By hnn
Almost exactly 45 years to the day after Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated,new video footage has surfaced of his killer, James Earl Ray.
Source: FULL ARTICLE at History News Network – George Mason University
By John Johnson History buffs, take note. The Shelby County Register’s office in Tennessee has released several restored videos of James Earl Ray after his arrest for the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. No bombshells are in the mix, but one shows Ray being read his rights aboard a plane back to… …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Newser – Home
Hundreds of union members and their supporters marched in Memphis on the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s murder, calling for a new commitment to the human rights causes he died for.
With the march and a dedication ceremony Thursday, they honored King and the sanitation workers strike that brought him to Memphis, where he was assassinated in 1968.
In a light drizzle, more than 1,000 marchers wore T-shirts with union logos and held signs saying “We are Memphis” or bearing the slogan for the 1968 strike: “I am a man.” Participants came from as far as Louisiana, California and New York.
Surviving Memphis strikers Baxter Leach, Alvin Turner and the Rev. Leslie Moore joined the marchers when they arrived at a rally at the National Civil Rights Museum, built on the site of the old Lorraine Motel where King was shot down.
Moore, 66, was in his early 20s at the time of the strike. He still drives a truck for the Memphis sanitation department.
“Something lifted off of us when Dr. King came to Memphis,” Moore said in an interview days ahead of the march. “Before he came, we had a hard time. When he came, it looked like everything brightened up, a light began to shine out.”
Speakers at the rally included Martin Luther King III and Lee Saunders, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.
City officials had begun the day by dedicating a section of historic Beale Street to the 1,300 sanitation workers who walked off their jobs in February 1968 after two garbage collectors were crushed to death in a malfunctioning truck. The strikers demanded — and eventually received — higher pay and safer working conditions.
The street, named “1968 Strikers Lane,” runs in front of the headquarters of AFSCME Local 1733. Martin Luther King Jr. supported the union when he came to Memphis to make speeches and march with the workers.
The civil rights leader was standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel when he was killed by a rifle bullet on April 4, 1968. James Earl Ray pleaded guilty to the killing and was sentenced to 99 years in prison. He died in prison in 1998.
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox US News
By The Huffington Post News Editors
By David Beasley
ATLANTA, April 4 (Reuters) – The 45th anniversary of the assassination of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. will be marked on Thursday with the launch of a campaign against youth violence in his hometown of Atlanta and a labor union rally in the city where he was killed.
The King Center in Atlanta said it would honor its namesake by kicking off “The 50 Days of Nonviolence,” a challenge for youth to abstain from violence for the rest of the current school year.
“As my father said, ‘The choice is no longer between violence and nonviolence. It is either nonviolence or nonexistence,'” said Bernice King, the civil rights leader’s daughter and chief executive officer of the King Center.
“We believe young people have a leadership role to play in creating a nonviolent society,” she said.
Bernice King will speak outside the center on Thursday at 7:01 p.m. EST, the exact time her father was assassinated on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee.
A wreath will be placed on the front of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, where King had preached, in the same spot where one was placed the day after his death.
King, who advocated nonviolence, racial brotherhood and equal rights, rose to international prominence after leading the Montgomery bus boycott, which began in December 1955. He went on to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964.
In 1968, he traveled to Memphis to support sanitation workers who were striking against unfair working conditions and low pay. King was shot and killed while standing on a balcony outside his room at the Lorraine Hotel. He was 39.
James Earl Ray, a segregationist, confessed to the assassination but recanted shortly afterward and tried for years to get a new trial. He died in prison in 1998 while serving a 99-year sentence.
The hotel is now home to the National Civil Rights Museum, which on Thursday will commemorate King’s death with …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Huffington Post
Forty-five years after the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was killed supporting a historic sanitation workers strike in Memphis, the city’s garbage and trash collectors are fighting to hold on to jobs some city leaders want to hand over to a private company.
Thursday marks the 45th anniversary of the civil rights leader’s assassination in 1968. King was standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel when he was felled by a rifle bullet fired by James Earl Ray.
As Memphis residents honor King with a planned march, the union that represents the city’s sanitation workers is trying to stave off efforts to privatize solid waste collection.
City council members who favor privatization say it can save the city $8 million to $15 million in a tough economy.