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Martin Luther King, Jr.

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Political People

                Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
   January 15, 1929 - April 4, 1968
   Place of birth: Atlanta, Georgia, USA
   Place of death: Memphis, Tennessee, USA
      Movement:    African-American Civil Rights Movement

   Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. ( January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was the
   most famous leader of the American civil rights movement, a political
   activist, and a Southern Baptist minister. Considered a peacemaker
   throughout the world for his promotion of nonviolence and equal
   treatment for different races, he received the Nobel Peace Prize in
   1964. On April 4, 1968, Dr. King was assassinated in Memphis,
   Tennessee. He was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of
   Freedom by Jimmy Carter in 1977, the Congressional Gold Medal in 2004,
   and in 1986, Martin Luther King Day was established in his honour.
   Considered by many as one of the greatest public speakers in U.S.
   history , Dr. King often called for personal responsibility in
   fostering world peace. King's most influential and well-known public
   address is the " I Have A Dream" speech, delivered on the steps of the
   Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.

Early life

   Martin Luther King, Jr. was born on January 15, 1929 in Atlanta,
   Georgia. He was the son of the Reverend Martin Luther King, Sr. and
   Alberta Williams King. King entered Morehouse College at the age of
   fifteen, as he skipped his ninth and twelth highschool grades without
   formally graduating. In 1948 he graduated from Morehouse with a B.A.
   degree in sociology, and enrolled in Crozer Theological Seminary in
   Chester, Pennsylvania. In 1951 King began doctoral studies in Systemic
   Theology at Boston University, and recieved his Ph.D. in 1955. Although
   questions have sinced been raised as to the legitimacy of his Ph.D.
   given the scandal surrounding his tendency to indulge in plagiarism, of
   which more is said below.

Civil rights activism

   In 1953, at the age of twenty-four, King became pastor of the Dexter
   Avenue Baptist Church, in Montgomery, Alabama. On December 1, 1955,
   Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to comply with the Jim Crow law
   that required her to give up her seat to a white man. The Montgomery
   Bus Boycott, led by King, soon followed. (This, despite the fact that
   in March of the same year, a 15 year old school girl, Claudette Colvin,
   suffered the same fate but King refused to become involve, instead
   preferring to focus on leading his church.) The boycott lasted for 382
   days, the situation becoming so tense that King's house was bombed.
   King was arrested during this campaign, which ended with a United
   States Supreme Court decision outlawing racial segregation on all
   public transport.

   King was instrumental in the founding of the Southern Christian
   Leadership Conference (SCLC) in 1957, a group created to harness the
   moral authority and organizing power of black churches to conduct
   nonviolent protests in the service of civil rights reform. King
   continued to dominate the organization. King was an adherent of the
   philosophies of nonviolent civil disobedience used successfully in
   India by Mahatma Gandhi, and he applied this philosophy to the protests
   organized by the SCLC.

   The FBI began wiretapping King in 1961, fearing that communists were
   trying to infiltrate the Civil Rights Movement, but when no such
   evidence emerged, the bureau used the incidental details caught on tape
   over six years in attempts to force King out of the pre-eminent
   leadership position.

   King correctly recognized that organized, nonviolent protest against
   the racist system of southern segregation known as Jim Crow laws would
   lead to extensive media coverage of the struggle for black equality and
   voting rights. Indeed, journalistic accounts and televised footage of
   the daily deprivation and indignities suffered by southern blacks, and
   of segregationist violence and harassment of civil rights workers and
   marchers, produced a wave of sympathetic public opinion that made the
   Civil Rights Movement the single most important issue in American
   politics in the early-1960s.
   Image:Mlkingmug1.jpg
   Martin Luther King Jr., after his arrest in February of 1956, at the
   age of 27. He had been arrested during the Montgomery Bus Boycott. The
   mug shot was found in July, 2004, during the cleaning out of a storage
   room at the Montgomery County Sheriff's Department. Someone had written
   "DEAD" twice on the picture, as well as 4-4-68, the date King was
   killed, though it is not known who wrote it.

   King organized and led marches for blacks' right to vote,
   desegregation, labor rights and other basic civil rights. Most of these
   rights were successfully enacted into United States law with the
   passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of
   1965.

   King and the SCLC applied the principles of nonviolent protest with
   great success by strategically choosing the method of protest and the
   places in which protests were carried out in often dramatic stand-offs
   with segregationist authorities. Sometimes these confrontations turned
   violent. King and the SCLC were instrumental in the unsuccessful
   protest movement in Albany, in 1961 & 1962, where divisions within the
   black community and the canny, low-key response by local government
   defeated efforts; in the Birmingham protests in the summer of 1963; and
   in the protest in St. Augustine, Florida, in 1964. King and the SCLC
   joined forces with SNCC in Selma, Alabama, in December 1964, where SNCC
   had been working on voter registration for a number of months. His 1964
   book Why We Can't Wait elaborated this idea further, presenting it as
   an application of the common law regarding settlement of unpaid labor.

