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The FBI's Alleged Involvement with MLK's Death 

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The FBI's Alleged Involvement with MLK's Death 

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Despite MLK's children having very differing opinions on how to best protect their father's name and ensure he is not discredited, they do all agree on one thing. That one thing being the FBI's involvement in their fathers death. All children strongly believe that James Earl Ray the escaped criminal who was accused of the killing and was subsequently found guilty was framed for the killing and is 100% innocent. 'For the King family and others in the civil rights movement, the FBI’s obsession with King in the years leading up to his slaying in Memphis on April 4, 1968 — pervasive surveillance, a malicious disinformation campaign and open denunciations by FBI director J. Edgar Hoover — laid the groundwork for their belief that he was the target of a plot." -https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2018/03/30/who-killed-martin-luther-king-jr-his-family-believes-james-earl-ray-was-framed/. Find out in much more detail at the link above:)

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The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. stands with other civil rights leaders on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis on April 3, 1968, the day before he was assassinated. (AP)

In the five decades since Martin Luther King Jr. was shot dead by an assassin at age 39, his children have worked tirelessly to preserve his legacy, sometimes with sharply different views on how best to do that. But they are unanimous on one key point: James Earl Ray did not kill Martin Luther King.

For the King family and others in the civil rights movement, the FBI's obsession with King in the years leading up to his slaying in Memphis on April 4, 1968 - pervasive surveillance, a malicious disinformation campaign and open denunciations by FBI director J. Edgar Hoover - laid the groundwork for their belief that he was the target of a plot.

"It pains my heart," said Bernice King, 55, the youngest of Martin Luther King's four children and the executive director of the King Center in Atlanta, "that James Earl Ray had to spend his life in prison paying for things he didn't do."

Until her own death in 2006, Coretta Scott King, who endured the FBI's campaign to discredit her husband, was open in her belief that a conspiracy led to the assassination. Her family filed a civil suit in 1999 to force more information into the public eye, and a Memphis jury ruled that the local, state and federal governments were liable for King's death. The full transcript of the trial remains posted on the King Center's website.

"There is abundant evidence," Coretta King said after the verdict, "of a major, high-level conspiracy in the assassination of my husband." The jury found the mafia and various government agencies "were deeply involved in the assassination. ... Mr. Ray was set up to take the blame."

But nothing changed afterward. No vast sums of money were awarded (the Kings sought only $100), and Ray was not exonerated.

King's two other surviving children, Dexter, 57, and Martin III, 60, fully agree that Ray was innocent. And their view of the case is shared by other respected black leaders.

"I think there was a major conspiracy to remove Doctor King from the American scene," said Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), a 78-year-old civil rights icon. "I don't know what happened, but the truth of what happened to Dr. King should be made available for history's sake."

Andrew Young, the former U.N. ambassador and Atlanta mayor who was at the Lorraine Motel with King when he was shot there, agrees. "I would not accept the fact that James Earl Ray pulled the trigger, and that's all that matters," said Young, who noted that King's death came after the killings of John F. Kennedy and Malcolm X and just months before the slaying of Robert F. Kennedy.

"We were living in the period of assassinations," Young said.

Conspiracies have long gripped the American imagination, from JFK's assassination in 1963 to Deputy White House Counsel Vince Foster's suicide in 1993 to Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich's slaying in 2016.

JFK conspiracy theories: The grassy knoll, Umbrella Man, LBJ and Ted Cruz's dad

Dave Garrow, a Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer of King, said that "the King children are part of a larger population of American people who need to believe that the assassination of a King or a Kennedy must be the work of mightier forces" rather than victims "of small-fry, lifetime losers."

"People need to see something of a balance between effect and cause," Garrow said. "That if something has a huge evil effect, it should be the result of a huge evil cause."
'Entitled to know the truth'
Even those who believe that Ray, who died in prison in 1998, killed King tend to think that he received assistance from someone, whether it was his two brothers or the FBI or the mafia.

Because Ray suddenly pleaded guilty in 1969, less than a year after the shooting, there was no trial. The largest government investigation, led by the House Select Committee on Assassinations under chief counsel Robert Blakey, theorized in 1979 that Ray committed the killing in the hope of collecting a $50,000 bounty offered by supporters of then-presidential candidate George Wallace in St. Louis, where Ray's brothers lived.

But there was no definitive evidence to prove the theory, and the Wallace supporters were dead by 1979. Blakey said recently he had tried to prove a conspiracy but could not. If the FBI or CIA was involved, they had destroyed the documentation of it by 1979, he said.

"I have no stake in our outcome," Blakey said. "You come up with a better outcome, with evidence to support it, I'll support your theory." He remains adamant that Ray was the gunman but likely had help that should have been investigated in 1968 and was not.

John Campbell, who investigated the case for years in the Shelby County, Tenn., district attorney's office, said that Ray's version of events "kept changing." His office issued a report in 1998 saying Ray was responsible.

"I'm not saying he didn't have help," Campbell said. "But he didn't have the FBI, the CIA, the Memphis police or the mafia."

