Ray’s movements after the assassination. The most important record of Ray’s movements and his comments about his eluding capture can be found in the multivolume House Select Committee on Assassination. U.S. House of Representatives, Select Committee on Assassinations (13 volumes), “The Investigation of the Assassination of Martin Luther King,” and the one-volume “Final Report,” 95th Congress, 2nd Session (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1979): https://www.fbi.gov/wantedhttps://www.fbi.gov /wanted (The narrative of Ray’s escape can be found in Volume III.)The volumes are available online at http://www.maryferrell.org/php /showlist.php?docset=1573. This site also contains additional FBI files, including the FBI’s MURKIN documents.
Ray’s extradition to the United States. See The James Earl Ray Extradition File: Papers Submitted to Great Britain for the Extradition of James Earl Ray to Face Trial for the Murder of Martin Luther King, Jr. (New York: Lemma Publishing, 1971). To see a short video of Ray being read his rights by U.S. authorities and then being searched and examined by Shelby County authorities, go to: https://www .youtube.com/watch?v=cWB6dNsNaAU
Ray’s guilty plea. One of Ray’s early lawyers, prominent Texas attorney Percy Foreman, initially convinced him to plead guilty to avoid the death penalty. Shortly after the plea was entered and sentencing was imposed, Ray fired Foreman and began his odyssey of attempting legal steps for withdrawing the guilty plea. Over the years of his incarceration, Ray continued to seek a new trial, represented by several different attorneys. The first of at least seven attempts for post-conviction relief in both state and federal court can be found at Ray v. State, 224 Tenn 164, 461 S.W. 2nd 854 (Tenn. 1970), and the last at Ray v. State, 984 S.W. 2nd 239 (Tenn. App. 1998). Some of the cases in between these dates ended up with the United States Supreme Court denying review. Ray was quite litigious, bringing defamation cases against individuals when he was in prison. Also, his brother Jerry pursued legal action to obtain some of Ray’s property held by the State of Tennessee, which was to be used in the prosecution of Ray (left behind at the Memphis rooming house after he shot King).
Almost immediately after the guilty plea, as Ray claimed his innocence, he began his “story” about the mysterious Raoul as the person behind the assassination. In fact, one of the early biographers of Ray, journalist William Bradford Huie, began to write a book and a series of Look magazine articles but soon doubted Ray’s claims in his “20,000 words” account. The title of Huie’s book was changed from They Slew the Dreamer to He Slew the Dreamer. Years later, the book was published in trade paperback with the enticing title Did the FBI Kill Martin Luther King? His conclusion in the new preface was the same—James Earl Ray acted alone.
Conspiracy theories. When James Earl Ray first pled guilty, there was no trial. Subsequently, he professed his innocence with many, sometimes inconsistent and contrary statements in his own authored books, his interviews in national magazines, and his testimony before and interviews to the U.S. House of Representatives Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA). So the fertile soil for conspiracy theories had been laid down. To complicate matters, FBI surveillance and government misconduct concerning King added to the suspicions that the federal government had something more to conceal, or was actually involved in the assassination.
And long before the “Son of Sam” laws, which prohibit convicted criminals from financially benefiting by authoring or cowriting a book on their crimes, Huie, a bestselling journalist, saw a money-making opportunity. To gain access to Ray, he entered into a book-and-magazine contract, where representations were made to share in the profits to pay for the legal defense—and some money going to Ray himself.
The most prominent of all conspiracy theorists, attorney Mark Lane, made his appearance on the subject in the 1970s. He joined with Dick Gregory to cowrite the book Code Name “Zorro”: The Murder of Martin Luther King, Jr. (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1977). Lane also represented James Earl Ray before the HSCA. Jim Garrison, the district attorney who unsuccessfully prosecuted New Orleans businessman Clay Shaw in 1967 for conspiring to kill JFK, frequently announced to the public that the same diabolical force was behind the murders of John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King, Jr.