The March on Washington

   King is perhaps most famous for his "I Have a Dream" speech, given in
   front of the Lincoln Memorial during the 1963 March on Washington for
   Jobs and Freedom.
   Enlarge
   King is perhaps most famous for his " I Have a Dream" speech, given in
   front of the Lincoln Memorial during the 1963 March on Washington for
   Jobs and Freedom.

   King, representing SCLC, was among the leaders of the so-called "Big
   Six" civil rights organizations who were instrumental in the
   organization of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963.
   The other leaders and organizations comprising the Big Six were: Roy
   Wilkins, NAACP; Whitney Young, Jr., Urban League; A. Philip Randolph,
   Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters; John Lewis, SNCC; and James Farmer
   of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). For King, this role was
   another which courted controversy, as he was one of the key figures who
   acceded to the wishes of President John F. Kennedy in changing the
   focus of the march. Kennedy initially opposed the march outright,
   because he was concerned it would negatively impact the drive for
   passage of civil rights legislation, but the organizers were firm that
   the march would proceed.

   The march originally was conceived as an event to dramatize the
   desperate condition of blacks in the South and a very public
   opportunity to place organizers' concerns and grievances squarely
   before the seat of power in the nation's capital. Organizers intended
   to excoriate and then challenge the federal government for its failure
   to safeguard the civil rights and physical safety of civil rights
   workers and blacks, generally, in the South. However, the group
   acquiesced to presidential pressure and influence, and the event
   ultimately took on a far less strident tone.

   As a result, some civil rights activists felt it presented an
   inaccurate, sanitized pageant of racial harmony; Malcolm X called it
   the "Farce on Washington," and members of the Nation of Islam who
   attended the march faced a temporary suspension.

   The march did, however, make specific demands: an end to racial
   segregation in public school; meaningful civil rights legislation,
   including a law prohibiting racial discrimination in employment;
   protection of civil rights workers from police brutality; a $2 minimum
   wage for all workers; and self-government for the District of Columbia,
   then governed by congressional committee.

   Despite tensions, the march was a resounding success. More than a
   quarter of a million people of diverse ethnicities attended the event,
   sprawling from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial onto the National Mall
   and around the reflecting pool. At the time, it was the largest
   gathering of protesters in Washington's history. King's I Have a Dream
   speech electrified the crowd. It is regarded, along with President
   Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, as one of the finest speeches in the
   history of American oratory. President Kennedy, himself opposed to the
   march, met King afterwards with enthusiasm - repeating King's line back
   to him; "I have a dream", while nodding with approval.

   Throughout his career of service, King wrote and spoke frequently,
   drawing on his long experience as a preacher. His " Letter from
   Birmingham Jail", written in 1963, is a passionate statement of his
   crusade for justice. On October 14, 1964, King became the youngest
   recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, which was awarded to him for
   leading non-violent resistance to end racial prejudice in the United
   States.

Stance on compensation

   On several occasions King expressed a view that black Americans, as
   well as other disadvantaged Americans, should be compensated for
   historical wrongs. Speaking to Alex Haley in 1965, he said that
   granting black Americans only equality could not realistically close
   the economic gap between them and whites. King said that he did not
   seek a full restitution of wages lost to slavery, which he believed
   impossible, but proposed a government compensatory program of US$50
   billion over ten years to all disadvantaged groups. He posited that
   "the money spent would be more than amply justified by the benefits
   that would accrue to the nation through a spectacular decline in school
   dropouts, family breakups, crime rates, illegitimacy, swollen relief
   rolls, rioting and other social evils." His 1964 book Why We Can't Wait
   elaborated this idea further, presenting it as an application of the
   common law regarding settlement of unpaid labor.

"Bloody Sunday"

   King and SCLC, in partial collaboration with SNCC, then attempted to
   organize a march from Selma to the state capital of Montgomery, for
   March 25, 1965. The first attempt to march on March 7 was aborted due
   to mob and police violence against the demonstrators. This day has
   since become known as Bloody Sunday. Bloody Sunday was a major turning
   point in the effort to gain public support for the Civil Rights
   Movement, the clearest demonstration up to that time of the dramatic
   potential of King's nonviolence strategy. King, however, was not
   present. After meeting with President Lyndon B. Johnson, he attempted
   to delay the march until March 8, but the march was carried out against
   his wishes and without his presence by local civil rights workers.
   Filmed footage of the police brutality against the protesters was
   broadcast extensively, and aroused national public outrage.

   The second attempt at the march on March 9 was ended when King stopped
   the procession at the Edmund Pettus Bridge on the outskirts of Selma,
   an action which he seemed to have negotiated with city leaders
   beforehand. This unexpected action aroused the surprise and anger of
   many within the local movement. The march finally went ahead fully on
   March 25, and it was during this march that Willie Ricks coined the
   phrase " Black Power" (widely credited to Stokely Carmichael).

