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Great Wall Institute: The Process of the Great Wall of Los Angeles

Martin Luther King's Assassination

Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968, an event that sent shock waves reverberating around the world. 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. 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.

King Assassination: Background

In the last years of his life, Dr. King faced mounting criticism from young African American activists who favored a more confrontational approach to seeking change. 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.

As a result of this opposition, King sought to widen his appeal beyond his own race, speaking out publicly against the Vietnam War and working to form a coalition of poor Americans—Black and white alike—to address such issues as poverty and unemployment.

From BIOGRAPHY:

On the morning of April 3, 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. readied to head to Memphis, Tennessee, for the third time in as many weeks in support of the city's striking sanitation workers.

The first trip had brought a crowd of 15,000 to hear the weary but still commanding civil rights leader speak at Bishop Charles Mason Temple on March 18. He had returned to lead a march 10 days later, only to see the demonstration dissolve into rioting and chaos that left a high school student dead.

Dismayed by the outcome and discouraged by staffers who wanted him to focus on the upcoming "Poor People's Campaign" in the nation's capital, King nevertheless was determined to lead a second, successful march in Memphis to prove that his method of nonviolent demonstration still had teeth.

King was 'exhausted' during his last days

As recounted in the book Redemption: Martin Luther King Jr.'s Last 31 Hours, MLK's Memphis plans faced hurdles from the get-go, starting with the bomb threat that delayed his flight out of Atlanta, Georgia.

After arriving, King and his cohorts were slapped with an injunction that prevented them from leading a demonstration in the city. He huddled with his legal team at the Lorraine Motel to discuss strategy, and followed with another meeting with a local Black power group called the Invaders, aiming to head off a potential repeat of the riot-instigating actions that had torpedoed his last effort.

Fighting a cold, and exhausted after weeks of traveling, King sent his chief lieutenant, Ralph Abernathy, to speak on his behalf at Bishop Charles Mason Temple that evening. Although the stormy weather had depressed the turnout, Abernathy sensed the crowd's disappointment with King's absence and convinced the celebrated orator by phone to make an appearance.

He delivered his famed 'I've Been to the Mountaintop' speech one day before his death

In what became known as his "I've Been to the Mountaintop" speech, King took the audience on a time-traveling journey through the highlights of human civilization and revealed that here, amid the struggle for human rights in the second half of the 20th century, was exactly where he wanted to be. He then recalled how he had been stabbed 10 years earlier when a mere sneeze could have ruptured his aorta and prevented him from being part of civil rights history.

"I don't know what will happen now; we've got some difficult days ahead," he said, nearing the prescient climax. "But it really doesn't matter with me now, because I've been to the mountaintop. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life — longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And so I'm happy tonight; I'm not worried about anything; I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord."

Utterly spent, King was helped back to his seat, tears welling in his eyes. However, the emotional speech was cathartic for a man who had endured so much stress. In the biography Bearing the Cross, Abernathy recalled how his friend seemed "happy and relaxed" at dinner after the rally, and King found the energy to stay up well into the night, joking around with the others.

King was shot in the face on a motel balcony

After waking up late on April 4, King discussed organizational matters with his staffers, before hearing the good news: His lawyers had persuaded the judge to lift the injunction, allowing for a tightly controlled march on April 8.

At around 6 p.m., as he prepared for dinner with a local minister, King stepped out to the balcony of room 306 at the Lorraine to chat with colleagues waiting in the courtyard below. A gunshot suddenly pierced the air, and the others recovered from their momentary confusion to find King prone on the balcony, bleeding profusely from the right side of his face.

Although he was rushed off to St. Joseph's Hospital relatively quickly, the bullet had punctured several vital arteries, fractured his spine, and 39-year-old King was declared dead at 7:05 p.m.

