Block, Siteadmin, SkipCaptcha, Upload, Automoderated users, delete, edit, move, nsTeam2RO, nsTeam2RW, nsTeam2_talkRO, nsTeam2_talkRW, protect, rollback, Administrators, template
294,718
edits
Changes
→Assassination
King's assassin, a white ex-convict named [[James Earl Ray]], successfully eluded police for two months. He fled to [[Canada]], where he lived under the alias Ramon George Sneyd. He was arrested on June 8, 1968 and confessed to the crime, for which he received a sentence of 99 years in prison.<ref>http://www.fullissue.com/index.php/james-earl-ray-biography-1929-1998.html</ref>
King's assassin, a white ex-convict named [[James Earl Ray]], successfully eluded police for two months. He fled to [[Canada]], where he lived under the alias Ramon George Sneyd. He was arrested on June 8, 1968 and confessed to the crime, for which he received a sentence of 99 years in prison.<ref>http://www.fullissue.com/index.php/james-earl-ray-biography-1929-1998.html</ref>
===Alleged FBI involvement===
The [[FBI]], under the direction of [[J. Edgar Hoover]], kept King under surveillance from 1961 until his death in 1968. The Bureau tapped his phones and bugged his hotel rooms. The FBI did not end its [[surveillance]] of King's wife, [[Coretta Scott King]], until many years after her husband's death.
Because of this, and despite Ray's confession to the murder, both [[Jesse Jackson]] and King's son Dexter Scott King have both said there was a government [[conspiracy]] to murder the civil rights leader. Jackson wrote the foreword to Ray's autobiography ''Who Killed Martin Luther King Jr.?'' and in it, he wrote "I have always believed that the government was part of a conspiracy, either directly or indirectly, to assassinate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr."<ref>http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/terrorists_spies/assassins/ray/1.html</ref>
Because of this, and despite Ray's confession to the murder, both [[Jesse Jackson]] and King's son Dexter Scott King have both said there was a government [[conspiracy]] to murder the civil rights leader. Jackson wrote the foreword to Ray's autobiography ''Who Killed Martin Luther King Jr.?'' and in it, he wrote "I have always believed that the government was part of a conspiracy, either directly or indirectly, to assassinate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr."<ref>http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/terrorists_spies/assassins/ray/1.html</ref>
Ten years after the assassination of Martin Luther King, the House Assassinations Committee re-examined Dr. King's murder. Many key witnesses had died and important evidence had not been preserved. The committee found:<ref>https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/select-committee-report/summary.html#king</ref>
{{quotebox-float|"The Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation performed with varying degrees of competency and legality in the fulfillment of their duties.
The Department of Justice failed to supervise adequately the Domestic Intelligence Division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. In addition, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, in the Domestic Intelligence Division's COINTELPRO campaign against Dr. King, grossly abused and exceeded its legal authority and failed to consider the possibility that actions threatening bodily harm to Dr. King might be encouraged by the program.
The Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation performed a thorough investigation into the responsibility of James Earl Ray for the assassination of Dr. King, and conducted a thorough fugitive investigation, but failed to investigate adequately the possibility of conspiracy in the assassination. The Federal Bureau of Investigation manifested a lack of concern for constitutional rights in the manner in which it conducted parts of the investigation.}}
Attorney Mark Lane, who appeared with James Earl Ray at the Congressional hearings, insisted the FBI was involved in the assassination.<ref>https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1978/10/28/kings-assassins-were-fbi-men-mark-lane-says/23bd831c-84ee-4871-930e-d370601d4fd9/</ref>
== Memorial ==
== Memorial ==