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On April 4, 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King delivered a passionate speech at Riverside Church in New York staking out his opposition to the war in Vietnam. One year later to the day, he was assassinated. Now, 50 years after that fateful day, the truth about the assassination of Dr. King can finally be told.
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TRANSCRIPT
Deathly Support
Is it really worthwhile
To take on to this fight
When those who rule embody guile
And always employ formidable might?
Is the assertion of personal essence enough
When the larger goal is gone?
And the world is ever more cruel and rough
With no-one able to atone.
To think, it came to this.
Was there no other way?
Why a bullet and not a kiss,
On or before that fateful day.
On April 4, 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King delivered a passionate speech at Riverside Church in New York staking out his opposition to the war in Vietnam.
KING: “A time comes when silence is betrayal.” That time has come for us in relation to Vietnam.
One year later to the day, he was assassinated.
Now, 50 years after that fateful day, the truth about the assassination of Dr. King can finally be told.
THE STAGE IS SET
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., a pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, rose to national attention in 1955 by leading a boycott of the racial segregation of the public transit system in Montgomery, Alabama. Seeing the boycott through to a victory in the Supreme Court, where segregated buses were ruled unconstitutional, Dr. King, still just 28 years old, became in 1957 the leader of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Leading nonviolent protests in Birmingham in 1963, King was arrested and penned his “Letter From Birmingham Jail,” outlining his strategy of nonviolent opposition to racism and cementing his place as the leader of the national civil rights movement.
But by 1967, that movement was fracturing. Many activists were becoming restless and were enticed away from King’s nonviolent strategy by fiery speakers like Malcolm X who were advocating violent revolution. The Vietnam war had become a key focus for political activists and a point of division for those in the civil rights movement, with many seeing opposition to the war as a distraction from the movement and its goals.
Up to that point Dr. King had made passing references to the war, but he had never connected the anti-war effort to his civil rights advocacy. That changed in January 1967, when Ramparts magazine published “The Children of Vietnam” by William F. Pepper, a freelance correspondent who spent six weeks in the country documenting the effects of the war.
WILLIAM PEPPER: Well, I was a journalist in Vietnam, and I did an article for Ramparts magazine—which was a progressive magazine at the time—and Martin King was a subscriber to the magazine. And when I came back from Vietnam, I did an article called “The Children of Vietnam,” which described the war crimes that America was committing in that country and the horrific loss of life, and particularly the effect on the children.
So Martin was on his way to the Caribbean on a holiday, and he was stopped at the Atlanta Airport from where he was flying. And he started going through his mail and there was Ramparts from January of ’67. And he didn’t read the article, but he opened it. He opened it, and he started to look at the photographs which I had taken. I kept all the photographs to myself when I was in the country and I also did not do anything with the recordings I made. So he looked at the photographs of the wounded and maimed and dead civilians, particularly children. And Bernard Lee, his bodyguard, had gone up to get something to eat and came back with some food, and he put it on the table and Martin just pushed it away and said, “I don’t think I’m ever going to enjoy a meal again until we end this wretched war.” And that was his introduction to my work.
Anyway, then when he came back from his trip in the Caribbean he asked to meet with me, and we met. And during the last year of his life we were quite close and we strategized a lot about how to change things in America. And that was the birth of the idea that he had had about a poor people’s march in Washington. So I came close to him during that last year.
I spoke on April 15th [1967] to a large rally in front of the UN and suggested to that crowd that there be a third party led by Martin Luther King and Benjamin Spock, and the crowd obviously rose in acceptance. And when Martin came up to speak he indicated that if he did such a thing it would really only be for the purpose of highlighting the horror of the war and ending it. And he delivered a speech at the Riverside Church on April 4, 1967, a year to the day before he was assassinated. And there was a powerful anti-war speech that he delivered. So he was very much in the fold then.
And I met him for the first time in—I guess it was late January or February when we met at Brown University where he delivered a speech, and I was to meet him there. And we were to go together to Harvard where we opened [the volunteer project] “Vietnam Summer.” And I showed him in that trip all of the files that I had readily available and he wept. He openly wept. He was a man of great compassion and feeling, and he knew that he had to do something about this war.
MLK: I come to this magnificent house of worship tonight because my conscience leaves me no other choice. I join you in this meeting because I am in deepest agreement with the aims and work of the organization which has brought us together, Clergy and Laymen Concerned About Vietnam. The recent statements of your executive committee are the sentiments of my own heart, and I found myself in full accord when I read its opening lines: “A time comes when silence is betrayal.” That time has come for us in relation to Vietnam.
[. . .]
Over the past two years, as I have moved to break the betrayal of my own silences and to speak from the burnings of my own heart, as I have called for radical departures from the destruction of Vietnam, many persons have questioned me about the wisdom of my path. At the heart of their concerns, this query has often loomed large and loud: “Why are you speaking about the war, Dr. King? Why are you joining the voices of dissent?” “Peace and civil rights don’t mix,” they say. “Aren’t you hurting the cause of your people?” they ask. And when I hear them, though I often understand the source of their concern, I am nevertheless greatly saddened, for such questions mean that the inquirers have not really known me, my commitment, or my calling.
