This Day in History: 4 April 2020
4 April 1968
52 years ago, today, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated at his hotel in Tennessee, by a single shot fired by James Earl Ray from over 200 feet away, at a nearby motel. King unfortunately died an hour later at St. Joseph's Hospital, but his death sparked a wave of rioting in the black communities of several cities in the United States. Ray had escaped from a Missouri prison almost a year earlier, and so had used the aliases Eric Galt and John Willard to register into motels. With his Remington rifle, he shot King from a bathroom window, where King was standing on the balcony of his hotel.
Ray fled to Canada, and stayed there for a month, as his name was placed on the Ten Most Wanted Fugitives List. He travelled to London after buying a passport with a fake name and moved from hotel to hotel until authorities caught him, on June 8, at Heathrow Airport. Ray had no known record of political hatred, although he had been convicted for past small-time robberies, so many suspect he was paid to kill King, as he clearly had significant resources during the time between his capture and assassination. Still, Ray pleaded guilty before his scheduled trial, and was given a sentence of 99 years in prison, but died on April 23, 1998, serving only 29 years of his sentence.
Want to find out more about the death of Martin Luther King Jr.? Click here for more information.
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