Bayard Rustin

   African American civil rights activist Bayard Rustin counseled King to
   dedicate himself to the principles of non-violence in 1956, and had a
   leadership role in organizing the 1963 March on Washington. However,
   Rustin's open homosexuality and support of democratic socialism and
   (long-abandoned) ties to the Communist Party USA caused many white and
   African American leaders to demand that King distance himself from
   Rustin, which he did on several occasions, but not all — such as when
   he ensured Rustin's role in the March on Washington.

Chicago

   In 1966, after several successes in the South, King and other people in
   the civil rights organizations tried to spread the movement to the
   North, with Chicago as its first target. King and Ralph Abernathy, both
   middle class folk, moved into Chicago's slums as an educational
   experience and to demonstrate their support and empathy for the poor.

   Their organization, The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)
   formed a coalition with CCCO, Coordinating Committee of Community
   Organizations, an organization itself founded by Albert Raby, Jr., and
   the combined organizations' efforts were fostered under the aegis of
   The Chicago Freedom Movement (CFO). During that Spring a number of dual
   white couple/black couple tests on real estate offices uncovered the
   practice, now banned by the Real Estate Industry, of "steering"; these
   tests revealed the racially selective processing of housing requests by
   couples who were exact matches in income, background, number of
   children, and other attributes, with the only difference being their
   race. Without exception, the black couples were rejected and the white
   couples were accepted at the real estate offices, which were then
   picketed by CFO.

   The needs of the movement for radical change grew and several larger
   marches were planned and executed, including those in the following
   neighborhoods: Bogan, Belmont-Cragin, Jefferson Park, Evergreen Park (A
   Suburb southwest of Chicago), Gage Park and Marquette Park, among
   others.

   In Chicago, Abernathy would later write, they received a worse
   reception than they had in the South. Their marches were met by thrown
   bottles and screaming throngs, and they were truly afraid of starting a
   riot. King's beliefs mitigated against his staging a violent event; if
   King had intimations that a peaceful march would be put down with
   violence he would call it off for the safety of others. Nonetheless, he
   led these marches in the face of death threats to his person. And in
   Chicago the violence was so formidable it shook the two friends.

   Another problem was the duplicitousness of the city leaders. Abernathy
   and King secured agreements on action to be taken, but this action was
   subverted after-the-fact by politicians within Mayor Richard J. Daley's
   corrupt machine. Abernathy could not stand the slums and secretly moved
   out after a short period. King stayed and wrote of the emotional impact
   Coretta and his children suffered from the horrid conditions.

   When King and his allies returned to the south, they left Jesse
   Jackson, a seminary student who had previously joined the movement in
   the south, in charge of their organization. Jackson displayed
   oratorical skill, and organized the first successful boycotts against
   what have since become known as "Big Box" stores. One such campaign
   targeted A&P Stores which refused to hire blacks as clerks; the
   campaign was so effective that it laid the groundwork for the equal
   opportunity programs begun in the 1970's. Jackson also initiated the
   first "Black Expo" under the auspices of SCLC as Operation Breadbasket,
   and continued free standing as Operation PUSH after a split with SCLC.
   Black Expo became P.U.S.H. Expo, which continued to showcase the many
   long-standing and newly formed Black Businesses such as Johnson
   Publishing, Parker House Sausage, Seaway National Bank, and many
   businesses that continue today, and which owe their existence to
   P.U.S.H. EXCEL, the current form of the organization.

Further challenges

   Starting in 1965, King began to express doubts about the United States'
   role in the Vietnam War. On April 4, 1967 -- exactly one year before
   his death -- King spoke out strongly against the US's role in the war,
   insisting that the US was in Vietnam "to occupy it as an American
   colony" and calling the US government "the greatest purveyor of
   violence in the world today." But he also argued that the country
   needed larger and broader moral changes:

          A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the
          glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous
          indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual
          capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia,
          Africa and South America, only to take the profits out with no
          concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say:
          "This is not just."

   King was long hated by many white southern segregationists, but this
   speech turned the more mainstream media against him. TIME called the
   speech "demagogic slander that sounded like a script for Radio Hanoi",
   and The Washington Post declared that King had "diminished his
   usefulness to his cause, his country, his people."