After Coretta King and her family pleaded with President Bill Clinton in 1998 to reinvestigate the case, Attorney General Janet Reno assigned civil rights special counsel Barry Kowalski, who previously prosecuted the Los Angeles police officers in the Rodney King beating, to review the newest conspiracy allegations. In 2000, even after reviewing the results of the 1999 civil trial in Memphis, Kowalski concluded that Ray was guilty and that there was no government conspiracy.

Astride all this controversy for the last 40 years has been William Pepper, a New York lawyer and civil rights activist who knew and worked with King. Pepper first visited Ray in prison in 1978 along with Ralph Abernathy, one of King's closest associates. Pepper became convinced of Ray's innocence and continued to investigate the case even after Ray died.

Pepper wrote three books outlining the conspiracy, most recently "The Plot to Kill King" in 2016, which were largely ignored by the media.

He defended Ray in a mock trial on HBO in 1993 (Ray was found not guilty), and filed and tried the Memphis civil suit that found the government liable for King's death.

He has spoken around the world to anyone who will listen, including recently at the National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel, where King was killed. Pepper was sued once for defamation, by an Army soldier he accused of participating in the conspiracy, and a South Carolina judge entered an $11 million default judgment against him in 2000.

In recent years, Pepper has tracked down witnesses in Memphis who support his theory of the case: that J. Edgar Hoover used his longtime assistant, Clyde Tolson, to deliver cash to members of the Memphis underworld, that those shadowy figures then hired a sharpshooting Memphis police officer, and that officer - not Ray - fired the fatal shot.

'I Am a Man': The ugly Memphis sanitation workers' strike that led to MLK's assassination

The King family has lauded Pepper repeatedly, and he was honored by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference for his "unceasing commitment in the pursuit of justice."

"I think the people of this country are entitled to know the truth," Pepper said. "I say that in the hope of creating an awareness of how this happened, and that the involvement of government in these events may cease with respect to other leaders who will emerge."

And so after 50 years, the King assassination seems destined to remain mired in controversy, the subject of infinite debate over whether Ray was a lone gunman inspired by racism, a hired assassin aided by secret government forces, or simply a patsy manipulated to kill a civil rights hero.
'Did you kill my father?'
Ray was born in 1928 and grew up outside St. Louis. His chosen profession was theft and armed robbery, and after his third felony conviction in 1959, he was sentenced to 20 years in the Missouri State Penitentiary. He escaped from the prison in April 1967, and some believe he had help from prison authorities, as part of the opening stanza of the conspiracy.

Ray moved around while on the lam, staying in Chicago, Los Angeles, Mexico and Canada over the next year. He has claimed that while in Montreal he met a man named Raul, of varying physical descriptions over the years, who enlisted him in several small gunrunning schemes, and instructed him to buy a rifle in Birmingham, Ala.

On the afternoon of April 4, Ray checked into a boardinghouse in Memphis, with a bar called Jim's Grill on the first floor. He paid $8.50 for a week's stay. The rear of the boardinghouse faced the Lorraine Motel across Mulberry Street.

King was standing on the balcony of the Lorraine outside room 306 when a single rifle bullet was fired into his lower jaw at 6:01 p.m. He died an hour later at St. Joseph's Hospital. The rifle Ray had purchased in Birmingham was found near the front of the boardinghouse with Ray's fingerprints on it. Those are about the only facts that aren't in dispute.

According to the criminal justice system of the state of Tennessee, James Earl Ray fired the shot from the second-floor bathroom of the boardinghouse. He then grabbed some belongings in a blanket, stashed the rifle in it, left the building and dropped the bundle in the doorway of a nearby building.

He drove away in a white Ford Mustang before the area was barricaded, went to Atlanta and then to Canada and England before being arrested in July 1968.

Ray pleaded guilty to the murder of King on March 10, 1969. He signed a detailed stipulation of facts to the shooting, having had weeks to review it, asking only that a reference to his activities for Wallace be deleted.

In court, Ray answered the standard series of questions about whether he was knowingly and voluntarily admitting he committed murder. In exchange for his plea, prosecutors did not seek the death penalty and Ray was sentenced to 99 years in prison. Officially: Case closed.

Within days, Ray filed a motion to withdraw his plea, claiming he had been coerced by his attorney and the FBI. Three decades of legal machinations never succeeded in reopening the case, but they revealed new details and led to new theories of how King might have been killed.

At the same time, the misconduct of Hoover and the FBI was coming to light. Hoover had ordered surveillance, wiretaps and listening devices placed in King's rooms starting in 1963, apparently infuriated by King's criticism of the FBI for not having black agents or investigating civil rights cases.

Recordings and photos of King having sex with women other than his wife were offered to reporters and government officials, often by Hoover himself, and sent to King associates. Hoover once told a group of reporters, on the record, that King was "the most notorious liar in the country."

'You are done': A secret letter to Martin Luther King Jr. sheds light on FBI's malice

Coretta King and Abernathy, aware of the FBI campaign, immediately suspected FBI involvement after King's death. But Ray's sudden guilty plea stopped all official investigations.

Asked about the King family's suspicions, an FBI spokesman responded in a statement that the government has revisited the assassination four times: "Findings from these reviews support the FBI's conclusion that James Earl Ray, acting alone, fired a rifle once, fatally wounding Dr. King on April 4, 1968, at the Lorraine Motel."

