OH+Martin+Luther+Kings+Assassination


 * MARTIN LUTHER KING’S ASSASSINATION **

King was in Memphis to try and get equal pay for black workers, with whom the white workers refused to negotiate. He had come to lead a peaceful march in support of striking sanitation workers. King and his entourage decided to stay at the Lorraine Motel when they visited Memphis. It was not the best motel but they stayed there anyway. The first march for equal pay that King attempted had turned to valance, people started breaking windows and throwing rocks at the police. This was not acceptable, so king decided to stay to do another march.

On April 4, 1968, King and his friends were getting dressed to have dinner with Memphis minister Billy Kyles. King was running late and his friends were finishing getting ready when Kyles and King stepped out from the motel room onto the balcony. They went out to talk to some men waiting below, who they would be attending the meeting with. Kyles was just a couple steps down the stairs and Abernathy was still inside the motel room when the shot rang out. King had fallen to the concrete floor of the balcony with a large, gaping wound covering his right jaw. Kyles ran into the motel to call an ambulance. Within fifteen minutes of the shot, Martin Luther King arrived at St. Joseph's Hospital on a stretcher with an oxygen mask over his face. He had been hit by a .30-06 caliber rifle bullet that had entered his right jaw, and then traveled through his neck, severing his spinal cord, and stopped in his shoulder blade.

Martin Luther King, Jr. was pronounced dead at 7:05 p.m. At St. Joseph Hospital. He was 39 years old. A little after the murder a bundle was dropped off near the site of the assassination. In the package there was a .30-06 rifle, ammunition, a pair of binoculars, and some other items. The gun was found to be bought by Harvey Lowmeyer, who was not the murdered but some one who had helped him. The fingerprints on the rifle and other items were matched to James Earl Ray, a fugitive from the Missouri State Penitentiary. More than a month had passed from the murder before the police could find Ray but on June 8Ray was arrested in Heathrow Airport in London, apparently on his way to Rhodesia. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 99 years in prison. In outrage of the murder, many blacks took to the streets across the country in a massive wave of riots.

**QUESTIONS **

This is my representation of Jerry Vos’s opinions on Martin Luther King’s death. He was no involved in the civil rights movement but he was a history teacher and tried to learn as much as he could on the subject.

I. What were you doing when you found out Martin Luther king had been shot?

I was getting ready for a road trip to Colorado when I heard on the radio that martin Luther King had been shot. I delayed the trip and stayed home to watch the television, because they had very good broad casting and listen to reports on the radio. It was one of those moments that you will always remember where you are and what you were doing when you heard to news, it was like when john F Kennedy was shot. I still remember where I was. But any ways I delayed the trip to stay home and listen to what had happened; I stayed home for 3 days.

Was it scary for you when it happened? (A question I asked in the middle)

Yes it was scary, the Kennedys had just been shot and King was the third person to die. We were all wondering what was going to happen next. People were wondering what was happening to America.

II. What did you thing would happen to the civil rights movement now that he was dead?

Well I did not know, I thought it would slow down and take at least two to three years to get back up to where it was but I was wrong. The protests picked up and so did the people, now everyone was fighting even harder. They treated it like a martyr, it spurred people into greater action, they felt it was there responsibility it make the civil rights movement a success, they felt they owed it to king.

III. What were your thoughts on his death, were you surprised?

Sure! Ok course I was surprised, he had so much protection I just did not think it was possible. But mostly I was disappointed, extremely disappointed. Was that how America was supposed to be? No.

IV. What did you think was going to happen to James Ray when he was convicted?

I thought they would apprehend (yes Mrs. Barth he actually used apprehend) him immediately, but it took a long time. Now, I don’t remember how long, but it must have been a couple months or a couple years, before they ever got him. But then they also kept him in prison for a long time and in prison he kept deigning that he was guilty, but he obviously was. I think he died in prison, maybe of a heart attack? Well, I think so.

<span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px; letter-spacing: 0.25pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 12pt 0in 0.25in 1in; text-indent: -1in;">V. What did your friends and family feel about this and how did it affect your family, were you worried about anyone close to you?

<span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px; letter-spacing: 0.25pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 12pt 0in 0.25in 1in;">No, I was not worried about my family. The people against the civil war movement felt like they had accomplished their mission, that they had won the war now that King was died. My brother Bill and my sister Mary were both involved, and agents Martin Luther King, and they felt like they had won the war.

<span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px; letter-spacing: 0.25pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 12pt 0in 0.25in 1in; text-indent: -1in;">VI. Did you ever think anything like this would happen before he was assassinated?

<span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px; letter-spacing: 0.25pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 12pt 0in 0.25in 1in;">No! I did not think it would even be possible, I thought he had enough protection, it is called an entourage you know, he had a very strong entourage. But I guess it could happen to anybody, because there are a lot of wakos out there, and it is a free society so it is impossible to prevent it from happening.

<span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px; letter-spacing: 0.25pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 12pt 0in 0.25in 1in; text-indent: -1in;">VII. Were you worried about the violence that broke out after King died?

<span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px; letter-spacing: 0.25pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 12pt 0in 0.25in 1in;">No, not then, the violence that followed was mostly around the presidential election, plus it was in Chicago and lots of other isolated cases but it was not with us up in Minnesota. But it was scary to hear about, there was a lot of valance, burnings in the streets, and people tipping over cars, yeah it was kinda scary, but it was isolated to specific locations. No, it was the years after Vietnam that were scary, the violence got really serious. **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px; letter-spacing: 0.25pt; line-height: 115%;">REFLECTION ** <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px; letter-spacing: 0.25pt; line-height: 115%;">Even though I am not a history geek I was still surprised on how little I knew on one of the most well known events in US history. I knew where he had been when he was shot, where he was shot, and who had shot him, but I really did not know how it affected the people, even people who were not involved in the movement. It was fun to try and imagine what it would have been like to hear that and shocking to think about. I like best when Jerry said that it was just one of those thinks where you would always remember when you found out.

**<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px; line-height: 115%;">CITATIONS **

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; letter-spacing: 1.5pt; margin: 12pt 7.5pt 7.5pt 0.5in;">"Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. - Part 2." //About.com//. The New York Times Company, 2011. Web. 28 May 2011. <http://history1900s.about.com/cs/martinlutherking/a/mlkassass_2.htm>.

<span style="background: white; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; letter-spacing: 1.5pt; margin: 12pt 7.5pt 7.5pt 0.5in;">"The Martin Luther King Assassination." //Mary Ferrell Foundation//. Mary Ferrell Foundation, n.d. Web. 28 May 2011. <http://www.maryferrell.org/wiki/index.php/Martin_Luther_King_Assassination>.