   With regards to Vietnam, King often claimed that North Vietnam "did not
   begin to send in any large number of supplies or men until American
   forces had arrived in the tens of thousands." (Quoted in Michael Lind,
   Vietnam: The Necessary War, 1999 p. 182) King also praised North
   Vietnam's land reform. (Quoted in Lind, 1999) He accused the United
   States of having killed a million Vietnamese "mostly children."
   (Guenter Lewey, America in Vietnam, 1978 pp. 444-5) He once even
   equated U.S. involvement in Vietnam to Nazi Germany's use of
   concentration camps. (Quoted in Lind, 1999)]]

   The speech was a reflection of King's evolving political advocacy in
   his later years, sparked in part by his affiliation with and training
   at the progressive Highlander Research and Education Centre. King began
   to speak of the need for fundamental changes in the political and
   economic life of the nation. Toward the end of his life, King more
   frequently expressed his opposition to the war and his desire to see a
   redistribution of resources to correct racial and economic injustice.
   Though his public language was guarded, so as to avoid being linked to
   communism by his political enemies, in private he sometimes spoke of
   his support for democratic socialism:

          You can't talk about solving the economic problem of the Negro
          without talking about billions of dollars. You can't talk about
          ending the slums without first saying profit must be taken out
          of slums. You're really tampering and getting on dangerous
          ground because you are messing with folk then. You are messing
          with captains of industry.... Now this means that we are
          treading in difficult water, because it really means that we are
          saying that something is wrong... with capitalism.... There must
          be a better distribution of wealth and maybe America must move
          toward a democratic socialism. (Frogmore, S.C. November 14,
          1966. Speech in front of his staff.)

   King also stated in his "Beyond Vietnam" speech that "True compassion
   is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it comes to see that an
   edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring." From Vietnam to
   South Africa to Latin America, King said, the U.S. was "on the wrong
   side of a world revolution." King questioned "our alliance with the
   landed gentry of Latin America," and asked why the U.S. was suppressing
   revolutions "of the shirtless and barefoot people" in the Third World,
   instead of supporting them.

   In 1968, King and the SCLC organized the " Poor People's Campaign" to
   address issues of economic justice. However, according to the article
   "Coalition Building and Mobilization Against Poverty", King and SCLC's
   Poor People's Campaign was not supported by the other leaders of the
   Civil Rights Movement, including Bayard Rustin. Their opposition
   incorporated arguments that the goals of Poor People Campaign was too
   broad, the demands unrealizable, and thought these campaigns would
   accelerate the backlash and repression on the poor and the black.

   The campaign culminated in a march on Washington, D.C. demanding
   economic aid to the poorest communities of the United States. He
   crisscrossed the country to assemble "a multiracial army of the poor"
   that would descend on Washington -- engaging in nonviolent civil
   disobedience at the Capitol, if need be -- until Congress enacted a
   poor people's bill of rights. Reader's Digest warned of an
   "insurrection."

   King's economic bill of rights called for massive government jobs
   programs to rebuild America's cities. He saw a crying need to confront
   a Congress that had demonstrated its "hostility to the poor" --
   appropriating "military funds with alacrity and generosity," but
   providing "poverty funds with miserliness." His vision was for change
   that was more revolutionary than mere reform: he cited systematic flaws
   of racism, poverty, militarism and materialism, and that
   "reconstruction of society itself is the real issue to be faced."
   Garrow, op.cit. p. 214.

   In April 3, 1968, King prophetically told a euphoric crowd during his
   "I've Been to the Mountaintop" speech:

          It really doesn't matter what happens now.... some began to...
          talk about the threats that were out -- what would happen to me
          from some of our sick white brothers.... 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 He's
          allowed me to go up to the mountain! And I've looked over, and
          I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I
          want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the
          Promised Land. 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!

Assassination

   The Lorraine Motel, where Rev. King was assassinated, now the site of
   the National Civil Rights Museum
   Enlarge
   The Lorraine Motel, where Rev. King was assassinated, now the site of
   the National Civil Rights Museum
   Martin Luther King's tomb, located on the grounds of the King Center
   Enlarge
   Martin Luther King's tomb, located on the grounds of the King Centre

   In late March, 1968, Dr. King went to Memphis, Tennessee in support of
   the black garbage workers of AFSCME Local 1733, who had been on strike
   since March 12 for higher wages and better treatment: for example,
   African American workers, paid $1.70 per hour, were not paid when sent
   home because of inclement weather (unlike white workers).

   On April 3, Dr. King returned to Memphis and addressed a rally,
   delivering his "I've been to the Mountaintop" address.

   King was assassinated at 6:01 p.m. April 4, 1968, on the balcony of the
   Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. Friends inside the motel room
   heard the shots and ran to the balcony to find King shot in the throat.
   He was pronounced dead at St. Joseph's Hospital at 7:05 p.m. The
   assassination led to a nationwide wave of riots in more than 60 cities.
   Five days later, President Lyndon B. Johnson declared a national day of
   mourning for the lost civil rights leader. A crowd of 300,000 attended
   his funeral that same day. Vice-President Hubert Humphrey attended on
   behalf of Lyndon B. Johnson, who was meeting with several advisors and
   cabinet officers on the Vietnam War in Camp David. Also, there were
   fears he might be hit with protests and abuses over the war. The city
   quickly settled the strike, on favorable terms, after the
   assassination.