James Lawson, a Memphis pastor and civil rights institution who helped mentor King, said he began visiting Ray in the Memphis jail in 1969 when Ray complained about being held in solitary confinement. He continued to visit Ray until his death and presided over his funeral.

"There were things in Memphis that were suspicious and raised questions in my mind," Lawson said. "I never saw those questions answered."

Lawson assisted Pepper and the King family over the years in their investigation, during which Dexter King and Andrew Young participated in interviews with witnesses.

"I'm satisfied beyond a shadow of a doubt," Lawson said, "that James Earl Ray neither pulled the trigger nor plotted to kill Martin Luther King."

Ray began to claim that the man he knew only as Raul was present in Memphis on April 4, and that Ray himself was at a nearby gas station when the shot was fired. No one saw the actual shot fired. The screen from the bathroom window was found on the ground below.

Some witnesses, including then-New York Times reporter Earl Caldwell, said they saw a man moving in the thick bushes behind Jim's Grill, below the bathroom. For reasons unknown, Memphis public works employees cut down the bushes and destroyed a possible crime scene the next morning.

Ballistics tests could not prove that the rifle dropped outside the boardinghouse, a Remington .30-06 Gamemaster, either did or didn't fire the fatal shot, because the gun did not create distinctive grooves on the bullet, as most guns do.

"That weapon was not the weapon," Martin Luther King III said. "You're going to kill somebody and then drop the gun right there?" Ray claimed that he had given the gun to Raul, but only Ray's fingerprints were on the gun.

James Earl Ray, the man who confessed to killing Martin Luther King Jr. later recanted and insisted he was set up by a man named "Raul." (Video: The Washington Post)

Pepper and his investigators worked for years to locate Raul and eventually they identified an autoworker from Yonkers, N.Y., as the man they believe manipulated Ray. The man denied any involvement and cooperated with Justice Department investigators in 1999, who found work records showing he could not have traveled widely to meet Ray in 1967 and '68. Pepper said the CIA could have fabricated the records.

Then Loyd Jowers, the owner of Jim's Grill, began claiming publicly that he was involved in a conspiracy to kill King. He had consistently denied any knowledge of the case for a quarter-century, but now he alleged the gunman was a Memphis police officer who fired from the bushes behind the grill, then handed Jowers the murder weapon. Jowers stashed the rifle behind the bar and said it was later picked up by Raul and tossed in the Mississippi River.

More Memphis witnesses came forward, including a former girlfriend of Jowers, who said she saw him with the rifle shortly after the gunshot rang out, and saw him break it down and place it in the bar.

In 1997, Dexter King went with Pepper to meet Ray in prison, and was photographed shaking Ray's hand. Pepper said Dexter King asked Ray, "Did you kill my father?" and that Ray answered, "No, I didn't." He said Dexter King told Ray, "We will do everything in our power to see that justice prevails."

Dexter King called his family together, his brother Martin said in an interview, and urged them to file a civil suit against Jowers as a means of seeking the truth. A Shelby County jury heard more than 70 witnesses over 30 days, ruled that Jowers and unknown government entities were liable, and awarded the Kings $100.

The family wasn't seeking money, just information. "For both our family and the nation," Coretta King said after the verdict, "we had to get involved, because the system did not work."

The verdict came as the Justice Department was reinvestigating the case because of Jowers's claims and those of a former FBI agent who said he had found evidence in Ray's car in 1968 linking him to Raul but had withheld it until 1997.

In 2000, the report authored by assistant attorney general Barry Kowalski found that Jowers had changed his story repeatedly and that neither he nor the ex-FBI agent were credible. Campbell said Jowers had been recorded saying that he would tailor his story for financial gain.

"Our thorough investigation," Kowalski said recently, "just like four official investigations before it, found no credible or reliable evidence that Doctor King was killed by conspirators who framed James Earl Ray. Twenty years later, I remain absolutely convinced this well-supported finding is correct."

The King family disagrees, with Martin King III adopting Pepper's theory of Hoover directing the assassination. "I believe that's exactly what happened," said Martin King III. "Hoover was so angry, he had hate in his heart. Certainly he hated Dad. He had a vehement hatred of folks of color."

Not everyone in the Kings' circle agrees with the full extent of Pepper's investigation, but they agree that Ray was framed.

"It's still a mystery to me," Bernice King said. "I don't believe James Earl Ray killed my father. It's hard to know exactly who. I'm certainly clear that there has been a conspiracy, from the government down to the mafia ... there had to be more than one person involved in all of this. I think it was all planned."

On April 4, Bernice King will lead commemorative events in Atlanta, including a wreath laying at her father's grave, a ceremony awarding Martin Luther King Peace Prizes, a reception for children and a March for Humanity through the city. Then, at 6:01 p.m., she will lead a bell-ringing at the exact moment of the shooting, 39 times for every year of her father's life, certain that the person who killed him has never been caught.
Read more Retropolis: Martin Luther King Jr. met Malcolm X just once. The photo still haunts us with what was lost. Martin Luther King Jr.'s scorn for 'white moderates' in his Birmingham jail letter The determined dad who took Linda Brown by the hand and made history Recy Taylor's gang rape was horrific. The NAACP sent Rosa Parks to investigate.

