Ray’s trial, which would have produced new revelations about the assassination…as well as establish the facts concerning Mr. government conducted several investigations into the trial-each time confirming Ray’s guilt as the sole assassin-controversy still surrounds the assassination.Īt the time of Ray’s death in 1998, King’s widow Coretta Scott King (who in the weeks after her husband’s death had courageously continued the campaign to aid the striking Memphis sanitation workers and carried on his mission of social change through nonviolent means) publicly lamented that “America will never have the benefit of Mr. Ray later found sympathy in an unlikely place: Members of King’s family, including his son Dexter, who publicly met with Ray in 1977 and began arguing for a reopening of his case.
The House Select Committee on Assassinations (who also investigated the assassination of JFK) maintained that Ray’s shot killed king. Shortly afterwards, however, Ray recanted his confession, claiming he was the victim of a conspiracy. On March 10, 1969, Ray pleaded guilty to King’s murder and was sentenced to 99 years in prison.
These young radicals stuck closer to the ideals of the Black nationalist leader Malcolm X (himself assassinated in 1965), who had condemned King’s advocacy of nonviolence as “criminal” in the face of the continuing repression suffered by African Americans. King faced mounting criticism from young African American activists who favored a more confrontational approach to seeking change. His assassination led to an outpouring of anger among Black Americans, as well as a period of national mourning that helped speed the way for an equal housing bill that would be the last significant legislative achievement of the civil rights era.
A Baptist minister and founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), King had led the civil rights movement since the mid-1950s, using a combination of impassioned speeches and nonviolent protests to fight segregation and achieve significant civil rights advances for African Americans. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968, an event that sent shock waves reverberating around the world.
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