In their opinion Ray had acted alone. ibid.
In the spring of 1968 Dr Martin Luther King travels to Memphis to march with striking sanitation workers. The march escalates into violence and sets in motion a chain of events leading up to the assassination of Dr King. MLK: The Assassination Tapes, BBC 2013
‘In our country are still perishing on a lonely island of poverty in the mists of a vast ocean of material prosperity.’ ibid. Dr King in Memphis
‘There is a weapon in front of 424 and the subject ran south on Main Street.’ ibid. rozzer’s report
April 16 1968 just 12 days after the assassination of Dr King the Memphis City Council recognized the union and guarantees better wages. ibid.
‘To attempt to explain a system like the unjust and evil system of segregation to a six year old child is a very difficult thing.’ Martin Luther King and the March on Washington, narrator Denzel Washington, Dr King, BBC 2013
‘The so-called Negro movement is part of the attempted takeover of our country by the lazy, the indolent, the beatniks, the ignorant, and by some misguided religionists and bleeding hearts.’ ibid. Eugene Bull Conner, Birmingham Alabama chief rozzer, January 1963
‘And no force under the sun can stem and block and stop this civil rights revolution.’ ibid. A Philip Randolph 1963
‘We are confronted primarily with a moral issue: it is as old as the scriptures and is as clear as the American constitution … The proposition that race has no place in American life or law.’ ibid. JFK June 11th 1963
Of the two men he was told to let go as a precondition for Kennedy’s support of the march, Stanley Levison was one that King had become especially reliant on. ibid.
Despite the removal of [Jack] O’Dell, the communist scare would dog plans for the march throughout July of ’63. ibid.
In the sweltering August heat, performers and speakers took the stage. By early afternoon 200,000 had filled the mall. ibid.
Martin Luther King Supports Communism Treason. Placard
Martin Luther King at Communist Training School. Fake photograph used to discredit Dr King
That goddamn nigger preacher. Lyndon Baines Johnson
April 3rd 1968: Martin Luther King is about to set off on the last campaign of his life. Days that Shook the World s1e3: Martin Luther King/Nelson Mandela, BBC 2003
As soon as he is sentenced he [James Earl Ray] will recant his confession and will protest his innocence for the remainder of his life. ibid.
A single shot hits King in the right hand side of his face. ibid.
He was a man like the rest of us. Probably plagiarised his doctoral dissertation. Had a notorious fondness for booze and for women a good deal younger than his wife. Christopher Hitchens
It is quite impossible even for an atheist like myself to read his sermons or watch recordings of his speeches without profound emotion of the sort that can sometimes bring genuine tears. Dr King’s ‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’ written in response to a group of white Christian clerics who had urged him to show restraint and ‘patience’ – in other words, to know his place – is a model of polemic. Icily polite and generous-minded, it still breathes with an unquenchable conviction that the filthy injustice of racism must be borne no longer. Christopher Hitchens, God is Not Great p173
His persecuted and despised people were not promised the territory of others, nor were they incited to carry out the pillage and murder of other tribes ... But the difference between him and the ‘prophets of Israel’ could not possibly have been more marked. ibid. p175
Where in America today do we hear a voice like the voice of the prophets of Israel? Martin Luther King is a sign that God has not forsaken the United States of America. Rabbi Abraham Heschel
I didn’t know where the shot came from. And it also could have come from the bushes. Somebody gave the order in the middle of the night to go out and cut down that under-brush. So that when the sun came up on the 5th April, the brushes was no longer there. Andrew Young, aide to Martin Luther King
I believe that there was a very complex plot that involved organised crime, it involved the military, and which one actually of them pulled the trigger I don’t know. But I think that there were influences in very high places in our government that were responsible for putting this plot together. Especially the FBI. Andrew Young
Bill Moyers when he was a leading White House aide in the LBJ administration was one of the individuals that circulated a monograph which was full of red-baiting material about Martin Luther King that turns out now to be totally scurrilous. Suggesting that this great intellectual was a dupe of Moscow. And that this white former communist sympathiser was leading him around by the nose. It’s vicious racism. Jeff Cohen, author & activist
Johnson was bitterly disappointed with King’s opposition to the war. And he was being told by Hoover that King had lots of pro-communist friends who were advising him. Harry McPherson, White House special counsel
ABC Television interviewer: Do you believe that Lyndon Johnson was part of the plot to kill your father?
Dexter King: I do. ABC television interview
The evidence I’ve seen and heard will vindicate or exonerate James Earl Ray and also it will point the finger at who actually was behind the assassination. Dexter King, ABC interview
I am told it was part and parcel army intelligence, CIA, FBI. Dexter King
There is no evidence sounder than a Guilty plea. Robert G Blakey, Select Committee on Assassinations
When you look at a murder you look at three things. Who had the motive, the means and the opportunity? I’m now not satisfied that James Earl Ray had a sufficient motive, that he had the means and certainly the opportunity to pull it off as it was done. Congressman Walter E Fauntroy, House Assassinations Committee
We also felt that in all probability there was a conspiracy; however, we were unable to name any conspirators. Congressman Louis Stokes, House Assassinations Committee
I don’t give a continental damn whether there was a conspiracy. Percy Foreman, Ray’s lawyer after trial to reporters
And this advance, also, is contingent upon the plea of guilty and sentence going through on March 10 1969 without any unseemly conduct on your part in court. Percy Foreman, letter to James Earl Ray on eve of trial
And then I turned around and looked back over my right shoulder, looking around to see and I saw like a puff of smoke right by the fire station where they had all of those bushes ... To this day I haven’t been talked to by the Justice Department, by the Memphis Police Department – no-one – about what I saw the day of the assassination. Reverend James Orange, televised interview
I have no responsibility for it. James Earl Ray
He [Foreman] give me a list of reasons why we should enter a plea ... His next gambit was that if I didn’t enter a guilty plea they might put my brother Jerry Ray in prison as a co-conspirator. He also indicated if I forced him to trial, he wouldn’t put forward his best efforts. James Earl Ray
And on two previous occasions Dr King would come to Memphis; I was assigned to head his security team, but the last time he came, there were no black officers assigned for that security. Jerry Williams, former Memphis black police homicide officer
Dr King was originally scheduled to stay in this ground-floor sheltered room area, and his room was changed at the last minute – he was moved to room 306, which is exposed, and the reason given was so that he would have a view of the swimming pool, which in early April was of course absurd. William Pepper, brief
A bundle with the alleged murder weapon appeared in two minutes on the street. William Pepper
I don’t believe the assassin was in the boarding house at all. And that this is part of disinformation. William Pepper
He was killed for two reason: one was the opposition to the war which was powerful … [and] had to do with his commitment to the poor people of this country. William Pepper, lecture February 2008, ‘The Execution of Martin Luther King’ ***** Youtube 1.10.4
Here’s the lawyer talking him [Ray] into pleading guilty and paying for him to hire a new lawyer. ibid.
He [Ray] was incompetent … He raised enough questions. ibid.
There is a Raoul. There was and there is. He’s still alive and well protected by the government. ibid.