   Two months after King's death, escaped convict James Earl Ray was
   captured at London Heathrow Airport while trying to leave the United
   Kingdom on a false Canadian passport in the name of Ramon George Sneyd.
   Ray was quickly extradited to Tennessee and charged with King's murder,
   confessing to the assassination on March 10, 1969 (though he recanted
   this confession three days later). Later, Ray would be sentenced to a
   99-year prison term.

   On the advice of his attorney Percy Foreman, Ray took a guilty plea to
   avoid a trial conviction and thus the possibility of receiving the
   death penalty.

   Ray fired Foreman as his attorney (from then on derisively calling him
   "Percy Fourflusher") claiming that a man he met in Montreal, Canada
   with the alias "Raoul" was involved, as was his brother Johnny, but not
   himself, further asserting that although he didn't "personally shoot
   Dr. King," he may have been "partially responsible without knowing it,"
   hinting at a conspiracy. He spent the remainder of his life attempting
   (unsuccessfully) to withdraw his guilty plea and secure the trial he
   never had.

   On June 10, 1977, shortly after Ray had testified to the House Select
   Committee on Assassinations that he did not shoot King, he and six
   other convicts escaped from Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary in
   Petros, Tennessee. They were recaptured on June 13 and returned to
   prison. More years were then added to his sentence for attempting to
   escape from the penitentiary.

Allegations of conspiracy

   Some have speculated that Ray had been used as a " patsy" similar to
   the way that alleged John F. Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald was
   supposed to have been. Some of the claims used to support this
   assertion are:
     * Ray's confession was given under pressure and he had been
       threatened with death penalty.
     * Ray was a small-time thief and burglar, and had no record of
       committing violent crimes with a weapon.
     * The weapon that Ray is believed to have used in the assassination
       (a Remington Gamemaster Model 760 .30-'06 caliber rifle) had only
       two of Ray's fingerprints on it.
     * According to several fellow prison inmates, Ray had never expressed
       any political or racial opinions of any kind, casting doubt on
       Ray's purported motive for committing the crime.
     * The rooming-house bathroom from which Ray is said to have fired the
       fatal shots did not have any of his fingerprints at all.
     * Ray was believed to have been an average marksman, and it is
       claimed by many that Ray had not fired a rifle since his discharge
       from the United States Army in the late-1940s.

   Many suspecting a conspiracy in the assassination point out the two
   separate ballistic tests conducted on the Remington Gamemaster had
   neither conclusively proved Ray had been the killer nor that it had
   even been the murder weapon. Moreover, witnesses surrounding King at
   the moment of his death say the shot came from another location, from
   behind thick shrubbery near the rooming house, not from the rooming
   house itself, shrubbery which had been suddenly and inexplicably cut
   away in the days following the assassination. Also, Ray's petty
   criminal history had been one of colossal and repeated ineptitude; he'd
   been quickly and easily apprehended each time he committed an offense,
   behaviour in sharp contrast to his actions shortly before and after the
   shooting; he'd easily managed to secure several different pieces of
   legitimate identification, using the names and personal data of living
   men who all coincidentally looked like and were of about the same age
   and physical build as Ray; he spent large sums of cash and traveled
   overseas without being apprehended at any border crossing, even though
   he had been a wanted fugitive. According to Ray, all of this had been
   accomplished with the aid of the still unidentified "Raoul."
   Investigative reporter Louis Lomax had also discovered the Missouri
   Department of Corrections, shortly after Ray's April 1967 prison
   escape, had sent the incorrect set of fingerprints to the FBI and had
   failed to notice or correct this error. Lomax had been publishing a
   series of investigative stories on the King assassination for the North
   American Newspaper Alliance, stories challenging the official view of
   the case, and had been reportedly pressured by the FBI to halt his
   investigation.

   According to a former Pemiscot County, Missouri deputy sheriff, Jim
   Green, who claimed to have been part of an FBI-led conspiracy to kill
   King, Ray had been targeted as the patsy for the King assassination
   shortly before his April 1967 prison escape and had been tracked by the
   Bureau during his year as a fugitive. After several trips to and from
   Canada and Mexico during this time, Ray had gone to Memphis after
   agreeing to participate (allegedly controlled by his mysterious
   benefactor "Raoul" who reportedly had weeks before while in Birmingham,
   Alabama ordered Ray to purchase the Remington Gamemaster rifle) in what
   he was told was a major bank robbery while King was in town--since city
   police resources would be dedicated toward maintaining security for
   King and his entourage, the intended bank heist would be much simpler
   than usual. Green (who, like Ray, had asserted that FBI assistant
   director Cartha DeLoach headed the assassination plot) had claimed Ray
   had been ordered to stay in the rooming house and as a diversion for
   the purported bank heist, to then hold up a small diner near the
   rooming house at approximately 6:00 p.m. on April 4. King was shot a
   minute later by a sniper hidden in the shrubbery near the rooming
   house. Meanwhile, according to Green, two men, one of them allegedly a
   Memphis police detective, were waiting to ambush and kill Ray, while
   Ray was on his way to the planned diner holdup and then plant the
   Remington rifle in the trunk of Ray's pale yellow (not white) 1966 Ford
   Mustang, effectively framing a dead man. However, moments before the
   assassination, Ray had apparently suspected a setup and instead quickly
   left town in his Mustang, heading for Atlanta, Georgia. Atlanta police
   found Ray's abandoned Mustang six days after King had been shot.

