They want to hold onto their plantation and if anyone from Black America balks, they will put that black person back in their chains. You have reached your limit of 4 free articles. One is rudimentary research would confirm the claim's basics (i.e., the verdict in a wrongful death civil action did allow that "government agencies" participated in a conspiracy to assassinate Dr. King), leading readers to believe the entirety of the rumor was factual. The U.S. Department of Justice found Jowers' claims were without merit and explained that he'd never been able to provide any support for later assertions about his involvement in King's death: When Jowers has confessed, he has contradicted himself on virtually every key point about the alleged conspiracy. Idaho Murders: What Led Police to Bryan Kohberger, Your Privacy Choices: Opt Out of Sale/Targeted Ads, Name: James Earl, Birth Year: 1928, Birth date: March 10, 1928, Birth State: Illinois, Birth City: Alton, Birth Country: United States. Was James earl ray white? Write to Olivia B. Waxman at olivia.waxman@time.com. The verdict presented by the parties and adopted by the jury is incompatible with the weight of all relevant information, much of which the jury never heard. In a criminal trial the guilt of the defendant must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt, but in a civil suit the plaintiff need only support his claim with a preponderance of evidence to prevail. After Byrd, the racist recruiter for the KKK died in 2010, Biden did his eulogy and praised the former Grand Kleagle as his mentor and dear friend.. Jowers also reported that he hired a hit man to shoot Dr. King from behind Jim's Grill and received the murder weapon prior to the killing from someone with a name sounding like Raoul. In fact, credible evidence contradicting his allegations, as well as material inconsistencies among his accounts and his own repudiations of them, demonstrate that Jowers has not been truthful. Ray died at Columbia Nashville Memorial Hospital in Nashville, Tennessee, on April 23, 1998. Jowers stashed the rifle behind the bar and said it was later picked up by Raul and tossed in the Mississippi River. [citation needed]. 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. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our. We found no reliable evidence to support Jowers' allegations that he conspired with others to shoot Dr. King from behind Jim's Grill. I wholeheartedly applaud the verdict of the jury and I feel that justice has been well served in their deliberations. What Political Party was James Earl Ray part of? Now weve got to do something about this, weve got to give them something, just enough to quiet them down, not enough to make a difference. Johnson continued, Ill have those ni**ers voting Democrat for the next 200 years.. [12] His chief interest, however, was the George Wallace presidential campaign. (In the event, the verdict referred only to "governmental agencies" rather than the U.S. government specifically, a term that could include anything from local police to the CIA.) 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. However, President Trump has pumped fear into the Democrats as his policies are benefiting Black America. FBI agents later found this map when they searched the room in which he was staying. During a rainstorm on February 1, 1968, two black sanitation workers in Memphis lost their lives when the trucks compactor Ray was arrested at Londons Heathrow Airport on June 8, 1968, a few weeks after the crime. He spent much of his time in Los Angeles volunteering at the Wallace campaign headquarters in North Hollywood. Ray told this version of the assassination and his flight during the following two months to journalist William Bradford Huie. The family wasnt seeking money, just information. The rear of the boardinghouse faced the Lorraine Motel across Mulberry Street. I dont know what happened, but the truth of what happened to Dr. King should be made available for historys sake.. The 68 riots A Pearl Harbor in politics: LBJs stunning decision not to seek reelectio Who killed Martin Luther King Jr.? The magazine reported that the test results showed "Ray did, in fact, kill Martin Luther King Jr. and that he did so alone." [43] [44], Coretta Scott King said, "The jury was clearly convinced by the extensive evidence that was presented during the trial that, in addition to Mr. Jowers, the conspiracy of the Mafia, local, state and federal government agencies, were deeply involved in the assassination of my husband. Blakey said recently he had tried to prove a conspiracy but could not. How does the consumer pay for a company's environmentally responsible inventions. [1], In February 1935, Ray's father, known by the nickname Speedy, passed a bad check in Alton, Illinois, and then moved to Ewing, Missouri, where the family changed their name to Raynes to avoid law enforcement. In March 1960 Ray started a 20-year sentence for the crimes. Rendering their verdict on December 8 of that year, the jury found that Jowers and others, including government agencies, had conspired to murder King, and he was therefore legally liable to pay compensation to the King family. President Lyndon B. Johnson sold them into the Democrat plantation stating, These Negroes, theyre getting pretty uppity these days and thats a problem for us since theyve got something now they never had before, the political pull to back up their uppitiness. Pepper said the CIA could have fabricated the records. What are the disadvantages of shielding a thermometer? More to the point, however, Jowers (who didn't even testify) was the only named party in the civil suit brought by the King family, and the judgment awarded in that case was a paltry $100, widely described as a token award to mark the trial's outcome. He paid $8.50 for a weeks stay. Although the Justice Department officially claims James Earl Ray assassinated MLK, a civil suit later determined that a Memphis cop was involved in a conspiracy to murder the civil rights leader. 