Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968. James Earl Ray was found guilty after pleading guilty in a trial case, in part to avoid the death penalty. A few days after being sentenced to 99 years in prison, Ray back-tracked on the story leaving room for doubt and conspiracy theories ever since. Some jurys found him to be working with someone, and others found him 100% guilty. Authorities have investigated the death of King at least 5 times since his murder due to new information and claims that came up.
One conspiracy is that the FBI or mafia set up the assassination. Since King’s death, his children have been trying to preserve his legacy. They all agree on and promote one key point: James Earl Ray did not kill Martin Luther King. According to King’s family, the FBI had an obsession with him in the years leading up to his death. They claim the FBI director, J. Edgar Hoover, targeted King and designed the plot to kill him. King’s youngest, Bernice King even stated, “It pains my heart that James Earl Ray had to spend his life in prison paying for things he didn’t do.” King’s wife, Coretta Scott King, was also open to the conspiracy. She filed her own civil suit, and the jury found the mafia and various government agencies “were deeply involved in the assassination. … Mr. Ray was set up to take the blame.” However, nothing changed afterward. No money was awarded (the Kings sought only $100), and Ray was not exonerated. But there was no definitive evidence to prove the theory, and the Wallace supporters were dead by 1979. Researcher 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. Many are adamant that Ray was not behind the gun but was forced to take the blame, or that Ray was behind the shooting, but someone forced him to do it. Most, however, have come to believe that Ray was truly a racist man who wanted to murder King himself.
After all evidence found was brought into investigation, though much of the evidence sought could not be found, investigators believe that the first theory of James Earl Ray being the single killer is true because they never found anything to completely disprove it.
Do you think the FBI or mafia had something to do with the assassination? Or do you think James Earl Ray did it all on his own? Why?
Although some jurys did find him guilty and his family thinks otherwise, I think James Earl Ray did the assassination all on his own. He was simply a racist man who wanted to get rid of a black man trying to promote black rights. Even if King was being hounded by the FBI, I don’t think they would go so extreme as to have him assassinated. Ray also pleaded guilty at first, and even though he changed his story, he changed it multiple times so it was never consistent. I think at that point he was just trying to get out of jail.
Do you think there could have been more research done and evidence found to try and confirm or deny the conspiracy? If so, what more could’ve been done?
I think that there could’ve been more of an effort to try and discover how he was actually assassinated. Although most researchers believe Ray single-handedly killed King, we will never be 100% sure because of missing key evidence. Since the King’s were black, the investigators most likely didn’t make the effort they could have at the time.
Replies
Great topic choice and well done Ellie! Very timely as well as it's MLK Day today.
There could have been a very good chance that the FBI assassinated MLK Jr. because back then African Americans were hated by almost all white people and what MLK was doing might have made the FBI mad or they thought he was making such an impact that instead of trying to stop him from doing anymore movements they just sadly killed him. There could have been more done by doing a lot more research and not thinking it was a civilian and look into more of the details.
I agree that there could have been way more done to find out who actually did it, especially if they FBI was involved they could've prevented further research. I think there is a chance they were involved, but there's so much evidence against it too.
I think that James Earl Ray did assassinate MLK because of the lack of evidence towards other factors of his death. Including the fact that James Ray pleaded guilty at first and kept changing the story after that. I believe that more research could have gone into MLK's murder but considering the time of his death they wouldn't have done anything.
I agree that Ray most likely did it because of the hard evidence. It is possible that they tried to do more research but the FBI stopped it because they were involved, though it is unlikely and it was most likely just due to racism.
I think James Earl Ray did it on his own just because of how he changed his story so many times. Also when he pleaded guilty at first made me think that he killed Martin Luther King Jr. on his own. Then it didn't help his case to find out that James Earl Ray was rasist. I feel that there maybe could of been a little more research done. Just to make sure there weren't people involved that they didn't know about.
The fact that he repeatedly changed his story does leave a lot of room for doubt, although it was most likely just to get out of jail. There definetely should have been more investigating especially with someone as influencial as him.
I think that it's definitely plausible that the FBI was involved in some way, although probably not likely. Martin Luther King Jr. was obviously someone who made a stir and questioned the status quo, so that may be a reason the FBI would want him to stop. However, racism was rampant during that time, so there is a good chance a racist man just wanted to kill King because he was working against racism. I'm sure there could've been more done in order to investigate, but if the FBI was involved, I'm sure there wasn't a lot done.
Martin Luther King Jr. definetely challenged the way of living back then which a lot of people disagreed with. I think it was more likely that Ray did it on his own and the FBI just didn't care enough to research it further, and maybe even thought of it as a good thing.
The FBI very well could have done it I feel like FBI defintaly was a little more on the rasist side of things but I still don't feel like they would go as far as killing him. Although the FBI did come after him for supporting/leading the black rights movement (which wasn't good but still happend) they still did follow the law. Now the mafia on the other hand didn't really care for the law which leads me to think maybe someone in the mafia would be more likely to do it.
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