By Charlotte Fontaine
NASHVILLE, TN — Thursday, April 4, 2024 was the 56th anniversary of the assassination of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The day serves as a solemn reminder of his achievements, what could have been, and the continuing racial injustices that plague us today.
On that fateful day, King had planned for a “Poor People’s March” to Washington. However, King decided last minute to visit Memphis, Tennessee to support a city sanitation workers strike. In an eerie coincidence, the night before his death, King recalled in a speech in the Mason Temple Church in Memphis, “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.”
The day of the assassination began almost routinely as King stayed in his usual hotel room (306) at the Lorraine Hotel in Memphis. He was talking to Reverend Jesse Jackson on his room’s balcony when at 6:01 p.m. he was suddenly hit in the face with a bullet. He died around an hour later. Alledgedly King’s autopsy revealed that upon examination, his heart looked like one that should have belonged to a 60-year-old, and not a 39-year -old. Many have said the weight of the civil rights movement on King was the cause of this.
It took two months to arrest James Earl Ray, his killer, after a worldwide manhunt was put in place. Ray had traveled from Tennessee all the way to London, England, where he was eventually caught at Heathrow International Airport. A bit of a prison escape artist, Ray was on the loose after being arrested for mutliple armed robberies when he purchased the rifle that would kill King. He claimed he was buying it for a hunting trip, and gave a fake alias at the time of purchase. He died at the age of 70 at Lois D. DeBerry Special Needs Facility in Nashville, a combined prison and hospital for inmates.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is a symbol of the constant birth of good in humanity as well as the tragedy of its downfalls. With social media in particular making it easier than ever to support all people everywhere, send money, express our concerns, and stay educated, we are still plagued by the differences in minds and arguments of morality, the color of skin, religion, and endless other things, in all sizes, that separate an ever-developing human kind. April 4 is a good reminder of a man who wanted nothing more than to lead with kindness and acceptance. As King once said, “I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.”
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