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. He continued to visit Ray until his death and presided over his funeral. At one point, he claimed a person named Raul told him to kill King, but theres no convincing proof of such an idea, according to Sides. In the U.S. Senate, Democrat Majority Leader, Robert KKK Byrd, was a former Grand Kleagle, a Snopes and the Snopes.com logo are registered service marks of Snopes.com. There, on March 30, 1968, he bought a Remington Model 760 Gamemaster .30-06-caliber rifle and a box of 20 cartridges from the Aeromarine Supply Company. In 1955, he was convicted of mail fraud after stealing money orders in Hannibal, Missouri. 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. [49], Before his death, Ray was transferred to the Lois M. DeBerry Special Needs Facility in Nashville, a maximum-security prison with hospital facilities. Bradley Beal hits season high as Wizards fight to the finish in Atlanta, Caps trade away two more veterans, add young defenseman Rasmus Sandin, Commanders cut Carson Wentz and Bobby McCain, clearing cap space. A teacher walks into the Classroom and says If only Yesterday was Tomorrow Today would have been a Saturday Which Day did the Teacher make this Statement? Even a 1978 special congressional committee said there was the "likelihood" that Ray did not act alone. I Am a Man: The ugly Memphis sanitation workers strike that led to MLKs 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. Nor have any of the conspiracy theories advanced in the last 30 years, including the Jowers and the Wilson allegations, survived critical examination. Two years later, his young sister Marjorie, died in a fire after playing with matches and accidentally catching herself on fire. Top of Page Since his television appearance, Jowers and his attorney have given additional statements about the assassination to the media, the King family, Ray's defenders, law enforcement personnel, relatives, friends, and courts. 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.. 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. You can unsubscribe at any time. For over 25 years following the assassination, James Earl Ray, his defenders, and others consistently referred to the man who allegedly framed Ray as Raoul. Toward the end of his life, Ray, whose sentence had been extended to 100 years after he escaped from prison in 1977, had the support of an unexpected ally: the King family. Kings two other surviving children, Dexter, 57, and Martin III, 60, fully agree that Ray was innocent. Ray told Huie that he purposefully left the rifle with his fingerprints on it in plain sight at the crime scene because he wanted to become a famous criminal. It is important to know that this was a SWIFT verdict, delivered after about an hour of jury deliberation. The NAACP sent Rosa Parks to investigate. Im not saying he didnt have help, Campbell said. After returning to Alton and moving back in with his grandmother, he blazed through a number of odd jobs. 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. The most serious of those came in 1959, when Ray, on parole for an earlier theft, robbed two St. Louis grocery stores, as well as another in Alton. James Earl Ray, a career criminal who had briefly served in the U.S. Army, shot the advocate of non-violent resistance. Your answer to that one is also yes. Ray himself countered that he was not the only one involved in the crime. [22], According to the FBI, on 4th April, 1968 Ray killed civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. with a single shot fired from his Remington rifle, while King was standing on the second-floor balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. Hoover had ordered surveillance, wiretaps and listening devices placed in Kings rooms starting in 1963, apparently infuriated by Kings criticism of the FBI for not having black agents or investigating civil rights cases. [8] He was sentenced to twenty years in prison for repeated offenses. Wednesday marks 50 years since Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated on the second-floor balcony near his room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, where he had been supporting black sanitation workers on strike for better pay and working conditions. Rather, it appears that Jowers contrived and promoted a sensational story of a plot to kill Dr. King. That if something has a huge evil effect, it should be the result of a huge evil cause.. Then figure out what the total cost of the trip would be.? But nothing changed afterward. Over the next several years, Ray embarked on a number of small crimes, serving various jail times. However, dont expect the Democrats to give in without a fight. We strive for accuracy and fairness.If you see something that doesn't look right,contact us! That some Americans didnt trust and still dont trust the governments conclusion on Kings murder says a lot about what was going on in America in the 1960s and 70s, when the Vietnam War and Watergate torpedoed Americans trust in government. All of this is therefore a very slender thread on which to hang the claim that the "U.S. government was proved responsible for King's assassination." Those facts leave no surprise as to why a man such as Ray would murder a man whose lifes work was focused on racial equality. [42], In 1998, and continuing into 1999, Pepper represented the King family in a wrongful death civil suit against Memphis restaurant owner Loyd Jowers, whose restaurant was near the Lorraine Motel. The Rhodesian government expressed its disapproval. This case overlooked so much contradictory evidence that never was presented, what other option did the jury have but to accept Mr. Pepper's version? Im satisfied beyond a shadow of a doubt, Lawson said, that James Earl Ray neither pulled the trigger nor plotted to kill Martin Luther King.. 