[. . .]
A true revolution of values will lay hand on the world order and say of war, “This way of settling differences is not just.” This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation’s homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death. [sustained applause]
SOURCE: “Beyond Vietnam“
If Dr. King was looking to create a bridge linking the civil rights movement and the anti-war movement, he didn’t get it.
The opposition he faced from the general public was to be expected. With King having spent his entire public career campaigning for broad changes to society—and having achieved many successes in both the court of law and the court of public opinion—many thought this new stance was a bridge too far. “Won’t Dr. King ever be happy? Why is he always asking for more?”
The opposition from the media was also to be expected, but even King was surprised by the viciousness of the attacks. Calling his attempt to align the civil rights movement and the peace movement “disastrous” and accusing him of seeking publicity, King spent the first few days after the speech defending himself from a particularly rabid press.
The opposition Dr. King faced from within his own circles was more immediately painful. Just four years after delivering his “I Have A Dream” speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and reigning as the uncrowned king of the civil rights movement, King was now forced to defend himself from the very same black academics, grassroots media, politicians and everyday working-class people who had once formed the core of his support. Even Dr. Ralph Bunche, a board member of the NAACP and, like King, a Nobel laureate, called the effort to merge the civil rights and peace movements a “serious tactical mistake.”
But it was the opposition that King faced from the entrenched powers of government, the intelligence agencies and the military-industrial complex that was to be his undoing. They saw the merging of the civil rights movement with the anti-war movement and King’s promise of a poor people’s march on Washington in 1968 as a threat to their very existence. A threat that had to be dealt with.
THE OFFICIAL STORY
This is the story of the assassination of Dr. King as it has come to be known by the public:
In 1967, James Earl Ray, a convicted felon serving 20 years for armed robbery, escaped from Missouri State Penitentiary by jumping in the back of a bread truck. Somehow evading the police dragnet that was on his trail, Ray lived on the run, first traveling throughout the US, then into Canada, then into Mexico where he tried to establish himself as a pornographer under the alias “Eric Stavro Galt.”
Fueled by his hatred of black people in general and Martin Luther King in particular, Ray hatched a cold, calculating plot to assassinate the civil rights icon. After some quick facial reconstruction surgery that the escaped felon somehow managed to procure with funds of unknown origin, Ray headed for Alabama, where he stalked King. Learning that King would be going to Memphis on April 1, 1968, Ray followed along, checking into a rooming house right across from the Lorraine Motel where Dr. King was staying.
On the afternoon of April 4, 1968, Ray staked out the hotel, waiting patiently with the Remington Model 760 Gamemaster rifle he had purchased for the occasion. King came out onto the balcony of his second-floor room at around 6 PM and at precisely 6:01 PM Ray aimed and fired, shooting King in the head.
Ray fled the rooming house, dumping a bundle of equipment—including his rifle and binoculars—nearby. He escaped just before police arrived and, just like in 1967, once again managed to evade the police dragnet that was deployed to find King’s killer. Driving to Atlanta, Ray then fled to Canada, where he stayed for over a month, even acquiring a passport under another alias, Ramon George Sneyd. Fleeing to London, Ray was eventually nabbed at Heathrow Airport trying to board a plane to Brussels on his false Canadian passport.
Pleading guilty to the killing of Dr. King, Ray was sentenced to 99 years in prison.
This is the story we have been told about the assassination, and it is the story that most of the public knows. But it is just that, a story. Most do not know that Ray never actually confessed to the killing, or that the decades-long legal struggle to prove his innocence led to a 1999 civil trial where a jury determined that Ray did not, in fact, fire a shot that day, and that instead Dr. King was assassinated as part of a criminal conspiracy.
So who was involved in this conspiracy? If James Earl Ray was not the killer of Martin Luther King, who was?
THE REAL STORY
Dr. King was no stranger to the prospect of death. During the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1956, his house was bombed while his wife, Coretta Scott King, and their daughter were at home, narrowly escaping injury. When a crowd of his supporters rallied at the bomb scene seeking vengeance, King responded in typical fashion: He pleaded for nonviolence and got the angry mob to disperse. From that point on, the threats to Dr. King’s life were so frequent that they became merely a part of his everyday existence. Security precautions were taken. Police escorts and bodyguards were employed. But King had long since resigned himself to the idea that he might have to die for his cause.
Even so, the package that arrived on November 24, 1964, was different. It contained a tape recording along with an ominous letter. “King, look into your heart. You know you are a complete fraud and a great liability to all of us Negroes. [. . .] King, like all frauds your end is approaching. [. . .] King, there is only one thing left for you to do. You know what it is. [. . .] You are done. There is but one way out for you.”