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Who killed Martin Luther King Jr.? His family believes James Earl Ray was framed.

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Coretta Scott King described "a major, high-level conspiracy in the assassination of my husband." The King children remain certain of that, too.

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We should work on expanding our knowledge of the other powerful people involved in this movement.

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Julian Bond

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Claudette Colvin
Melba Beals
Earnest Green
Elizabeth Eckford

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MLK sure was inspiring.

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New things learned about Martin Luther King Jr.

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New things learned about Martin Luther King Jr.

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-He has been arrested 29 times in total
-Martin Luther King was a prankster when he was young
-He was assassinated once when he was in a book store

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Knowing what I know, as well as what I just learned today, I do wonder how the issues of discrimination and inequality, which still exist in our world, will be resolved, or at least eased, in the years to come. It would be a travesty beyond imagining if we continue to allow inequality to remain throughout the world, for the demands of corporate capitalism to rule the world (and such capitalism demands inequality to survive and turn a profit). I wonder how we, honoring Dr. King's legacy, can move forward and unite for a better future. As long as we strengthen our ethics and recognize our universal shared humanity, we can unite together, break down barriers, and eventually forgive, but not forget, the events of the past. After all, we are all unique, different individuals, but we have the enormous emotional capacity as humans to connect with one another.

I am inspired by Dr. King's words in his "I have a dream," speech, especially the unity he spoke of in his dream for the future. I hope that we can, as a world, move forward (and not backward), and make Dr. King's dream that he so eloquently expressed over fifty-five years ago a reality.

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Martin Luther King experienced a near-fatal incident, being stabbed on his chest, before he was shot.

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MLK, while born into a family of Baptist preachers, was like any other child. He was quite mischievous, but did well in school. He grew up to follow in the footsteps of his father and grandfather, becoming a preacher at their church before becoming a civil rights activist.

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It was interesting to learn more about the influence music has on the world and the civil rights movement.

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Amazing Grace, a will known song that reaches all people originated assorted history

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1. MLK had a fear of being called a "fraud" and a fear that his movement would fail.
2. The two people who inspired him were Gandhi and MLK became a member of the church because of the ministers of his church. - Zach Holmes
3. His death was a combination of the two assassination attempts. - William Kalb
4. After MLK died, James Earl Rey tried to flee the country, but was caught in London for the assassination of MLK. - Jada Johnson
5. Music helped define the Civil Rights Movement. MLK's philosophy was derived from the teachings of the Christian church and the actions of Gandhi. - Sydney Pettigrew
6. Some of MLK's quotes have been white-washed to make MLK less "extreme". - Nadiya Fadiga
7. There were many challenges to establishing MLK's birthday as a national holiday. - Matthew Zimmerman
8. His upbringing played a large part in his journey to becoming a civil rights leader. - Devin Vandenberg

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As a result of extreme whitewashing and government attempt to discredit MLK's achievements many know little to nothing about his rigid anti-capitalistic redirect. Although MLK is best known for his work in ensuring the voting rights of black people and the desegregation of America he simultaneously preached his views on capitalism and its relation to the desegregation of America. Some examples include but are not limited to: “And one day we must ask the question, ‘Why are there forty million poor people in America? And when you begin to ask that question, you are raising questions about the economic system, about a broader distribution of wealth.’ When you ask that question, you begin to question the capitalistic economy. And I’m simply saying that more and more, we’ve got to begin to ask questions about the whole society…” additionally: “The evils of capitalism are as real as the evils of militarism and evils of racism.” and lastly: “Call it democracy, or call it democratic socialism, but there must be a better distribution of wealth within this country for all God’s children.” – Speech to the Negro American Labor Council, 1961. You can find more here https://mlkglobal.org/2017/11/23/martin-luther-king-on-capitalism-in-his-own-words/
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Throughout his life, Martin Luther King Jr spoke often and with vision about the nature of capitalism. The power of his words speak as much to the present day as they did to the turbulent times he witnessed.

" In a sense, you could say we're involved in the class struggle. " - José Igelsias, 1968.

" I am now convinced that the simplest approach will prove to be the most effective - the solution to poverty is to abolish it directly by a now widely discussed matter: the guaranteed income... The curse of poverty has no justification in our age. It is socially as cruel and blind as the practice of cannibalism at the dawn of civilization, when men ate each other because they had not yet learned to take food from the soil or to consume the abundant animal life around them. The time has come for us to civilize ourselves by the total, direct and immediate abolition of poverty." - Where do We Go from Here?,1967.

" If America does not use her vast resources of wealth to end poverty and make it possible for all of God's children to have the basic necessities of life, she too will go to hell." - Speech at Bishop Charles Mason Temple of the Church of God in Christ in support of the Memphis sanitation workers' strike on March 18 th, 1968, two weeks before he was assassinated.

