19.1.17

Assassination of Martin Luther King

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The Assassination of Martin Luther King 1968

On 4th April 1968, Martin Luther King was assassinated in Memphis. This was extremely detrimental to the Civil Rights Movement.

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Assassination

  • Martin Luther King was preparing for a march in Memphis, Tennessee to support refuse collectors, planning a ‘Poor People’s Campaign’.
  • On 4th April 1968, he was shot dead at the age of 39 on the balcony of his hotel room.
  • A man was seen fleeing the area, and a rifle and binoculars were found stashed near the hotel.
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Perpetrator

  • James Earl Ray was arrested for the assassination over 2 months later at Heathrow Airport in London after his fingerprints matched those found on the rifle.
  • Ray was allegedly attempting to flee to Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), which at the time was controlled by Prime Minister Ian Smith's white supremacist government.
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Guilty plea

  • After being extradited back to Tennessee, James Earl Ray confessed to the murder and entered a guilty plea.
  • He was sentenced to 99 years in prison.
  • However, he spent the rest of his life trying to withdraw his guilty plea.
  • Many have disputed that James Earl Ray was the sole participant in Martin Luther King's assassination.

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1The Medieval World: 450-1450 AD

1.1Anglo-Saxon England

1.2The Contest for the English Throne

1.3Conquering the Holy Land, 10-96-1396 AD

1.4King John

1.5The Magna Carta & Parliament

1.6The Black Death

2Worldviews

3The Empire of Mali

4The Renaissance & Reformations, 1500-1598 AD

5The British Empire, 1583-1960 AD

6The Peasants' Revolt

7Religion in the Middle Ages

8Slavery, 1619-1833 AD

9The English Civil War, 1642-1660

10The Industrial Revolution, 1750-1840

11US Independence, 1775-1783

12The French Revolution, 1789-1815

13The British Empire, 1857–1930

14Suffrage

15World War 1, 1914-1918

16The Inter-War Years, 1919-1939

17World War 2, 1939-1945

18The Cold War, 1947-1962

19Civil Rights in the USA, 1954-1975

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