The bullet whizzed through the night and hit King in the jaw, causing him to collapse. Corrections? Ray dismissed Foreman as his attorney and thereafter derisively called him "Percy Fourflusher." Most remember that he was an avowed racist who did the deed, fled the country, eventually confessed, was sentenced to 99 years, recanted, and spent the rest of his . Kennedy's political opponents are believed to have received support from wealthy tycoons and the CIA agents in executing his assassination (Hald-Mortensen 75). Finally, Americans anguished over the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. had the who. But what about the why?. He had Irish, Scottish and Welsh ancestry and had a Catholic upbringing. Four decades later, Sides, an editor-at-large for Outside magazine and the author of the historical books Ghost Soldiers and . Riots erupted in Memphis; one person was killed and sixty were injured. Ray had continued using the Galt alias after his stint in Mexico, but when he made this purchase, he gave his name as Harvey Lowmeyer. Peanut farming, talk of politics, and devotion to the Baptist faith were . [22], On April 4, 1968, Ray killed civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. with a single shot fired from his Remington rifle, while King was standing on the second-floor balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. Ray told this version of the assassination and his own flight during the following two months to journalist William Bradford Huie. Dr. King was killed while standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel, and police determined that James Earl Ray had shot him with a rifle from the window of a rented room across the street. The Rays struggled to make ends meet, and as a consequence, the family moved several times during the early part of Ray's childhood. Public DomainJames Earl Rays mugshot from 1955. Investigators announced that James Earl Ray, an escaped prisoner, had fatally shot King. Using their logic, the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. should be attributed to a Democratic U.S. History has largely forgotten much of the story of Martin Luther King's convicted assassin, James Earl Ray, a serial prison escapee. Two years later, his young sister Marjorie, died in a fire after playing with matches and accidentally catching herself on fire. Three days later, Ray recanted his confession. Ray died while that campaign was ongoing, but though the King family did win $100 in a 1999 wrongful death suit after the man charged as being part of a conspiracy didnt show up to the trial an official inquiry reiterated that the evidence against Ray was overwhelming and that there was no credibility to various theories that anyone else had been involved. An avid newspaper reader, Ray passed his time reading The Atlanta Constitution. He was sentenced to 90 days in prison, but the lockup did little to reform him. AP Photo. A confirmed racist and small-time criminal, James Earl Ray began plotting the assassination of revered civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. in early 1968. James Earl Ray is infamous for assassinating civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968. James Earl Ray was the assassin of American Baptist minister and civil rights activist, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr . He was 70. [28] He stayed briefly in Lisbon, Portugal, and returned to London. finds no conspiracy in King assassination", "Third Inquiry Affirms Others: Ray Alone Was King's Killer", "Autopsy confirms Ray died of liver failure". Whats more, Ray claimed that he only pled guilty to the assassination because his lawyer and the FBI had pressed him to do so. I Do Understand Racism'. Rendering their verdict on December 8 of that year, the jury found that Jowers and others, including government agencies, had conspired to murder King, and he was therefore legally liable to pay compensation to the King family. Dexter King, son of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., meeting with James Earl Ray the man who confessed to killing King. On June 8 he was apprehended by London police at Heathrow Airport as he was about to embark for Brussels; the FBI had established him as the prime suspect almost immediately after the assassination. Simpson was found guilty of killing his wife Nicole and Ron Goldman - in a civil trial. Over the decades, the story twisted and turned. Since then, many members of Kings family and some of his closest supporters have come to believe Rays story and that a larger conspiracy had actually killed King. Shortly after the shot was fired, witnesses saw Ray fleeing from a rooming house across the street from the motel where he had been renting a room. [citation needed]. Huie investigated this story and discovered that Ray lied about some details. He at first fled to Canada but, unable to get on a ship and flee overseas, he returned to the U.S. and made his way to first Alabama, then Mexico, and later Los Angeles. So who is James Earl Ray, the man charged with assassinating Martin Luther King Jr.? There are records of Ray receiving plastic surgery in Los Angeles about a month before Kings murder in Memphis. The next day, Ray checked into