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Martin Luther King on Capitalism in His Own Words

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Throughout his life, Martin Luther King Jr spoke often and with vision about the nature of capitalism. The power of his words speak as much to the present day as they did to the turbulent times he witnessed. "I imagine you already know that I am much more socialistic in my economic theory than capitalistic......

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The King Family won the civil case in 1999 about the murder of King being a conspiracy

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From an opinion piece by Anthony Siracusa in the Philadelphia Inquirer 1/16/2022

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From an opinion piece by Anthony Siracusa in the Philadelphia Inquirer 1/16/2022

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"It is a radical concept of love that demands we embrace those we know and those we don’t, to acknowledge, as King said, 'that all life is interrelated, that somehow we’re caught in an inescapable network of mutuality tied in a single garment of destiny.'

"On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the challenge may be to decipher the meaning of this idea in action for our own lives. The future of what King called the beloved community depends on it – a world at peace because justice is present."

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Ray Foster / MCT

On July 2, 1964, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stood behind President Lyndon Johnson as the Texan signed into law the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Although not the first civil rights bill passed by Congress, it was the most comprehensive.

King called the law's passage "a great moment ... something like the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation by Abraham Lincoln." Johnson recognized King's contributions to the law by gifting him a pen used to sign the historic legislation.

A year later, as Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 into law, King again joined the president for the occasion.

But by the start of 1967, the two most famous men in America were no longer on speaking terms. In fact, they would not meet again before King fell to an assassin's bullet on April 4, 1968.

King was foremost a minister who pastored to a local church throughout his career, even while he was doing national civil rights work. And he became concerned that his political ally Johnson was making a grave moral mistake in Vietnam. Johnson quickly escalated American troop presence in Vietnam from 75,000 to 125,000 in 1965. And by 1968, more than a half a million troops were stationed in the Southeast Asian nation.

As I write in my 2021 book, Nonviolence Before King, the Baptist preacher had been on a " pilgrimage to nonviolence " for years. And by 1967, he was a radical apostle of Christian nonviolence.

King called on the United States to " be born again" and undergo a " radical revolution of values." King believed that Jim Crow segregation and the war in Vietnam were rooted in the same unjust ethic of race-based domination, and he called on the nation to change its ways.

King preached nonviolent direct action for years, and his team organized massive protest movements in the cities of Albany, N.Y., and Selma and Birmingham, Ala. But by 1967, King's religious vision for nonviolence went beyond nonviolent street protest to include abolishing what he called the " triple evils " crippling American society. King defined the triple evils as racism, poverty, and militarism, and he believed these forces were contrary to God's will for all people.

He came to believe, as he said in 1967, that racism, economic exploitation, and war were crippling America's ability to create a "beloved community" defined by love and nonviolence. And on April 4, 1967, he publicly rebuked the president's war policy in Vietnam at Riverside Presbyterian Church in New York City in a speech titled "Beyond Vietnam."

"I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam," he told those gathered in the majestic cathedral. "I speak for the poor of America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home, and death and corruption in Vietnam."

King was initially optimistic that Johnson's Great Society program, which aimed to make historic investments in job growth, job training, and economic development, would tackle domestic poverty. But by 1967 the Great Society appeared to be a casualty of the mounting costs of the war in Vietnam. "I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such," King said in his speech.

King saw the grinding poverty facing Black people at home as inseparable from the war overseas. As he noted, "If our nation can spend 35 billion dollars a year to fight an unjust, evil war in Vietnam, and 20 billion dollars to put a man on the moon, it can spend billions of dollars to put God's children on their own two feet right here on earth."

King could no longer ignore that military force ran contrary to the nonviolence he espoused. As urban revolts in Watts and Newark in the late 1960s rocked the nation, he pleaded with people to remain nonviolent.

"But they ask - and rightly so - what about Vietnam?" King said in the same 1967 speech. "They ask if our own nation wasn't using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today - my own government."
" READ MORE: This MLK Day, Congress should remember Dr. King's economic agenda | Editorial
By 1967, King's vision of justice was one of flourishing for all people, not only civil rights for African Americans. King was criticized for expanding his vision beyond civil rights for Black Americans. Some worried that aligning with the peace movement would weaken the civil rights movement. The NAACP even issued a statement clearly opposing what it saw as a merging of the civil rights and peace movements.

But in his 1967 "Beyond Vietnam" speech, King called "for a worldwide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one's tribe, race, class, and nation ... an all-embracing and unconditional love for all mankind." Such unconditional love is "the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality," and he noted that this unifying principle was present in Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Judaism, and Buddhism.

King was always first a religious leader. He never sought nor gained elected office, because he wanted to maintain a moral voice and be free to challenge policies he believed to be unjust.

But the cost for King's speaking out was high: By the time of his assassination, King's national approval rating was at an all-time low.

He was not a morally perfect man. Declassified files show how FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover tried to target King over his extramarital affairs. Hoover used a wiretap to tape King having sex with other women and sent those to his wife, Coretta Scott King, with a letter indicating King should kill himself because of his moral transgressions.

For those seeking to honor King's legacy today, his religious nonviolence is demanding. It asks that people go beyond acts of service and charity - as important as those are - to both speak and act against violence and racism as well as to organize to end those pernicious forces.