Recent developments

   In 1997, Martin Luther King's son Dexter King met with Ray, and
   publicly supported Ray's efforts to obtain a trial.

   In 1999, Coretta Scott King, King's widow (and a civil rights leader
   herself), along with the rest of King's family, won a wrongful death
   civil trial against Loyd Jowers and "other unknown co-conspirators".
   Jowers claimed to have received $100,000 to arrange King's
   assassination. The jury of six whites and six blacks found Jowers
   guilty and that "governmental agencies were parties" to the
   assassination plot. William Pepper represented the King family in the
   trial.

   In 2000, the Department of Justice completed the investigation about
   Jowers' claims, but did not find evidence to support the allegations
   about conspiracy. The investigation report recommends no further
   investigation unless some new reliable facts are presented.

   Jesse Jackson, who was with King at the time of his death, noted:

     "The fact is there were saboteurs to disrupt the march. [And] within
     our own organization, we found a very key person who was on the
     government payroll. So infiltration within, saboteurs from without
     and the press attacks. ... I will never believe that James Earl Ray
     had the motive, the money and the mobility to have done it himself.
     Our government was very involved in setting the stage for and I
     think the escape route for James Earl Ray."

   King biographer David Garrow disagrees with William F. Pepper's claims
   that the government killed King. He is supported by King assassination
   author Gerald Posner.

   On April 6, 2002, the New York Times reported a church minister, Rev.
   Ronald Denton Wilson, claimed his father, Henry Clay Wilson, - not
   James Earl Ray - assassinated Rev Martin Luther King Jr. He stated, "It
   wasn't a racist thing; he thought Martin Luther King was connected with
   communism, and he wanted to get him out of the way."

King and the FBI

   King had a mutually antagonistic relationship with the Federal Bureau
   of Investigation (FBI), especially its director, J. Edgar Hoover. Under
   written directives from then-Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, the
   FBI began tracking King and the SCLC in 1961. Its investigations were
   largely superficial until 1962, when it learned that one of King's most
   trusted advisers was New York City lawyer Stanley Levison. The Bureau
   of Investigation found that Levison had been involved with the
   Communist Party USA—to which another key King lieutenant, Hunter Pitts
   O'Dell, was also linked by sworn testimony before the House Un-American
   Activities Committee (HUAC). The Bureau placed wiretaps on Levison and
   King's home and office phones, and bugged King's rooms in hotels as he
   traveled across the country. The Bureau also informed then-Attorney
   General Robert F. Kennedy and then-President John F. Kennedy, both of
   whom unsuccessfully tried to persuade King to dissociate himself from
   Levison. For his part, King adamantly denied having any connections to
   communism, stating in a 1965 Playboy interview that "there are as many
   communists in this freedom movement as there are Eskimos in Florida";
   to which Hoover responded by calling King "the most notorious liar in
   the country."

   The attempt to prove that King was a communist was in keeping with the
   feeling of many segregationists that blacks in the South were happy
   with their lot, but had been stirred up by "communists" and "outside
   agitators." Lawyer-advisor Stanley D. Levinson did have ties with the
   Communist Party in various business dealings, but the FBI refused to
   believe its own intelligence bureau reports that Levinson was no longer
   associated in that capacity. Movement leaders countered that voter
   disenfranchisement, lack of education and employment opportunities,
   discrimination and vigilante violence were the reasons for the strength
   of the Civil Rights Movement, and that blacks had the intelligence and
   motivation to organize on their own.

   Later, the focus of the Bureau's investigations shifted to attempting
   to discredit King through revelations regarding his private life. FBI
   surveillance of King, some of it since made public, attempted to
   demonstrate that he also engaged in numerous extramarital affairs.
   Further remarks on King's lifestyle were made by several prominent
   officials, such as President Lyndon B. Johnson who notoriously said
   that King was a “hypocrite preacher”. However, much of what was
   recorded was, as quoted by his attorney, speech-writer and close friend
   Clarence B. Jones, "midnight" talk or just two close friends joking
   around about women. It isn't clear if King actually engaged in
   extramarital affairs or not.