Other first-generation JFK conspiracy “buffs” also joined in the chorus of questioning Ray’s guilt and whether he acted alone, including Harold Weisberg in Frame-Up: The Martin Luther King/James Earl Ray Case Containing Suppressed Evidence (New York: Outerbridge & Dienstfrey, 1971). Not surprisingly, some King conspiracy proponents wrote books about President Kennedy’s assassination as well. And new generations of JFK assassination-conspiracy writers continue to author books on the King murder.
By the mid-1970s, the clamoring of notions of conspiracy and government cover-ups led to the formation of a House of Representatives Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) to investigate the murders of President John F. Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Typical of congressional investigations, the findings usually reflect public sentiment. The findings of a “second” gunman in the JFK assassination relied on later-discredited acoustics evidence, and for King, there was an equally unsupported proposition.
James Earl Ray, as the master con man, liar, and criminal, perhaps recognized the penchant of this conspiracy community to accept wild stories of government cover-up. Ray claimed his innocence and invented the mysterious Raoul, who allegedly told him what to do regarding the King assassination. The HSCA thoroughly investigated these conspiracy motifs and found no credibility to them whatsoever. See U.S. House of Representatives, Select Committee on Assassinations, “The Investigation of the Assassination of Martin Luther King; Final Report,” 95th Congress, 2nd Session (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1979). The Report of the HSCA is also at http://www .archives.gov/research/jfk/select-committee-report/part-2c.html
The committee concluded that Ray alone shot King. Nevertheless, the chairman of the committee, Congressman Louis Stokes (D-OH), ultimately bowed to public opinion, stating in the final report that the Department of Justice and the FBI “failed to investigate adequately the possibility of conspiracy in the assassination.” There was no evidence to back up the statement. See HSCA “Final Report,” pp. 5–6, at http://history-matters.com/archive/contents/hsca/contents_hsca _report.htm. Stokes also stated that “The Committee Believes that Based on Circumstantial Evidence Available to It, that there is a likelihood that James Earl Ray Assassinated Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., as a Result of a Conspiracy.” See HSCA “Final Report,” pp. 325–374. In addition, there was definitive proof of misconduct in the surveillance of King. These conclusions were an invitation for the conspiracy theorists community to continue to search for the “truth.”
Over the years, books and articles were written, including those authored by Ray’s brothers, tying the assassination of King to a myriad of groups such as the Ku Klux Klan, various white supremacists, the FBI, and the CIA. Some claimed links to organized crime boss Carlos Marcello and Ray’s trip to New Orleans. Others place the mysterious Raoul as one of the “tramps” in Dealey Plaza who were rounded up by the police and never identified—a part of numerous conspiracy theories on the JFK assassination. Contradictory and competing theories abound on the King assassination.
This all culminated with attorney William Pepper writing three books on the King assassination. See William F. Pepper, Orders to Kill: The Truth Behind the Murder of Martin Luther King, Jr. (New York: Warner Books, 1998); An Act of State: The Execution of Martin Luther King (New York: Verso, 2008); and the revised version updated and expanded as The Plot to Kill King: The Truth behind the Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. (New York: Skyhorse Publishing, 2016). Pepper, as yet another attorney representing Ray, convinced a still-grieving King family that the civil rights leader had indeed been killed by diabolical forces and Ray was innocent. Pepper represented Coretta Scott King and her family in the Tennessee wrongful death civil suit against Loyd Jowers, the owner of a restaurant near the Lorraine Mote
l, alleging a mafia and U.S. government conspiracy to kill King. Jowers claimed that he hired a Memphis police officer who fired the fatal shot—and that James Earl Ray was innocent. The jurors accepted this version—although much contradictory evidence was admitted, and a good deal of the evidence against Ray was omitted from the trial. It would not be the first time that the civil justice system had failed in discovering the truth. In 2000, the Department of Justice had no choice but to issue yet one more report, totally refuting this civil verdict. For the complete transcript of the civil trial, see http://www.thekingcenter.org/civil -case-king-family-versus-jowers, and for the U.S. Department of Justice’s response, see https://www.justice.gov/crt/united-states -department-justice-investigation-recent-allegations-regarding -assassination-dr and https://www.justice.gov/crt/list-attachments-0
In the final analysis, one is left with the distinct possibility that the only conspiracy may have been that one or both of Ray’s brothers supported him financially, sending him money before or after the assassination while he was eluding the FBI. But that is about it. Also, the most convincing witness that Ray acted alone is James Earl Ray himself—confirmed by his contradictory statements and his testimony to the HSCA (his oral testimony before the committee, Volume II of the HSCA Report; his eight long interviews by the HSCA in the Appendix volumes IX through XI; his essay of “20,000 words” in Volume XII; the Compilation of His Statements in Volume III of the Report; his two books and countless interviews). Ray proved to everyone that he was not a credible witness. After its extensive investigation, the HSCA concluded that Raoul did not exist and that “Ray’s post-assassination tale of Raoul was fabricated.” (HSCA, “Final Report,” 303–306).