It is a radical concept of love that demands we embrace those we know and those we don't, to acknowledge, as King said, "that all life is interrelated, that somehow we're caught in an inescapable network of mutuality tied in a single garment of destiny."

On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the challenge may be to decipher the meaning of this idea in action for our own lives. The future of what King called the beloved community depends on it - a world at peace because justice is present.
Anthony Siracusa is senior director of inclusive culture and initiatives at the University of Colorado at Boulder. A version of this piece originally appeared on The Conversation.

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How the Vietnam War pushed MLK to embrace global justice, not only civil rights at home | Opinion

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On July 2, 1964, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stood behind President Lyndon Johnson as the Texan signed into law the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Although not the first civil rights bill passed by Congress, it was the most comprehensive. King called the law's passage "a great moment ...

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Issues that are prevalent today that King tried to concur:

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Issues that are prevalent today that King tried to concur:

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Systemic Racism
Poverty
Gun violence
Overall civil rights inequalities within the World

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Our group discussed their interest in his work directly with the government and such a wide network of others--believing that working together intentionally was the key to success.

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MLK was arrested about 30 times

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It was awesome to read the information about how powerful music/songs can be in social movements

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Did not realize that Dr. King had a near death experience 10 years before his death

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People who were also instrumental within King's work:

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People who were also instrumental within King's work:

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JFK
Rosa Parks
Harry Belafonte
Stevie Wonder

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MLK was truly a radical, advocating for the elimination of poverty and an end to the Vietnam War alongside his Civil Rights activism. Today we celebrate mainly his work on Civil Rights, partially because of its great importance and the great changes it brought, but also partially because the Civil Rights movement can be packaged and sold to the public as a battle that was fought and won, while ongoing systematic racism is simply swept under the rug. With our recent spate of foreign wars and the prevalence of poverty, these issues are much tougher to spin in a way that doesn't upset those comfortable with the status quo.

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Many of us were inspired by MLK's youth and realizing he was "ordinary" in many ways - he was a boy and a man who in many ways was like us, but was able to achieve great things. This helped us to see we, too, as "ordinary" people may have the ability to achieve extraordinary.

We also discovered that many of us, as international students, had not had the opportunity to learn about MLK's history and the Civil Rights Movement in the same way as Domestic peers - this was eye-opening.

Many of us were struck by MLK's ability to just keep going despite the violence put upon him and the obstacles - including being stabbed - in his way. This took a lot of strength and probably helped to change the minds of some who may have doubted why he was doing what he was doing.

We also spoke about the meaning of his famous quote, "Darkness cannot drive out Darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that."

Finally, we talked about the current Voting Rights Act and how it may relate to the Bell Hooks quote we heard in Assembly earlier - about why some may want to keep power from others or take power away.

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He skipped grades 9 and 12 and graduated at age 15.

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His promotion for non-violence acts in order to stand up for a cause. He was the man for all people, he fought for everyone; Especially people who were marginalized and at a disadvantaged when it came to basic human rights.

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Religion guided much of King's activism in civil rights and served as a fundamental value in his non-violent approach.

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Ballistics evidence shows that the way king was killed couldn't have been the way described by local police, leading a to a lawsuit that led to his family winning against the government and proving James Earl Ray couldn't have been the killer.

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"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."

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King was inspired by Mahatma Gandhi and his philosophy of civil disobedience and none-violence

He also states Howard Thurman as an inspiration for spurring his will of Civil disobedience in order to cause change. Thurman had been kings professor

Benjamin Mays, who is a Minister and laid the foundation for the civil rights movement was one of MLK's life-long mentors

Bayard Rustin was always King’s right hand man and introduced him to many of the civil right movements ideas and concepts. He helped king organize the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955, but also served as a chief organizer on the march on Washington in 1963

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As a black young black woman, I always feel grateful that we are able to talk about Dr. King and what he has done.

But I always feel awful knowing that MLK day tends to steer away what he didn’t do, sugar coating the fact that he was human and making him out to be some kind of god. I will give him credit, he stood up for what was right, everyone knows that. But there are others that get shadowed that did the same thing better.

Mlk day is wonderful to shed light and spark conversation, but as it is with every year, what is there to talk about if no one wants to spark it?

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I find it to be very progressive and influential how Reverend attempted to deal with violence. That is, through non-violence. And I guess it dates back to Ghandi, who was a a prominent figure in Dr. King’s life, and who popularized this method of nonviolent resistance. The idea itself is very new to the world, though it seems naturally right, because even 70-80 years ago people used to deal with violence through more violence. And Martin Luther King Jr. brought change by dealing with violence through words and by speaking up.

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I think it’s amazing to see how many activists followed in MLKs steps and joined him in this movement to make it what it is despite the danger they would be putting themselves in. It goes to show how important this movement was/is and how they were willing to do anything to follow through with what they wanted. MLK has done a lot for this country for African Americans in America at the time and now. I think we owe a lot to him and his movement and sacrificial he made for the black community.

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“Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn't matter with me now, because I've been to the mountaintop… 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.”

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King adopted G's non-violent approach
seeing your oppressor as a victim, and MLK's adaption to a Christian culture

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Our group learned:

That he skipped two grades; Went to college when he was 15; and got his PhD when he was 25!!

