New footage found of Martin Luther King’s assassin
Previously unseen footage of James Earl Ray arriving in Memphis to face trial for the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr has come to light.
The videotapes were discovered amid old material in the Shelby County sheriff’s office. Footage shows James Earl Ray being read his rights on a plane to Memphis, after being extradited from the UK.
Ray is shown being strip-searched at the prison and undergoing medical checks by prison doctors. It also shows the assassin being led into a cell.
I hope Martin Luther King, my daddy, did not die in vain. Bernice King
Ray, a segregationist, confessed to the assassination of civil rights leader Martin Luther King, but recanted shortly afterwards, and for years tried to get a new trial. He died in prison in 1998 while serving a 99-year sentence.
Ray shot and killed King 45 years ago yesterday, on 4 April 1968, as he leaned over a balcony outside his room at the Lorraine motel in Memphis, Tennessee. Mr King was in Memphis to lead a march supporting the city’s striking sanitation workers.
As news broke of the assassination, riots sparked in cities across America. Thousands of federal troops and National Guardsmen were called and dispatched to maintain order and security throughout the country.
Mr King was buried in Atlanta, Georgia, five days later.
45th anniversary
Honouring his memory on the 45th anniversary of his assassination yesterday, Mr King’s daughter Bernice said: “I hope Martin Luther King, my daddy, did not die in vain, We must repent and change our direction and minds.”
She spoke as hundreds of union members and their supporters, from as far as Louisiana, California and New York, marched in Memphis.
A wreath was placed on the front of Ebenezer Baptist church in Atlanta, where Mr King had preached, in the same spot where one was placed the day after his death.
Mr King, who advocated non-violence, racial brotherhood and equal rights, rose to prominence after leading the Montgomery bus boycott, which began in Alabama in December 1955 after Rosa Parks, an African-American woman, was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a bus to a white passenger. Mr King went on to win the Nobel peace prize in 1964.
The Lorraine motel where he was shot is now home to the National Civil Rights Museum, which commemorated Mr King’s death with a labour union rally, wreath-laying and panel discussion including Alvin Turner, a retired sanitation worker who participated in the strike.