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3. 1963 Assassination of John F. Kennedy In Frame 375 of the Zapruder film, first lady Jacqueline Kennedy crawls toward the back of the presidential limousine as Secret Service agent Clint Hill scrambles to help her. Photo: Zapruder Film ©, The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza - Fifty-eight years ago in Dallas, Texas, Kennedy was shot and killed by Lee Harvey Oswald, but since Oswald himself was killed shortly after the assassination, questions lingered about whether anyone else was involved, feeding conspiracy theories. President Joe Biden ordered the release of the documents in October but it's being done in stages, with thousands remaining secret amid intelligence agency concerns about what they could reveal.
4. 1968 MLK Assassination Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968, an event that sent shock waves reverberating around the world. 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. 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.
7. Malcolm X Assassinated After spending a year as a hunted man, Malcolm X was shot and killed during a meeting of the Organization of Afro-American Unity (OAAU) at the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem, New York, on February 21, 1965. The assailants, at least three in number, were members of the Black Muslim group the Nation of Islam, the group with which Malcolm X had been a prominent minister for ten years before he split with them in March 1964. Exactly who shot Malcolm X has been hotly debated over the decades. One man, Talmage Hayer, was arrested at the scene and was definitely a shooter. Two other men were arrested and sentenced but were most likely wrongly accused. The confusion over the identity of the shooters compounds the question of why Malcolm X was assassinated and has led to a wide range of conspiracy theories The Assassination On the morning of Sunday, February 21, 1965, Malcolm X woke up in his 12th-floor hotel room at the Hilton Hotel in New York. Around 1 p.m., he checked out of the hotel and headed for the Audubon Ballroom, where he was to speak at a meeting of his OAAU. He parked his blue Oldsmobile nearly 20 blocks away, which seems surprising for someone who was being hunted. When he arrived at the Audubon Ballroom, he headed backstage. He was stressed and it was beginning to show. He lashed out at several people, shouting angrily. This was very out of character for him. When the OAAU meeting was to start, Benjamin Goodman went out on stage to speak first. He was to speak for about a half an hour, warming up the crowd of about 400 before Malcolm X was to speak. Then it was Malcolm X’s turn. He stepped up to the stage and stood behind a wooden podium. After he gave the traditional Muslim welcome, “As-salaam alaikum,” and got the response, a ruckus began in the middle of the crowd. A man had stood up, shouting that a man next to him had tried to pick-pocket him. Malcolm X’s bodyguards left the stage area to go deal with the situation. This left Malcolm unprotected on the stage. Malcolm X sidestepped away from the podium, saying “Let’s be cool, brothers.” It was then that a man stood up near the front of the crowd, pulled out a sawed-off shotgun from beneath his trench-coat and shot at Malcolm X. The blast from the shotgun made Malcolm X fall backward, over some chairs. The man with the shotgun fired again. Then, two other men rushed the stage, firing a Luger and a .45 automatic pistol at Malcolm X, hitting mostly his legs. The noise from the shots, the violence that had just been committed, and a smoke bomb that had been set off in the back, all added to the chaos. En masse, the audience tried to escape. The assassins used this confusion to their advantage as they blended into the crowd—all but one escaped. The one who did not escape was Talmage “Tommy” Hayer (sometimes called Hagan). Hayer had been shot in the leg by one of Malcolm X’s bodyguards as he was trying to escape. Once outside, the crowd realized that Hayer was one of the men who had just murdered Malcolm X and the mob started to attack Hayer. Luckily, a policeman happened to be walking by, saved Hayer, and managed to get him into the back of a police car. During the pandemonium, several of Malcolm X’s friends rushed to the stage to try to help him. Despite their efforts, Malcolm X was too far gone. Malcolm X’s wife, Betty Shabazz, had been in the room with their four daughters that day. She ran up to her husband, shouting, “They are killing my husband!” Malcolm X was put on a stretcher and carried across the street to the Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center. Doctors tried to revive Malcolm X by opening up his chest and massaging his heart, but their attempt was unsuccessful.
8. Malcolm X and Ronald Stokes 1963 - After an altercation where a cop was shot, LAPD officers attacked the Black Muslim temple, a block away, where unarmed members were leaving after evening prayers. The final tally: one Muslim man dead, seven others seriously wounded, fourteen arraigned on felonies, and the temple ransacked. Malcolm, at the funeral, praised LA Black organizations for protesting the attack: "Our unity shocked them and we should continue to shock the white man by working together." (Set the Night on Fire L.A. n the Sixties, Mike Davis and Jon Wiener)
9. Malcolm X and NOI
10. 1964 Malcolm X holding a rifle at the window of his home “Famous photograph that was in “Life” magazine in March of 1964 and again in “Ebony” in September of that same year. In the picture, Malcolm X is holding a M1 Carbine in his right hand, and pulling back the blinds on his window with his left hand, looking outside his Queens, NY, home to keep watch. He had good cause. On Feb. 14, 1965, his house was firebombed. A week later, on Feb. 21, 1965, while giving a speech, with his family in the audience, Malcolm X was assassinated.”
11. 1962 LAPD attack a Black Muslim Temple, killing Ronald Stokes April 27: An altercation leads to police entering the Los Angeles Temple and killing its unarmed secretary, Ronald Stokes. "They're going to pay for it," Malcolm declares, and goes to Los Angeles to eulogize Stokes at a funeral attended by 2,000 people. He says the police shot "innocent unarmed Black men in cold blood" and urges action. But Elijah Muhammad resists calls for an aggressive response. An all-white coroner's jury deliberates about Stokes' killing for 23 minutes and terms it "justifiable homicide." By contrast, 14 Nation of Islam members are indicted for assault in the incident and 11 are found guilty. Later this year, Malcolm confirms that Elijah Muhammad has engaged in repeated adultery and had children with at least three of his young secretaries. "I felt almost out of my mind," Malcolm says. Herbert Muhammad asks Muhammad Speaks to minimize coverage of Malcolm X.