a room in a boarding house just across the street from where King was staying, according to the Washington Post. Over the next several years, Ray embarked on a number of small crimes, serving various jail times. Write to Olivia B. Waxman at olivia.waxman@time.com. There is an important flaw in that logic as well; the defendant was only sued for $100, which he was ordered to pay. But that biography doesnt explain why or how Ray moved from committing property crime and supporting racists, to killing a national icon. Ray had been treated for liver disease over the years and according to the Tennessee Department of Correction, he died from that and kidney failure. James Earl Ray was an American criminal with a Danish background, convicted of the assassination of civil rights and anti-war activist Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Ray was convicted on March 10, 1969, after entering a guilty plea to forgo a jury trial. The House Assassinations Committee examining evidence in the killing of Martin Luther King, Jr. (Credit: Bettmann Archive/Getty Images). James Earl Jones was the voice of Darth Vader What political part was Hitler part of? Labels: James Earl Ray, MAGA, Martin Luther King Jr., Racism, Republican Party, Republicans. "use strict";(function(){var insertion=document.getElementById("citation-access-date");var date=new Date().toLocaleDateString(undefined,{month:"long",day:"numeric",year:"numeric"});insertion.parentElement.replaceChild(document.createTextNode(date),insertion)})(); Subscribe to the Biography newsletter to receive stories about the people who shaped our world and the stories that shaped their lives. [12] His chief interest, however, was the George Wallace presidential campaign. Those prints were already among the FBIs records for wanted individuals. I wholeheartedly applaud the verdict of the jury and I feel that justice has been well served in their deliberations, she said. These claims led Kings estate to sue Jowers in 1999 for a symbolic $100 in a wrongful death civil action. His spouse is Anna Sandhu Ray (m. 1978-1993). The Nazi party Is the president part of the political party? In 1949 he left for Los Angeles, where in October of that year police arrested him for robbing a cafe. After the assassination, King's family did not trust the findings of the FBI, which had harassed the civil rights leader while he was alive. CAPTION: Ray was apprehended (harnessed and handcuffed) for the murder of Martin Luther King Jr., in 1968 . Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, Washington, D.C. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Library, San Jose, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=James_Earl_Ray&oldid=1134341249, American people who died in prison custody, People extradited from the United Kingdom to the United States, Prisoners who died in Tennessee detention, United States Army personnel of World War II, Short description is different from Wikidata, Wikipedia indefinitely move-protected pages, All Wikipedia articles written in American English, Pages using infobox person with multiple parents, Articles with unsourced statements from May 2022, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, 99 years in prison (1 year was added after his re-capture for a total of 100 years), This page was last edited on 18 January 2023, at 05:50. On July 19, he returned to U.S. and the following March he pleaded guilty to murdering King. Indeed, compelling evidence including Rays fingerprints on the rifle that was later determined to be the murder weapon seemed to point to him. Martin Luther King Jr. was a scholar and minister who led the civil rights movement. On April 4, 1968, Ray stood in the bathtub of the bathroom, balanced his rifle on a window ledge and shot King as the civil rights leader was standing on a balcony outside of his motel room. And after passing through Canada, Alabama, Mexico, and Los Angeles, he eventually made his way to Memphis, Tennessee in April 1968. A confirmed racist and small-time criminal, James Earl Ray began plotting the assassination of revered civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. in early 1968. He shot. 1. Born on March 10, 1928, in Alton, Illinois, was the eldest of George and Lucille Ray's nine children. But Ray offered no motive himself. For this, he was imprisoned for four years in Leavenworth. 2023 A&E Television Networks, LLC. Speech of Senator Robert C. Byrd, Senate Journal, Appendix Two, March 29, 1968. List price: $28.95. Indeed, the House Select Committee on Assassinations later speculated that Ray had killed King in order to collect a $50,000 bounty offered by Wallace supporters in St. Louis who wanted the civil rights leader dead. Not long before Ray's death, Dexter King, Dr. King's son, visited the man presumed to be his father's killer. Ray hired Jack Kershaw as his new attorney, and Kershaw publicly argued and promoted Ray's claim that he was not responsible for the assassination of King. Bettmann/Getty ImagesJames Earl Ray on July 19, 1968, shortly after he was arrested for killing MLK. The other people involved in this conspiracy, Jowers said, included Memphis police officers, a Mafia member and the infamous Raoul. Was James earl ray