44 Years Ago Today

A reminder from Erik Loomis at Lawyers, Guns and Money of the reason Martin Luther King, Jr., was in Memphis that day.

On this date in 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated by James Earl Ray while in Memphis to support a strike by the city’s sanitation workers.

SNIP

King didn’t really want to return to Memphis. He was upset by what happened during the mass march. Moreover, he felt the movement had slipped away from him, with young people embracing violence that he hoped to avoid. Nonetheless, King felt that if his nonviolent movement for economic justice was to succeed, winning a victory in Memphis was absolutely necessary. On April 3, King arrived in Memphis. That night, he gave his final speech.



The next day, James Earl Ray assassinated Martin Luther King as he stood on the balcony of the Lorraine Hotel.

In the aftermath of King’s death, pressure rained down from both above and below on Loeb to settle the strike. He refused, but Lyndon Johnson sent his Undersecretary of Labor to see this through. On April 8, the city came to an agreement to recognize the union and pay a higher wage, though it had to continue pressuring the city once the cameras left to live up to the agreement.

The Poor Person’s Campaign went on without King, but lacked leadership and vision and faded quickly. More on that in a future post.

Read the whole thing.