A YEAR LIKE NO OTHER
Dion’s “Abraham, Martin and John.” This song was written by Dick Holler. It was first performed by Dion (Dion Francis DeMucci) and released on Laurie Records as a 45 RPM single in August 1968. Listen at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDOmf5ER0-M. The sheet music was originally published in 1968 by Roznique Music of New York City, with images of JFK; RFK; Martin Luther King, Jr.; and Abraham Lincoln superimposed on Mount Rushmore. See http://www.lincolncollection.org/collection/creator-author/item/?cs =R&creator=Roznique+Music%2C+Inc.&item=22866
In the months and years that followed, many other well-known African American performers released their own 45 RPM singles of this song, including Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, Harry Belafonte, Moms Mabley, Mahalia Jackson, and Marvin Gaye. Also, in 1971, the song was featured in Tom Clay’s “What the World Needs Now Is Love/Abraham, Martin and John.” This medley combined Dion’s recording with Jackie DeShannon’s version of Burt Bacharach’s “What the World Needs Now,” and with vocals by the Blackberries. In addition, Clay’s recording features a narration in which an adult asked a child to define several words associated with racism, such as segregation. Also, there were sound bites of speeches, a radio re-creation of the JFK assassination, voices from the Ambassador Hotel kitchen after RFK had been shot, and Edward Kennedy’s eulogy for yet another one of his brothers who was killed. For the original recording, go to: https://www .youtube.com/watch?v=uEyFxPD8KBc. For a recent version of this Clay interpretation, bringing it up-to-date by including some of President Obama’s remarks, go to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v =MWW24zbHM2U
Apollo 8 Christmas message. Go to: http://www.nasa.gov/topics /history/features/apollo_8.html. Also go to: https://www.nasa.gov /mission_pages/apollo/missions/apollo8.html#.V0EmN9QrJgt
EPILOGUE
Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site. See the National Park Service webpage: https://www.nps.gov/mlkm/index.htm
LBJ’s last public address. The December 12, 1972, address was given at the LBJ Presidential Library just a few months before his death. For a video of the complete remarks, go to: http://www .c-span.org/video/?320205-1/lyndon-johnson-civil-rights
Hoover’s death. See the obituary in the New York Times, May 3, 1972, at http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday /0101.html
King’s mother’s death. See front-page story by B. Drummond Ayers, Jr., “Mother of Dr. King Is Killed in Church; Atlanta Deacon Slain; Gunman Seized: Police Doubt Black Youth Was Part of Conspiracy,” and numerous additional stories in the New York Times, July 1, 1974.
Ray’s escape from prison. See front-page story “James Earl Ray Flees a Prison in Tennessee with 6 Other Convicts; Convicted Slayer of Dr. King Uses Ladder of Wire to Scale Wall,” New York Times, June 11, 1977, and the Time magazine cover story “The Escape,” Time, LXXIX, no. 25 (June 20, 1977).
Dexter King’s meeting with Ray in prison. See the MSNBC clip at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wHQZ1zyVxY Also see Kevin Sachs, “Dr. King’s Son Says Family Believes Ray Is Innocent,” New York Times, March 28, 1997, http://www.nytimes.com/1997/03/28 /us/dr-king-s-son-says-family-believes-ray-is-innocent.html
Abernathy’s death. See the obituary in the New York Times, April 18, 1990, http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday /0311.html
Coretta Scott King’s death. See the obituary in the New York Times, February 1, 2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/01/national /01king.html?pagewanted=all
For her autobiography, see Coretta Scott King, My Life with Martin Luther King, Jr. (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1969), and also Coretta Scott King and Rev. Dr. Barbara Reynolds, My Life, My Love, My Legacy (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2017).