white? This organization would later morph into the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei better known as the NAZI party. Eventually, Ray drifted west to Los Angeles. [15], On March 5, 1968, Ray underwent a rhinoplasty, performed by physician Russell Hadley. That year, Kings son Dexter Scott King visited Ray in prison to draw attention to the familys push to appeal his case. On April 4, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot while standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. Later in life his pleas for a trial were encouraged by some civil-rights leaders, notably the King family. The facts are these. He was 70. King died about an hour later. There, on March 30, 1968, he bought a Remington Model 760 Gamemaster .30-06-caliber rifle and a box of 20 cartridges from the Aeromarine Supply Company. [7], Ray committed a variety of crimes prior to the murder of King. The verdict did convict Loyd Jowers and "other parties known and unknown" for their parts in the vast US government conspiracy to assassinate King. INTERVIEW OF JAMES EARL RAY BY JOHN AUBLE, KST-TV ST LOUIS - National Archives and Records Administration 1977-11-03 - ARC 43297, LI 233-MLK-150170 - DVD Cop. But what do you know about James Earl Ray, the man who assassinated Martin Luther King? For 72 hours after his guilty plea, James Earl Ray stayed quiet. James Earl Ray Biography. [8] He was sentenced to twenty years in prison for repeated offenses. If you see something that doesn't look right, contact us! Dexter told Ray that he, along with the rest of the King family, believed Ray, and the family also urged publicly that Ray be granted a new trial. They might not have been involved in the murder, McMillian observes of the FBI, but I wish people knew the really shameful things that they did.. After this, Ray was on the run and was captured in the UK. James Earl Ray was a racist and quickly drawn to Wallace's segregationist platform. But despite having a suspect in mind, it took investigators much longer to actually track him down. For all Joe Biden's talk about "semi-fascist" and "un-American," "ultra-MAGA" Republicans, it is the Democratic Party that has far more radically changed. James Earl Ray made several trips to Montreal, Canada in the 1960's where he was hypnotically programmed by MK-ULTRA Dr. Ewen Cameron, who worked at Allen Memorial Hospital out of McGill University. Ray's life outside the Army proved even less stable. I dont know what happened, but the truth of what happened to Dr. King should be made available for historys sake.. His brother said that Ray admired Hitler and that Ray had said that he would make the U.S. an all-white country, no Jews or Negroes. Ray was also known to have been a supporter of George Wallace, the segregationist governor of Alabama running for president, according to the Los Angeles Times. James Earl Ray being led to his cell by Shelby County Sheriff William Morris on July 19, 1968. He escaped in 1967. Finally, on July 19, 1968, the FBI caught up with Ray in London and extradited him to the United States. Read an Excerpt. Aggie Kenny who traveled to Memphis to cover the hearing, drew Ray as he attempted to argue that he was not well-served by his previous attorney, Percy Foreman. What were James earl rays political views? In the hours and days after the Tucson shootings, the left wing media in America attempted to blame the Tea Party and right wing rhetoric for the deaths of six and the injuries of thirteen. Toward the end of his life, Ray, whose sentence had been extended to 100 years after he escaped from prison in 1977, had the support of an unexpected ally: the King family. Dexter King went so far as to name Memphis Police Department Officer, Lt. Earl Clark as his fathers assassin. Was Abraham Lincoln Black? Housed at the Missouri State Penitentiary, Ray managed to escape the facility in 1967. Unbeknownst to Ray, however, under the de facto moratorium in place since 1967 and following Furman v. Georgia, a death sentence would have been commuted as unconstitutional. Ray told Huie that he purposefully left the rifle with his fingerprints on it in plain sight at the crime scene because he wanted to become a famous criminal. Hardcover, 480 pages. FBIs infamous Martin Luther King Jr. tapes. Ray was born into a poor family on March 10, 1928, in Alton, Illinois. The bureau wiretapped his phone and monitored his movements, taking advantage of times when he seemed particularly upset or depressed. He enlisted in the U.S. Army but was discharged for ineptness and lack of adaptability to military service in 1948. He said that a Memphis police officer was the one who had actually killed King and that Jowers had stashed the gun. James Earl Ray was a racist.. And Ray even pled guilty to murdering King after he was arrested. King vs. Loyd Jowers and conspirators unknown. James Earl Ray walked through the gates of Brushy Mountain for the first time March 21, 1970, one year into a 99-year sentence and not quite two years since the death of King, gunned down by a . Born on March 10, 1928, in Alton, Illinois, James Earl Ray came from a long line of criminals. According to The History Channel, Ray had two fake Canadian passports and an