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 fathers life, certain that the person who killed him has never been caught. But not everyone was convinced that the story stopped there in part because Rays guilty plea stopped a trial from proceeding. 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. He broke out of prisons so many times that he earned the nickname the Mole.. Why do you assume he was a Democrat? By that time, the Dixiecrats were rapidly becoming Republicans - so if he WAS a registered democrat, it was ju [28] He stayed briefly in Lisbon, Portugal, and returned to London. I found gaps in his movements that are mysterious and you just dont know who hes meeting with. Something triggered something in him, Sides says, but exactly what that trigger was is unclear. James Earl Ray was capture in Nashville,Tennesee. [21], After purchasing the rifle and accessories, Ray drove back to Atlanta. The Democrats opposed all Amendments. Ray's first conviction for criminal activity, a burglary in California, came in 1949. An FBI His sister Marjorie died in a fire as a young child in 1933. [36] However, Ray spent the remainder of his life unsuccessfully attempting to withdraw his guilty plea and secure a jury trial. Rays lawyer J.B. Stoner was a known white supremacist, and Ray who also made clear his admiration for Hitler had done volunteer work for the 1968 presidential campaign of Alabamas former segregationist Governor George Wallace, who had gone head-to-head with King in Birmingham, Selma and Montgomery. Later, in the early 1990s, he suggested a conspiracy involving the government had been behind the assassination. Exactly what led Ray to kill King continues to be a source of debate, as does his role in the murder. He later joined the U.S. Army at the close of World War II and served in Germany. His family believes James Earl Ray was framed. If the King family wanted a rubber stamp of their own view of the facts, they got it.". It didnt help that Rays story kept changing. In exchange for his plea, prosecutors did not seek the death penalty and Ray was sentenced to 99 years in prison. WebJack Kershaw. Cities were burning. Ray died in prison on April 23, 1998. The original mug shot of James Earl Ray included with the memo from the FBI to the Belleville News-Democrat. WebJames Earl Ray was a supporter of George Wallace - who was a democrat in the 1960s but was on the side of segregation, which when you hear about the party switch of that time, Moreover, Jowers' repudiations, even under oath, his failure to testify during King v. Jowers, his refusal to cooperate with our investigation, his reported motive to make money from his claims, and his efforts along with his friends to promote his story all suggest a lack of credibility. 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. The rifle Ray had purchased in Birmingham was found near the front of the boardinghouse with Rays fingerprints on it. 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 Kings death. Magazines, Digital All Rights Reserved. After getting laid off in 1945, Ray enlisted in the Army, eventually getting stationed in West Germany. [31] At check-in, the ticket agent noticed the name on his passport, Sneyd, was on a Royal Canadian Mounted Police watchlist. On April 4, Bernice King will lead commemorative events in Atlanta, including a wreath laying at her fathers grave, a ceremony awarding Martin Luther King Peace Prizes, a reception for children and a March for Humanity through the city. Kim LaCapria is a former writer for Snopes. WebJames Earl Ray was an American assassin convicted for the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. After his conviction, he spent all his life in prison. Officially: Case closed. While Biden and the Democrats feel Black America is their voting plantation, if a black man or woman thinks for themselves, as Biden stated, you aint black as if their skin color has changed. James Earl Ray was white. Ray moved around while on the lam, staying in Chicago, Los Angeles, Mexico and Canada over the next year. There were things in Memphis that were suspicious and raised questions in my mind, Lawson said. Astrological Sign: Pisces, Death Year: 1998, Death date: April 23, 1998, Death State: Tennessee, Death City: Nashville, Death Country: United States, Article Title: James Earl Ray Biography, Author: Biography.com Editors, Website Name: The Biography.com website, Url: https://www.biography.com/crime/james-earl-ray, Publisher: A&E; Television Networks, Last Updated: May 3, 2021, Original Published Date: April 2, 2014. [17], Arriving in Atlanta on March 24, 1968, Ray checked into a rooming house. The one time Jowers did testify under oath about his allegations in an earlier civil suit, Ray v. Jowers, he repudiated them. Biden supported Planned Parenthood, whose founder, Margaret Sanger referred to blacks as human weeds and wanted abortions to exterminate the black population. Ray was a known criminal, on the lam after escaping a Missouri state prison when he committed the assassination, and had more than two dozen known aliases for himself before he was put behind bars again. And their view of the case is shared by other respected black leaders. We were living in the period of assassinations,Young said. Among those who could have been pardoned was James Earl Ray, who just a decade before had assassinated Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis. Magazines, Or create a free account to access more articles. 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