Episode 91: James Earl Ray and the Assassination of Martin Luther King Part One

The assassination of civil rights leader Martin Luther King in 1968 was one of the greatest of American tragedies, a truly horrific moment in time when a man of nonviolence and love, a man who’d fundamentally changed the world for the better, was gunned down before his 40th birthday.

Today we tell the tale of his killer, James Earl Ray, a sad and pathetic excuse of a man, as mysterious as he was confoundingly odd and sociopathic, his very motive up for debate and swollen with conspiracy theories, some of which have yet to be disproven. But today we’re going to mostly skirt the speculation and inuendo to bring you the cold hard facts in the strange tale of how the tragic intersection of these two men came to be. Ladies and gentlemen, we present to you, the truly bizarre and fundamentally American story of James Earl Ray and the assassination of the Reverand Doctor Martin Luther King Jr.

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Creepy Amusement Park theme by Brandon Fiechter and Derek Fiechter, used by permission and with many thanks.

References:

Hellhound on His Trail: The Stalking of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the International Hunt for His Assassin by Hampton Sides. Doubleday; 1st edition April 27, 2010. ISBN-13 : 978-0385523929

Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference by David J. Garrow. Open Road Media, February 17, 2015. ISBN-13 : ‎978-0060566920

Truth At Last: The Untold Story Behind James Earl Ray and the Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. by John Larry Ray and Lyndon Barsten. Lyons Pess, April2008. ISBN13: 9781599212845

THE INVADERS 2015 documentary film directed by Prichard Smith.

https://www.smartcitymemphis.com/2016/11/the-invaders-a-uniquely-memphis-story/

FEATURING THE SONGS:

“Memphis Tennessee” by The Gulf Coast Seven courtesy of the Free Music Archive. CCO/Public Domain.

“Little Wooden Church” by The Trumpeteers courtesy of the Free Music Archive. CCO/Public Domain.

BLACK LIVES MATTER PROTEST MARCH: crowd-protest-blm-toronto-tr2-06-05-20-mp3 by Geldart -- https://freesound.org/s/521318/ -- License: Attribution 4.0

240818_2822-2_FR_Applause_in_reverberant_church by kevp888 -- https://freesound.org/s/759167/ -- License: Attribution 4.0

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