apparent plan to settle in Rhodesia, an unrecognized state ruled by a white minority in modern-day Zimbabwe. In 1997, King told Ray personally that both he and his family believed him. Then, Raoul threw it in the Mississippi River. Some people had trouble, for example, believing Ray had arranged his international escape all by himself, since he had a track record of getting caught for more minor crimes. [10], While in Mexico, Ray, using the alias Eric Starvo Galt, attempted to establish himself as a pornographic film director. Soon, they seemed to have their answer. With rates currently down to half that in 2018 (18%), these theories seem unlikely to go away any time soon. He got a job back in Illinois at the International Shoe Company but was laid off in 1945. In 1959, he was caught stealing $120 in an armed robbery of a Kroger store in St. All three bore the fingerprints of an escaped convict named James Earl Ray. Magazines, Digital [16] On March 18, 1968, Ray left Los Angeles and began a cross-country drive to Atlanta, Georgia. Estate of Martin Luther King, Jr., Inc. v. CBS, Inc. Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), Statue of Martin Luther King Jr. (Pueblo, Colorado), Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial, San Francisco. [1], In February 1935, Ray's father, known by the nickname Speedy, passed a bad check in Alton, Illinois, and then moved to Ewing, Missouri, where the family changed their name to Raynes to avoid law enforcement. Indeed, a former agent from the FBIs field office in Atlanta said the bureaus tracking of King was second only to the way they went after Jimmy Hoffa. In 1975, a group of former FBI agents called on Congress to investigate this harrassment. But after HBO conducted a televised mock trial about the assassination in 1993in which Ray gave his first public testimony and was found not guiltyJowers declared that hed been part of a conspiracy to kill King, and that Ray had been set up to take to fall. font size decrease font size increase font size; . While there, Ray attended a local bartending school and took dance lessons. American fantasy and horror author Ray Bradbury is best known for his novels 'Fahrenheit 451,' 'The Illustrated Man' and 'The Martian Chronicles.'. In addition to his segregationist beliefs, he also saw a big payday, some historians have said, in killing Black leaders like H. Rap Brown, Stokely Carmichael and, of course, King. She graduated from Oberlin College, where she earned a double degree in American History and French. Bettmann/Contributor via Getty ImagesMartin Luther King Jr. giving his last speech, Ive Been To The Mountaintop, on April 3, 1968. Representative John Lewis, a civil rights activist who later became a U.S. congressman and served 17 terms before his death in 2020, agreed. His father's name was George Ellis Ray and his mother's name was Lucille. An hour later, he was declared dead. Ray had seven siblings. Most famously, in 1997 a dying Ray told Dexter King, his victims son, that he didnt do it. Then in 1977 to 1978, following a . He maintained that he was innocent of killing MLK until his own death in 1998. Martin Luther's goal, at least initially, was to repeal Jim Crow segregation laws where they existed. Months later, he recanted his confession, without effect. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. In that speech, none other than Robert Byrd pointed to the Memphis riots and the violent consequences as a warning to Johnson not to allow the marches King was planning on Washington in the coming weeks. Considered one of the greatest boxers of all time, Sugar Ray Robinson held the world welterweight title from 1946 to 1951, and by 1958, he had become the first boxer to win a divisional world championship five times. Ray was a known criminal, on the lam after escaping a Missouri state prison when he committed the assassination, and had more than two dozen known aliases for himself before he was put behind bars again. In the years following Ray's arrest, questions arose about his exact involvement in King's murder. On June 10, 1977, Ray and six other convicts escaped from Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary in Petros, Tennessee. Magazines, Or create a free account to access more articles. Martin Luther King, Jr., original name Michael King, Jr., (born January 15, 1929, Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.died April 4, 1968, Memphis, Tennessee), Baptist minister and social activist who led the civil rights movement in the United States from the mid-1950s until his death by assassination in 1968. He broke out of prisons so many times that he earned the nickname the Mole.. Kings horrified associates point to the direction where they think the bullet came from as King lay dying at their feet. Joseph Blakeney Brown Jr. (born July 5, 1947), known as Judge Joe Brown, is a former American lawyer and television personality. James Earl Ray, a 40-year-old convicted armed robber who had escaped from the Missouri State Penitentiary in Jefferson City, Mo., on April 23, 1967, pleaded guilty on March 10, 1969, in Shelby County (Tenn.) Criminal Court to the first degree murder of Dr. King. 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