   The Bureau distributed reports regarding such affairs to the executive
   branch, friendly reporters, potential coalition partners and funding
   sources of the SCLC, and King's family. The Bureau also sent anonymous
   letters to King threatening to reveal information if he didn't cease
   his civil rights work. One anonymous letter sent to King just before he
   received the Nobel Peace Prize read, in part, "...The American public,
   the church organizations that have been helping -- Protestants,
   Catholics and Jews will know you for what you are -- an evil beast. So
   will others who have backed you. You are done. King, there, is only one
   thing left for you to do. You know what it is. You have just 34 days in
   which to do (this exact number has been selected for a specific reason,
   it has definite practical significance). You are done. There is but one
   way out for you. You better take it before your filthy fraudulent self
   is bared to the nation." This is often interpreted as inviting King's
   suicide, though William Sullivan argued that it may have only been
   intended to "convince Dr. King to resign from the SCLC."

   Finally, the Bureau's investigation shifted away from King's personal
   life to intelligence and counterintelligence work on the direction of
   the SCLC and the Black Power movement.

   In January 31, 1977, in the cases of Bernard S. Lee v. Clarence M.
   Kelley, et al. and Southern Christian Leadership Conference v. Clarence
   M. Kelley, et al. United States District Judge John Lewis Smith, Jr.,
   ordered all known copies of the recorded audiotapes and written
   transcripts resulting from the FBI's electronic surveillance of King
   between 1963 and 1968, be held in the National Archives and sealed from
   public access until 2027.

   Across from the Lorraine Motel, next to the rooming house in which
   James Earl Ray was staying, was a vacant fire station. The FBI was
   assigned to observe King during the appearance he was planning to make
   on the Lorraine Motel second-floor balcony later that day, and utilized
   the fire station as a makeshift base. Using papered-over windows with
   peepholes cut into them, the agents watched over the scene until Martin
   Luther King was shot. Immediately following the shooting, all six
   agents rushed out of the station and were the first people to
   administer first-aid to King. Their presence nearby has led to
   speculation that the FBI was involved in the assassination.

Awards and recognition

   From the Gallery of 20th century martyrs at Westminster Abbey- Mother
   Elizabeth of Russia, Rev. Martin Luther King, Archbishop Oscar Romero,
   Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer
   Enlarge
   From the Gallery of 20th century martyrs at Westminster Abbey- Mother
   Elizabeth of Russia, Rev. Martin Luther King, Archbishop Oscar Romero,
   Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer

   Besides winning the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize, in 1965 the American Jewish
   Committee presented King with the American Liberties Medallion for his
   "exceptional advancement of the principles of human liberty." Reverend
   King said in his acceptance remarks, "Freedom is one thing. You have it
   all or you are not free."

   In 1966, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America awarded Dr. King
   the Margaret Sanger Award for "his courageous resistance to bigotry and
   his lifelong dedication to the advancement of social justice and human
   dignity."

   In 1977, the Presidential Medal of Freedom was awarded posthumously to
   King by Jimmy Carter.

   King is the second most admired person in the 20th century, according
   to a Gallup poll.

   King was voted 6th in the Person of the Century poll by TIME.

   King was elected the third Greatest American of all time by the
   American public in a contest conducted by the Discovery Channel and
   AOL.

Plagiarism

   Beginning in the 1980s, questions have been raised regarding the
   authorship of King's dissertation, other papers, and his speeches.
   (Though not widely known during his lifetime, most of his published
   writings during his civil rights career were ghostwritten, or at least
   heavily adapted from his speeches). Concerns about his doctoral
   dissertation at Boston University led to a formal inquiry by university
   officials, which concluded that approximately a third of it had been
   plagiarized from a paper written by an earlier graduate student, but it
   was decided not to revoke his degree, as the paper still "makes an
   intelligent contribution to scholarship." Such uncredited "textual
   appropriation," as King scholar Clayborne Carson has labeled it, was
   apparently a habit of King's begun earlier in his academic career. It
   is also a feature of many of his speeches, which borrowed heavily from
   those of other preachers and white radio evangelists. While some have
   criticized King for his plagiarism, Keith Miller has argued that the
   practice falls within the tradition of African-American folk preaching,
   and should not necessarily be labeled plagiarism. However, as Theodore
   Pappas points out in his book Plagiarism and the Culture War, King in
   fact took a class on scholarly standards and plagiarism at Boston
   University.

Books by Martin Luther King, Jr.

     * Stride toward freedom; the Montgomery story (1958)
     * The Measure of a Man (1959)
     * Strength to Love (1963)
     * Why We Can't Wait (1964)
     * Where do we go from here: Chaos or community? (1967)
     * The Trumpet of Conscience (1968)
     * A Testament of Hope : The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin
       Luther King, Jr. (1986)
     * The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr. by Martin Luther King
       Jr. and Clayborne Carson (1998)

Legacy

   A mural in Kansas City, Missouri commemorating King's activism
   Enlarge
   A mural in Kansas City, Missouri commemorating King's activism

