Memphis’ Lorraine Motel was the site of the 6:01 p.m., April 4th, 1968 execution of Dr. Martin Luther King, civil Rights leader and anti Vietnam War Crusader. He was shot in front of room 306 where he stood on the balcony talking to members of his team in the parking lot. The site has been preserved and is now the
National Civil Rights Museum at The Lorraine Motel. The site consists of the motel, the surrounding land and the buildings across the street where the fatal shot came from.
The Lorrain Motel and room 306, in front of which King was shot:
The Motel and parking lot:
The buildings across the street. The police insist the fatal shot was fired by James Earl Ray from the window on the second floor, top right.
Here is James Earl Ray’s bathroom window, partially open as it was that day. This shot was taken from as close as I could get to the balcony outside room 306.
The actual bathroom window is inaccessible due to a Plexiglas surrounding erected to replace the bathroom walls and to protect the room. This shot was taken from the taller window in the next room and gives an almost identical view. The wreath on the motel balcony was where King was standing. I resorted to my old photography tricks learned in Dallas at the Kennedy assignation site where cameras were also banned inside the buildings. This photo was shot from the hip while I looked in a different direction. Pretty sneaky, eh?
So, what is wrong with this picture? Well, if we believe the official story, everything fits. The problem is, many people including the King family did not believe the cover story and started their own investigation. It was then that the “evidence” started to fall apart. There was a conspiracy trial in 1999 in Memphis that found that there had been a far reaching conspiracy in the murder. The participants in the killing were found to be the Mafia, FBI, CIA, Military and the Memphis Police Department. This trial was hushed up and the findings suppressed.
What was so dangerous about the 1999 Memphis trial that it had to be suppressed? The evidence presented — under oath and on the record — made it abundantly clear that the reports of the 1997 House Select Committee on Assassinations, of the Civil Rights Commission appointed by Clinton’s AG Janet Reno, and the New York Times were all wrong. James Earl Ray did not murder King.
The all Black police detachment that normally protected King when he was in the city was replaced that day with no reason given. The only two Black firemen from the station across the street were told to take the day off while the army told the fire chief they needed his rooftop that day to photograph and observe King. They carried a package to the rooftop which they said contained “cameras”.
The owner of the building next door swore under oath that the bag that contained the weapon police insisted was used by James Earl Ray to kill King was dropped off at his door ten minutes BEFORE he heard the shot.
Federal Judge Joe Brown found in another trial that this gun was not the murder weapon, that the bullets did not match, the scope had never been sighted in and that the gun was incapable of making this accurate a shot.
Loyd Jowers, the defendant in the conspiracy trial was connected to the Mafia and admitted that he was involved in the assignation of King, that he had participated in the killing. He also stated that he had received a “smoking rifle” from a Memphis Police Department marksman which he later disposed of.
Immediately after the shot, two men ran from the bush area in front of the building across the street. One jumped into a green Chev and burned rubber leaving the scene right in front of a Memphis Police car which gave no apparent notice. The other fleeing man jumped into a different police car which drove away.
All this evidence they uncovered was put before a jury in Memphis, TN, in November 1999. 70 witnesses testified under oath, 4,000 pages of transcripts described the evidence, much of it new. It took the jury 59 minutes to come back with their decision that Loyd Jowers, owner of Jim’s Grill, had participated in a conspiracy to kill King, a conspiracy that included J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI, Richard Helms and the CIA, the military, the Memphis Police Department (MPD), and organized crime. That verdict exonerated James Earl Ray who had already died in prison.
WHY?
Good question. Martin Luther King was adamantly opposed to the Vietnam War. He was organizing a mass protest in Washington to force the Government to abandon this war. He had the charisma, the organizing ability and the public support to accomplish this. There was also speculation that he was planning a run for President of the United States.
This was unacceptable to the American controlled multinational corporations that stood to lose billions if the USA abandoned the Vietnam War. These corporations had (and still have) the power to direct policy. King stood between them and their profits and he had to go. There was more than one rifle aimed at the Reverend King that day. If the marksman had missed or was interrupted, there were backups. His fate was sealed. He was a dead man walking!
All of this information has been suppressed. William Pepper’s (the King family lawyer) 2003 book,
An Act of State, The Execution of Martin Luther King, published by Verso, gave a detailed report of the trial. The book was systematically ignored. Pepper said in February 2003 that he had been personally turned down by reviewers for major media. They did not want to put their jobs and reputation on the line. I have my copy on order from eBay.