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Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.

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Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.

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"Somewhere we must come to see that social progress never rolls in on the wheels of inevitability. It comes through the tireless efforts and the persistent work of dedicated Individuals. And without this hard work time itself becomes an ally of the primitive forces of social stagnation. And so we must help time, and we must realize that the time is always right to do right." --the Other America

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What do you stand for?

What are you inspired to do?

How do you break the cycle of "just existing"?

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Harry Belafonté was Martin Luther King Jr.'s best friend. He reflected on King in different aspects. He said that King was convincing, and King changed the life of black people. King had always been intellect ,as King got PHD from university when he was 24. Besides that, King had divine intervention. He continued his father's journey, though with doubts, he still took the responsibility. King once thought ending segregation would take only a few years, but he found out that wasn't that simple. All kinds of consequences are related to the ending of segregation, so he kept fighting until his death. What kept King hopeful is his moral sense of justice.

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Dr. King and Malcolm X had different approaches

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Martin's name when he was born is actually "Micheal".
Martin have 4 kids.

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Music and Gandhi's Impact on MLK and the Civil Rights Movement 

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Music and Gandhi's Impact on MLK and the Civil Rights Movement 

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- Freedom songs were used frequently during the Civil Rights movement. They inspired courage, helped sustain morale, and gave a sense of unity and hope.
- "We Shall Overcome" was an anthem of the movement.
- Mahlia Jackson & Harry Belafonte were two prominent musicians during this time, but group singing was also popular.

- MLK was inspired by Gandhi's strategy of using nonviolence.
- "Satyagraha" means 'truth-force' and 'love force' and it tells people to seek truth and love while refusing, through nonviolent resistance, to participate in something you believe is wrong.
- Gandhi's strategy connected with Jesus's message to "love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you".
- MLK was also inspired by Henry David Thoreau's 'peaceful civil disobedience'.
- MLK first used nonviolence in the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955 and 1956.
- He told the protesters that they must be willing to suffer without both internal or external retaliation.
- MLK and Gandhi's approach also influenced John Lewis who attended workshops that prepared him for sit-ins.

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* MLK was the youngest Nobel Prize Leader. * He had graduated with a PHD by age 25.
*His beliefs were heavily inspired by Gandhi because of his nonviolence principles

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Mahatma Gandhi
Malala
Desmond Tutu
Steve Jobs
Notorious RBG
Nelson Mandela
Greta Thunberg
Harvey Milk
Gloria Steinem
Harriett Tubman

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What is the meaning of being a moral leader?

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What is the meaning of being a moral leader?

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Being a moral leader means using your ability to do good and share the positivity with the world.

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- Grew up as a normal kid, and then set an example that anyone can be great and do great thing.
- The Bus Boycott was a whole year.
- Drew international attention, gathering people across the country for the Selma to Montgomery March and was supported by Linden B Johnson
-He was a great person both in the public eye and among family and friends
-He was good at communicating with the public and non-voilent. He was a strong speaker.

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The quote “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” Is really a special quote that will probably stick with me forever because at times I feel like there were times if I was not silent maybe something could have gone differently.

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"[We Shall Overcome] generates power that is indescribable."

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...a more perfect union. Dr. King made a lot of progress in advancing civil rights but there is still so much more to do.

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Music was SO important to his work in inspiring people to join

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I really appreciate the student essays and protest poems in assembly. Very powerful!

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“If you want to change the world, pick up a pen and write.”

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Earned a “C-” in a public speaking course

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Dr. King was influenced by Mahatma Gandhi

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Music was a huge part of the movement- the energy, the emotion, and the action needed to be taken

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Went to college at 15. He was an exceptional student who was driven to succeed academically.

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"Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase."

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Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

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Quote from Letter from a Birmingham Jail

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Quote from Letter from a Birmingham Jail

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"Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever."

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Welcomed with open arms in India and treated with such respect- this was shocking to MLK- he was so touched that the people of India valued his work

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Youngest person of his time to receive a Nobel piece prize

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Rebecca Palmer's protest poem was powerful!

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"Darkness can't drive away darkness, only light can"

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"Darkness can't drive away darkness, only light can"

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I loved the reflections and poems and we heard during assembly.

I enjoyed learning about Martin Luther King's life as a child.

Leaning about how MLK was criticized and assaulted because of his activism.

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Mountain Top speech with quotations that we do not hear about in school- strong and powerful speech!!

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The Civil Rights Movement was not the only thing that MLK was an activist for. In the last few years of his life, he protested for other causes, including an immediate end to the Vietnam War.

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- A Prodigy: Graduated highschool at 15
- Attended Moorehouse: He studied Medicine and Law
- For his Graduate Degree he moved up north: He attended Boston University where he studied Systematic Theology
- He met Coretta Scott in Boston who was attending the Boston Conservatory of Music
- After College the couple married and settled in Montgomery Alabama in 1953

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Mahatma Gandhi inspired Martin Luther King Jr. (admired gandhi's nonviolence views)

Henry David Thoreau’s writing made King familiar with civil disobedience

Martin Luther King Jr. was considered a moral leader  due to his ethicality & positivity.