   King is one of the most widely revered figures in American history. For
   example, a 2005 televised call-in poll identified King as the third
   greatest American, following Ronald Reagan and Abraham Lincoln. Even
   posthumous accusations of marital infidelity, and academic plagiarism
   have not seriously damaged his public reputation but merely reinforced
   the image of a very human hero and leader. It is true that King's
   movement faltered in the latter stages, after the great legislative
   victories were won by 1965 (The Voting Rights Act, and the Civil Rights
   Act). But even the sharp attacks by more militant blacks, (See Black
   Power Movement), and even such prominent critics as Muslim leader
   Malcolm X, have not diminished his stature. However, criticism did not
   consist of mere blind attacks. Stokely Carmichael was a separatist and
   disagreed with King's plea for integration because he considered it an
   insult to a uniquely African American culture and Omali Yeshitela urged
   Africans to remember the history of violent European colonization and
   how power was not secured by Europeans through integration, but by
   violence and force. To then attempt to integrate with the colonizers'
   culture further insulted the original African cultures. Even the notion
   of decolonization was problematic for Frantz Fanon, an influential
   figure for black liberation movements. In Decolonizing, National
   Culture, and the Negro Intellectual (1961) he had this to say about the
   violent foundation on which colonizers claimed their names against the
   exploited and obstacles in making peace under such circumstances:

          Decolonization is the meeting of two forces, opposed to each
          other by their very nature, which in fact owe their
          origininality to the sort of substantification which results
          from and is nourished by the situation in the colonies. Their
          first encounter was marked by violence and their existence
          together—that is to say the exploitation of the native by the
          settler—was carried on by dint of a great array of bayonets and
          cannons....The naked truth of decolonization evokes for us the
          searing bullets and blood-stained knives which emanate from it.
          For if the last shall be first, this will only come to pass
          after a murderous and decisive struggle between the two
          protagonists. That affirmed intention to place the last at the
          head of things, and to make them climb at a pace (too quickly,
          some say) the well-known steps which characterize an organized
          society, can only triumph if we use all means to turn the scale,
          including, of course, that of violence.

   On the international scene, King's legacy included influences on the
   Black Consciousness Movement and Civil Rights Movements in South
   Africa. King's work was cited by and served as an inspiration for
   another black Nobel Peace prize winner who fought for racial justice in
   that country, Albert Lutuli.

   King's wife, Coretta Scott King, followed her husband's footsteps and
   was active in matters of social justice and civil rights until her
   death in 2006. The same year Martin Luther King was assassinated, Mrs.
   King established the King Centre in Atlanta, Georgia, dedicated to
   preserving his legacy and the work of championing nonviolent conflict
   resolution and tolerance worldwide. His son, Dexter King, currently
   serves as the Centre's president and CEO. Daughter Yolanda King is a
   motivational speaker, author and founder of Higher Ground Productions,
   an organization specializing in diversity training.

   King's name and legacy have often been invoked since his death as
   people have begun to debate where he would have stood on various modern
   political issues were he alive today. For example, there is some debate
   even within the King family as to where he would have stood on gay
   rights issues. Although King's widow Coretta has said publicly that she
   believes her husband would have supported gay rights, his daughter
   Bernice believes he would have been opposed to them. The King Centre
   lists homophobia as an evil that must be opposed.

   In 1980, King's boyhood home in Atlanta and several other nearby
   buildings were declared as the Martin Luther King, Jr. National
   Historic Site. At the White House Rose Garden on November 2, 1983, U.S.
   President Ronald Reagan signed a bill creating a federal holiday to
   honour King. It was observed for the first time on January 20, 1986 and
   is called Martin Luther King Day. It is observed on the third Monday of
   January each year, around the time of King's birthday. In January 17,
   2000, for the first time, Martin Luther King Day was officially
   observed in all 50 U.S. states. This is one of three federal holidays
   dedicated to an individual American and the only one dedicated to an
   African American.

   Many U.S. cities have officially renamed one of their streets to honour
   King. King County, Washington rededicated its name in honor of King in
   1986. The city government centre in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania is the
   only city hall in the United States to be named in honour of King.

   In 1998, Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity was authorized by the United States
   Congress to establish a foundation to manage fund raising and design of
   a Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial. King was a prominent
   member of Alpha Phi Alpha, the first intercollegiate Greek-letter
   fraternity established for African Americans. King will be the first
   African American honored with his own memorial in the National Mall
   area and the second non-President to be commemorated in such a way. The
   King Memorial will be administered by the National Park Service.

   King is one of the ten 20th-century martyrs from across the world who
   are depicted in statues above the Great West Door of Westminster Abbey,
   London.

   There are a few interesting stories on King in Hamilton Jordan's book,
   No Such Thing As A Bad Day.

Coinage

   Coin redesign advocates have asked that King's image be placed on the
   penny or dime. The penny will be permanently redesigned in 2010, and
   the current design will no longer be issued beyond 2008, but Abraham
   Lincoln will remain on the coin. A group of civil rights activists
   attempted unsuccessfully in 2000 to place his image on the half dollar.
   Beforehand, these same people also attempted several times to place
   King's image on the twenty dollar bill.
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