MLK Assassination
By: Jesse Glover
Martin Luther King Jr.Assassination
Martin Luther King Jr. was an American Civil Rights leader who was fatally shot at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968, at the age of 39.
James Earl Ray was an American convicted of the assassination of civil rights leader Martin Luther King. James Earl Ray had been found guilty by jury trial, he would have been eligible for the death penalty, but he was sentenced to 99 years in prison. In 1998, James Earl Ray died in prison of complications due to chronic hepatitis C infection.
Media Portrayed Perspective
Media Portrayed Perspective
Martin Luther King Jr. Day is an American federal holiday marking the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr. It is observed on the third Monday of January each year, which is around King's birthday, January 15. King was the chief spokesman for nonviolent activism in the Civil Rights Movement, which successfully protested racial discrimination in federal and state law. The campaign for a federal holiday in King's honor began soon after his assassination in 1968. President Ronald Reagan signed the holiday into law in 1983. MLK had such a big impact on society that he got his own holiday and his legacy will forever live on.
Media Bias
When Martin Luther King Jr. was shot and killed in Memphis on April 4, 1968, it was, TIME declared, “both a symbol and a symptom of the nation’s racial malaise.” King had been in the Tennessee city to support a garbage-collectors’ strike, and was staying at an inexpensive motel, having been chastened for originally booking a stay at a place perceived as too fancy. He stepped out onto the motel “to take the evening air,” per TIME, and talk with co-workers. It was then that a bullet left a nearby building and found the civil-rights leader. In the weeks that followed the assassination, TIME readers responded with a flood of letters to the editor.