( theguardian.com [accessed January 27, 2017]).
Coordinates: 35 ° 8 '4.3 " N , 90 ° 3' 27.3" W.