Aides on Lorraine Motel balcony with the stricken Dr. King.
Today In History: Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. Is Assassinated
My Daily Soapbox
4/4/2012
Just after 6 p.m. on April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. is fatally shot while standing on the balcony outside his second-story room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. The civil rights leader was in Memphis to support a sanitation workers’ strike and was on his way to dinner when a bullet struck him in the jaw and severed his spinal cord. King was pronounced dead after his arrival at a Memphis hospital. He was 39 years old…
…On April 3, back in Memphis, King gave his last sermon, saying, “We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn’t matter with me now, because I’ve been to the mountaintop…And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over, and I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight that we, as a people, will get to the promised land.”
One day after speaking those words, Dr. King was shot and killed by a sniper. As word of the assassination spread, riots broke out in cities all across the United States and National Guard troops were deployed in Memphis and Washington, D.C. On April 9, King was laid to rest in his hometown of Atlanta, Georgia. Tens of thousands of people lined the streets to pay tribute to King’s casket as it passed by in a wooden farm cart drawn by two mules…
The complete article, with video, is at My Daily Soapbox.
Thousands of people follow the casket as the body of Martin Luther King is brought to the memorial service. Atlanta, Georgia April 9, 1968. (Photo Credit: Bettman/Corbis) click on the image to enlarge
King's family led a funeral procession in Atlanta, April 9, 1968. From left: daughter Yolanda, 12; King's brother A.D. King; daughter Bernice, 5; widow Coretta Scott King; Abernathy; sons Dexter, 7, and Martin Luther King III, 10. (AP Photo) click on the image to enlarge
