There was in Memphis, Tennessee, on 4th April an Alpha 184 sniper unit and nobody has ever explained why they were there … a specialist assassinations team … They were a back-up unit. ibid.
Martin King was killed from the bushes behind Jim’s Grill by a Memphis police department officer who was a sharpshooter. And he was the man hired to do the job. ibid.
This kind of case stresses the worst that government can do. ibid.
After being profiled [Ray] for use as a scapegoat, his escape was arranged by the warden, who was paid $25,000 that was delivered from Hoover by Clyde Tolson, and taken to the prison by their Dixie Mafia collaborator Russell Adkins senior. Ray would never become aware of this high-level plot. William Pepper, The Plot to Kill King
40-year investigation that he [Pepper] has conducted into the real truth about the assassination of Martin Luther King junior is encapsulated in this volume: The Plot to Kill King. The Corbett Report 28th April 2017 with William Pepper, James Corbett online
We [Pepper and body language expert] came away from that meeting [with Ray] having no doubt that he was not the shooter. ibid. Pepper
He [Ray] was not a racist though he was characterised as being a racist. ibid.
The man who pulled the trigger … was a fellow former Memphis police department police officer named Frank Strausser; he was the best shooter on the force … ibid.
In the emergency room – and that is where he was actually killed. ibid.
There’s been extensive media cover-up. ibid.
Then I see this figure directly at eye-length coming out of a crouched position in these bushes. When you look directly across from my doorway you see thicket. Male witness
Dr King would be greatly distressed to find that his blood had triggered off bloodshed and disorder ... I think instead the nation should be quiet; black and white, and we should be in a prayerful mood, which would be in keeping with his life. We should make that kind of dedication and commitment to the goals which his life served to solving the domestic problems. That’s the memorial, that’s the kind of memorial we should build for him. It’s just not appropriate for there to be violent retaliations, and that kind of demonstration in the wake of the murder of this pacifist and man of peace. James Farmer
cf.
White America killed Dr King last night. She made a whole lot easier for a whole lot of black people today. There no longer needs to be intellectual discussions, black people know that they have to get guns. White America will live to cry that she killed Dr King last night. It would have been better if she had killed Rap Brown and/or Stokely Carmichael, but when she killed Dr King, she lost. Stokely Carmichael
You are a colossal fraud. And an evil vicious one. There is but one way out for you. You had better take it before your filthy abnormal fraudulent self is bared to the nation. Anonymous letter received by Martin Luther King shortly before receiving Nobel Prize
He’s now our greatest domestic threat. Edgar J 2011 starring Leonardo DiCaprio & Judi Dench & Armie Hammer & Naomi Watts & Josh Lucas & Ed Westwick & Dermot Mulroney & Damon Herriman & Jeffrey Donovan & Ed Westwick & Zach Grenier et al, director Clint Eastwood, Edgar of Martin Luther King
Also, with information having just come out at the time about J Edgar Hoover's electronic surveillance of Dr King, it gave greater weight to the statements of those persons who were alleging involvement of the FBI. Louis Stokes
In the south black voters are kept off the rolls and out of the voting booths by systematic intimidation and fear. Selma 2014 starring David Oyelowo & Tom Wilkinson & Carmen Ejogo & Andre Holland & Tessa Thompson & Giovanni Ribisi & Lorraine Toussaint & Stephan James & Wendell Pierce & Common & Alessandro Nivola & Keith Stanfield & Cuba Gooding & Dylan Baker & Tim Roth et al, director Ava DuVernay
How did the killer get away and escape capture for so long? The stakes were high for the FBI. Justice for MLK: The Hunt for James Earl Ray, Discovery 2016
The police have the weapons and the description of the shooter but they have their man. ibid.
The biggest manhunt in the Bureau’s history is about to begin. ibid.
Days after [Martin Luther] King’s death, the 20-year-old Gregg Allman wrote God Rest His Soul. Sweet Home Alabama: The Southern Rock Saga, BBC 2016
Martin Luther King and Malcolm X were about to join forces and form a coalition. Jack Newfield, New York Post
One of the greatest figures in history: Martin Luther King who will always be remembered for telling the world about his dream for America. I remember the exact moment fifty years ago when he was gunned down. Martin Luther King by Trevor McDonald, ITV 2018
Before Martin Luther King, Americans in the south were unequal, segregated and excluded. By the time he was killed, all Americans were truly free. In my view few have achieved as much. ibid.
Not getting up for a white passenger put Rosa Parks at the mercy of a brutal system. ibid.
Black Birmingham was about to face Bull Connor’s water cannon and his dogs. ibid.
On January 5th 1965 a package was delivered to civil rights leader Martin Luther King. Inside was a garbled audio tape. King recognised his voice and he remembered the hotel rooms where the conversations had taken place. He was being watched. There was a letter as well. It labelled King an animal, a fraud … This letter had been sent by the FBI. Martin Luther King – Marked M aka Marked Man: Martin Luther King and the FBI, History 2018
To others he was a danger to the American way of life. ibid.
The more the world praised King, the more disgusted and obsessed Hoover seemed to become. ibid.
The FBI’s campaign to discredit King failed. ibid.
Martin Luther King junior was assassinated in Memphis on Thursday April 4 1968. Fifty years later his friends sat down to recall the last years of his life. King in the Wilderness, captions, Sky Atlantic 2018
We were trying to redeem the soul of America from the triple evils of racism, war and poverty. And Martin had become far more exposed to enemies by taking on both civil rights and the war issue. ibid. Andrew Young
The dream that I had that day has in many points turned into a nightmare. ibid. Martin Luther King
I still have faith in the future. ibid.
The greatest purveyor of violence in the world today – my own government. ibid.
‘My mother always said to me, You must never feel that you are less than anyone else.’ I Am MLK, Sky Documentaries 2021
All human beings have a desire to belong and to feel significant and important. And the way to solve this problem is not to drown out the ego but to find your sense of importance in something outside of the self. And you are then able to live because you have given your life to something outside and something that is meaningful, objectified. You rise above this self-absorption to something outside. This is the way to go through life with a balance, with the proper perspective because you’ve given yourself to something greater than self. Sometimes it’s friends, sometimes it’s family, sometimes it’s a great cause, it’s a great loyalty, but give yourself to that something and life becomes meaningful. Martin Luther King, Dexter Avenue Baptist Church c. 1957
All labour that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence. Martin Luther King junior
Almost always, the creative dedicated minority has made the world better. Martin Luther King
And as I ponder the madness of Vietnam and search within myself for ways to understand and respond in compassion, my mind goes constantly to the people of that peninsula. I speak not now of the soldiers of each side, not of military government in Saigon, but simply of the people who have been under the curse of war for almost three continuous decades now. I think of them too because it is clear to me that there will be no meaningful solution until some attempt is made to know these people and hear their broken cries. Now let me tell you the truth about it. They must see Americans as strange liberators. Martin Luther King, 'Beyond Vietnam' 4th April 1967
Oh the government and the press generally won’t tell us these things. But God told me to tell you this morning. The truth must be told. The only change came from America as we increased our troop commitments in support of governments which were singularly corrupt and acting without popular support. And all the while the people read our leaflets and received regular promises of peace and democracy and land reform. Now they languish under our bombs, and consider us not their fellow Vietnamese, the real enemy. They move sadly and apathetically as we herd them off the land of their fathers into concentration camps where meat or social needs are rarely met. They know they must move or be destroyed by our bombs. So they go primarily – women and children and the aged. They watch as we poison their water. As we kill a million acres of their crops. They must weep as the bulldozers roar through their areas preparing to destroy the precious trees ...