Izola Curry’s death. See the obituary in the New York Times, March 21, 2015, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/22/us/izola-ware-curry -who-stabbed-king-in-1958-dies-at-98.html?_r=0
The old magazines and newspapers from the 1950s and 1960s are wonderful time capsules that give a sense of what it was like to be living in America during the era of Martin Luther King, Jr. Life and Look, the big weekly illustrated news magazines, gave extensive coverage to the assassination of Dr. King and the manhunt for James Earl Ray, as did African American magazines like JET and Ebony. The major city newspapers in Atlanta; Birmingham; Memphis; Richmond; Chicago; Los Angeles; Dallas; Washington, DC; and New York City covered Martin Luther King, Jr., extensively, as did the African American newspapers like the Chicago Defender or New York Amsterdam News. Ask your librarian to help you find old newspaper stories on microfilm or the Internet.
WORKS BY KING
A Comparison of the Conceptions of God and the Thinking of Paul Tillich and Henry Nelson Wieman. Boston University, 1955. (Doctoral dissertation)
Letter from Birmingham Jail. American Friends Service Committee, 1963.
The Measure of a Man. Philadelphia: Christian Education Press, 1959.
The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr. Volume I: Called to Serve, January 1929–June 1951. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992.
The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr. Volume II: Rediscovering Precious Values, July 1951–November 1955. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994.
The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr. Volume III: Birth of a New Age, December 1955–December 1956. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997.
The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr. Volume IV: Symbol of the Movement, January 1957–December 1958. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000.
The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr. Volume V: Threshold of a New Decade, January 1959–December 1960. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005.
The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr. Volume VI: Advocate of the Social Gospel, September 1948–March 1963. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007.
The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr. Volume VII: To Save the Soul of America, January 1961–August 1962. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2014.
Strength to Love. New York: Harper & Row, 1963. (collection of sermons).
Stride Toward Freedom: A Leader of His People Tells the Montgomery Story. New York: Harper & Row, 1958.
The Trumpet of Conscience. New York: Harper & Row, 1968. (collection of lectures).
Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos
or Community? New York: Harper & Row, 1967.
Why We Can’t Wait. New York: Harper & Row, 1964.
ALSO, THESE EDITED WORKS:
Carson, Clayborne, and Kris Shepard, eds. A Call to Conscience: The Landmark Speeches of Dr. Martin Luther King. New York: Warner Books, 2001.
Carson, Clayborne, and Peter Holloran, eds. A Knock at Midnight: Inspiration from the Great Sermons of Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. New York: Warner Books, 1998.
Garrow, David J., ed. Martin Luther King, Jr.: Civil Rights Leader, Theologian, Orator. In 3 volumes. Brooklyn: Carlson Publishing, 1989.
Washington, James Melvin, ed. A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1986.
Many of King’s speeches, sermons, letters, etc., are available online at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford University: https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/
WORKS ABOUT KING BY FAMILY MEMBERS
Carson, Clayborne, ed. The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr. New York: Warner Books, 1998.
Farris, Christine King. Through It All: Reflections on My Life, My Family, and My Faith. New York: Atria Books, 2009.
King, Coretta Scott. My Life with Martin Luther King, Jr. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1969.
King, Coretta Scott, as told to Rev. Dr. Barbara Reynolds. My Life, My Love, My Legacy. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2017.
King, Dexter Scott, and Ralph Wiley. Growing Up King: An Intimate Memoir. New York: IPM, 2003.
King, Martin Luther, Sr., and Clayton Riley. Daddy King: An Autobiography. New York: William Morrow, 1980.
Watkins, Angela Farris, and Andrew Young, eds. Martin Luther King, Jr.: A Family Tribute. New York: Abrams, 2012.
CHILDREN’S BOOKS ABOUT KING BY FAMILY MEMBERS
Chasing King's Killer Page 16