The Plot to Kill King by William F. Pepper

Author:William F. Pepper
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Skyhorse
Published: 2016-06-10T16:00:00+00:00

The Background

Mrs. King led off the group of witnesses whose testimony provided evidence about the historical background and events leading up to the assassination. She set the background stating:

• He felt that it was important that he give this support to them because they were a part of what he was really struggling to get the nation to understand, that people work full-time jobs but in a sense for part-time pay. Even people who were poor who worked could not make a decent living. So they would then be invited to join the mobilization for the campaign which was to be held in Washington.

(Transcript of trial proceedings, November 16, 1999, 54–55)

She continued:

• I must say that my husband had wanted to speak out against the war in Vietnam for many years before he actually did do so. He always—he understood the conflict that existed in Vietnam from its inception. And he realized that it was an unjust war in the first place. Then it was being fought against, you know, people of color who were poor. And wars, of course, for him didn’t solve any social problems but created more problems than they solved.

He felt that this particular war was not—we could not win. Of course, history proved him right within a very short period of time after he spoke out. As a matter of fact, one year after he spoke out against the war, he was vindicated in that the nation had reversed itself and its policy toward that war.

That was April 4th, 1968, when he actually spoke out against the war in his first public statement. But he said he had to do it because his conscience—he could no longer live with his conscience without taking a position. He felt that doing so, perhaps he could help to mobilize other public opinion in support of his position, which was, again, against the war.

(Ibid., 58–59)

Concerning the family’s efforts to obtain a trial for James she said:

• Well as a matter of fact, it was because of new information that we had received and largely because of the efforts that you had put forth to investigate a number of these leads that had come out and found that they were reliable enough.

When we looked at it and investigated it, we felt then that we had to take a position. For years we hoped that someday someone else would find out, find the answers. We wanted to know the truth. But the truth was elusive.

We wanted to go on with our lives. We felt the only way we could do it was to really take the position that we did take, because the evidence pointed away from Mr. Ray, not that he might have not had some involvement but he was not the person we felt that really actually killed him.

(Ibid., 64–65)

They offered various perspectives and facts and described the official hostility to Dr. King’s vigorous opposition to the war in Vietnam and his commitment to lead a massive contingent of

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