ABC News: Special Report- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Assassination- April 4th, 1968

Source:ABC News- Special Report, covering the assassination of Dr. Martin L. King.

"Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., mortal shooting of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., the most prominent leader of the American civil rights movement, on April 4, 1968, as he stood on the second floor balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, where he had come to lead a march by striking sanitation workers. In response to King’s death, more than 100 American inner cities exploded in rioting, looting, and violence. James Earl Ray, a career small-time criminal who became the object of a more than two-month manhunt before he was captured in England, pled guilty to the shooting and received a 99-year prison sentence. He quickly recanted his plea and spent the rest of his life claiming that he had been framed by a conspiracy that was really responsible for King’s assassination." 

From Britannica 

"April 4, 1968: Martin Luther King Jr. Assassinated" 

From ABC News

The assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King the leader of the American civil rights movement, was tragic for so many reasons. But the biggest reason why it was so tragic because of the time he died and what left he had to contribute not just to the African-American community, but the American community in general. Because at 39 and with everything he had to accomplish he still had a lot more to accomplish. Which would've started with the upcoming poor peoples march and the poor people's movement.

The Poor People's Campaign, had an opportunity to be a real campaign against poverty that would seek to actually end poverty. And not just create new programs to help people live in poverty, but actually empower people to get themselves out of poverty. Through things like education and job training and really going past the New Deal and Great Society. Not saying that this movement would've developed like this had Dr. King survived. But had he and Senator Robert F. Kennedy survived, this movement would've had an opportunity to develop.

Unfortunately as it turned out, Dr. King, didn't die from some illness he had picked up. Or from some crazy person out their mind who probably should've been in a mental hospital. But he was killed by an escaped convict, a lost soul who had absolutely nothing going right in his life. Who was a career criminal and a loner who was simply looking to be noticed. 

To paraphrase Dan Rather from CBS News: "Dr. King, wasn't even murdered by a professional assassin, or a mobster hit man. James Earl Ray, was at best professional thief. Who wasn't even very good at that and had been in and out of prison most of his life." 

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