Killing King by Stuart Wexler

Author:Stuart Wexler
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography and Memoir
Publisher: Counterpoint
Published: 2018-04-03T04:00:00+00:00

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On April 3, several hours before Martin Luther King gave his final sermon at Mason Temple, James Earl Ray arrived in Memphis in his white Mustang. He checked into the New Rebel Motor Hotel using the Galt alias. He brought the newly purchased rifle, his prison radio, and other gear. In the years that followed, Ray, again, attributed a number of his actions to the elusive Raul, but could not keep his stories straight or even sensible. It is possible he was in Memphis to meet someone, perhaps to provide the newly purchased rifle to would-be conspirators. More than likely, he was debating his own next move. Would he continue to work within a prearranged bounty plot against King’s life? Or would he try for a greater share of the bounty himself?

Anyone wanting to observe Dr. King’s movements in Memphis did not have to work very hard—his stay there was widely covered on television and in local newspapers. Ray, who voraciously followed the news while in prison, claims he was all but oblivious to anything having to do with Martin Luther King Jr. while in Memphis. But fingerprints on a newspaper covering King’s stay, including his lodgings at the Lorraine Motel fifteen minutes away from the New Rebel Motor, suggest otherwise.1

The following day, at 3 p.m., James Earl Ray inquired about rooms at Bessie Brewer’s rooming house across the street from the Lorraine. Initially shown Room 8, Ray turned it down, claiming it provided too much in the way of amenities—cooking facilities, among other things. But Room 8 also happened to face South Main Street, without any view of the Lorraine. Ray elected to rent another room, 5B on the second floor, facing Mulberry Street, which provided a view of Martin Luther King Jr.’s room, 306, at the Lorraine. The vantage point from the window of Room 5B, at the rear of Bessie Brewer’s, was awkward, certainly for anyone looking to try to shoot the civil rights leader across the street.2 But the rooming house bathroom provided a clear view of the Lorraine and Room 306. As the evening approached, William Anschutz, another border at Bessie Brewer’s, became frustrated: someone was occupying that bathroom for an unusually long period of time.3

police surveillance teams monitored Martin Luther King’s every move after he arrived in the River City on April 3, 1968. Memphis mayor Henry Loeb feared another riot. Cognizant that they lacked the manpower to respond to further civil unrest, local law enforcement formed special response teams, known as police tactical units (TAC), that, according to historian Michael Honey, “consisted of three cars, each of which held four men. A commanding officer could order a unit to a location, where they would quickly form a flying wedge and charge down the street.”4 Law enforcement also used African American officers to spy on gatherings of the Memphis Sanitation Workers Strike. Officer Ed Reddit and his partner Willie Richmond formed one of the surveillance teams, assigned to observe King from Fire Station 2, across the street from the Lorraine Motel, where King was staying.

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