He guided his followers with a positive outlook on fighting oppression.

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“Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.”

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How others celebrate-
Japan- Hiroshima throws a banquet honoring his work in anti-nuclear war fare and Holland throws huge tribute dinner last sunday of Jan to bridge his bday with start of Black History Month

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While also very bright for his age, MLK was an ordinary child who enjoyed playing with friends, pranks and practical jokes.

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I learned that his ways of protesting and leading were inspired by the teachings and practices of Ghandi. Mostly in 5erms f non violence and preaceful protest. He also tied this to Christanity

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What was MLK like as a child -- the pranks he would pull.  Interesting to hear about his sense of humor and pranks pulled on piano teacher -- he didn't like piano.  He skipped two grades and was in college by 15.  MLK's holiday was fought by people who claimed he was a "lawless communist."  Stevie Wonder wrote a song about MLK with the hope that it would help contribute to celebrating the man's work with a national holiday.  MLK used Gandhi's "trust force" and Thoreau's "civil disobedience" as guiding principles.  "Christ showed us the way.  Gandhi in India showed us it could work" -- cool quotation by MLK.  Read about We Shall Overcome and other music and how it was used in the movement.  Read about how to do peaceful protesting, setting up how to go about it successfully.

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MLK's scope of activism grew to so many more areas of social justice as he progressed into his 20's and 30's.

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He inspired many others to follow him in the Civil Rights movement, and was regarded as a leader and someone many people looked up to. He continued to fight for the movement even after enduring assassination attempts, abuse, and arrest all along the way.

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When people think of the intersection between music and the Civil Rights Movement, one the first songs to come to come up is usually “We Shall Overcome.” This one song greatly described the movement because it was a perfect cumulation of a story of adversity and the strength of a community to struggle and strive together. It told people that as long as we stick together as a community, we will be able to endure the bad times and continue on to succeed in the good. We just have to make it there.

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MLK focused on many different problems that wasn't just racism. He worked on different campaigns that he believed he should fight for such as the grassroots campaign.

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Survived near fatal attack and chose not to press charges

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While avoiding so many attempts of murder and harassment, MLK was always a strong leader and faced whatever he had to to become an amazing leader and never let anything stop him fight for justice

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he was harassed all the time, even in front of his kids.

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Came out against Vietnam War, influenced by Ghandi and Thich Nhat Hahn

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Amazing Grace was originally an inspiring staple of gospel and folk for revivalists.

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- Born on Jan 15, 1929
- His birth name is actually Michael
- His favorite food is pecan pie
- He got arrested and sent to jail 29 different times
- He died April 4, 1968
- he walked 6 million miles between 1957- 1968
- He went to college at the age of 15
- He became the youngest person to get the noble peace prize at 35 years old

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Wasn't afraid to die for his cause and his beliefs

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Wasn't afraid to die for his cause and his beliefs

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He literally had so many close to death experiences, like got shot at in his sleep, got stabbed in the chest at a book signing, and he still kept going out in public and never seemed scared. Like he posed in front of the gunshot hole in his mirror that was supposed to hit him, someone burned a cross in front of his house and took a picture, WITH HIS SON, of him taking it out. Like iconic and literally fearless.

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He went to college at 15 in a segregated school

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Coretta S. King- continued work as advocate in many different social justice areas

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“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

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Upon passing the entrance examination to Morehouse College, Dr. King boarded a train up North. Coming from the racist deep south he saw the differences in the sense of equality in the north.

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"We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people. Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be co workers with God, and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right." -Letter from a Birmingham Jail

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MLK took inspiration from Mahatma Gandhi's nonviolent protest movement for Indian rights in India, which he learned about through Gandhi's writing and a trip to India. He combined these nonviolent strategies e.g. boycotting with Christian theology of loving and having compassion for all people including one's enemies. This love was not only in action but also feeling: “The nonviolent resister not only refuses to shoot his opponent but he also refuses to hate him" King wrote.

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Didn't realize he attended college at 15 and did so locally in Chester, PA

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Didn't realize he attended college at 15 and did so locally in Chester, PA

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Why is Dr. King considered a moral leader?

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Why is Dr. King considered a moral leader?

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His strong moral compass allowed him to seek law reform through peaceful, but assertive means.

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For me personally, I didn’t know that he survived an assassination attempt 10 year prior to his death

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The impact of MLK on Stevie Wonder's music was cool
Also, he was stabbed by a mentally ill person.

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- He went to college at the age of 15
- He was a prankster as a kid
- One student was inspired by Natalie Howlette's presentation and the unique dynamic of learning how to speak and not talk back in a household of African American women
- "In Northeast Atlanta born and raised

In the pulpit’s where he spent most of his days"
- Recognizing the fact that he was a normal child, man etc. who achieved great things in spite of tremendous odds
- change starts with the people.

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mlk spoke very passionately against the vietnam war, capitalism, and performative white activism. He was a big advocate for underpayed workers and spoke about economic desparity.

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When he was younger, he pulled pranks on people. He hated piano lessons and popped off the heads of his sister's dolls to use them as baseballs. He then developed to become a great leader.