The tape recording allegedly contained evidence of King’s sexual infidelities. The letter was clearly an encouragement to suicide, and King assumed it was from the FBI. His suspicion was not without reason. As early as December 1963, the FBI had been holding meetings dedicated to the question of how the Bureau could “neutralize” him, and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover—who detested King and had set up the COINTELPRO program to demonize, disrupt and discredit the leaders of the civil rights movement—had just days earlier called King “the most notorious liar in the country.” And, unknown at the time but revealed in recent years, Hoover had just days earlier drafted a letter to William C. Sullivan, the agent in charge of COINTELPRO, opining that King’s “exposure is long overdue” and stating that “It is grand to know that I have the support and goodwill of my close associates in the Bureau.” Years later, it was confirmed that the suicide letter had indeed come from the FBI, likely drafted by Sullivan himself.
But if the FBI’s intention was to get King to do their dirty work for them, they were disappointed. Having lived with the threat of death every day for the better part of a decade, Dr. King had no interest in letting yet another death threat—even one from the FBI itself—get the better of him.
Clearly, if Hoover and his like-minded colleagues were going to get rid of Dr. King, they were going to have to find another opportunity. That opportunity came in the form of James Earl Ray.
The official story relies on a picture of James Earl Ray as an arch-criminal mastermind, determined to kill Martin Luther King and capable of accomplishing that task with precision. But in reality, Ray was more of a bumbling burglar than a calculating killer. After one of his attempts at armed robbery, Ray managed to shoot himself in the foot while running away from the scene of the crime. In another, he fell out of his own getaway car while making his escape. Even if he had been competent enough to pull off such a plot, the official story was never able to explain how he funded his trans-continental activities after his miraculous escape from the Missouri State Penitentiary.
But even Ray’s escape from prison itself, long taken at face value, has since been shown to have been part of a larger plot instigated by the FBI.
Dr. William F. Pepper, who became Ray’s attorney after meeting with him in prison in the late 1970s and later went on to represent the King family in a civil suit and write the definitive book on the case, The Plot to Kill King, explains:
PEPPER: He was always trying to escape when he was in prison, and we thought that that was par for the course and that he lucked out and he was able to get into this bread truck that was delivering bread to the prison and get away. And that’s what I thought for all of those years. And it was only within really the last four or five years, following a deposition of a critical witness, that we learned that in fact the government had profiled James Earl Ray and they had effectively organized his escape. And I learned that because the head of the Dixie Mafia family who was working with the FBI on the killing drove to the prison, and in the car was his son, and they carried twenty-five thousand dollars, which they gave to the warden to organize James’s escape. And the son was my witness for that mission with his father.
The FBI, having profiled Ray and identified him as a potential scapegoat that could be easily manipulated, bribed the warden with $25,000 delivered from Director Hoover to his right-hand man, Clyde Tolson, and taken to the prison by the Bureau’s Dixie Mafia collaborator, Russell Adkins, Sr. From there, it was a question of directing Ray, now an escaped convict, in a way that he could be framed for their ultimate strike against King.
Enter Raul Coelho, a gun-runner and drug-smuggler who Ray met in a saloon in Montreal when he escaped to Canada after his prison break. Raul had a proposition for Ray: If Ray would follow Raul’s instructions and help him with some criminal activities, Raul would provide Ray with the travel documents that he was seeking to allow him to reach Africa, where he believed he would be safe.
According to Ray, it was Raul who gave him the money he needed during this time, including the two thousand dollars for the white Ford Mustang, a purchase that subsequent investigations into Ray’s movements could never explain.
INTERVIEWER: When you met Raul, you . . . did you . . . didn’t know any other name for him? That’s the name that he said was his. And that’s all you ever knew?
RAY: Yeah.
INTERVIEWER: And you met him where?
RAY: Canada.
INTERVIEWER: Up in Canada. And you just met in a saloon?
RAY: It was a saloon in a waterfront area of Montreal.
INTERVIEWER: He never became good friends, then?
RAY: No, I wouldn’t say “good friend.” Just business.
SOURCE: James Earl Ray Interview
It was Raul who directed Ray’s movements in the months leading up to the assassination. And it was during this time that Ray was supplied with the aliases he used during his movements, including “Eric S. Galt.” As it turns out, “Eric S. Galt” was not a fictional name but the name of a real man living in Scarborough, Ontario. A man who, incredibly, not only bore some resemblance to Ray, but also had top security clearance with the American intelligence establishment.
PEPPER: Well, as a part of his movement around—of course he went into Canada—he was given the Galt identity. He was given it by a man he would never reveal, but he was clearly a government agent. James, in fact, was given the identity of “Eric S. Galt” because Eric S. Galt worked in an arms factory in Canada and he had security clearance from the United States government. And he had a physical resemblance to James which was interesting—not dead on, but definitely a physical resemblance to James. So it was a very good a very good identity for James to have. If James ever was picked up for anything with the “Galt” identification, they would run it, and they would immediately be instructed to let him go. So they had that well thought out. James was given that identity for that purpose.
With his alias in place, Ray traveled unimpeded from Canada back into the US, to Mexico and back to the US; a series of movements that would be inexplicable for an escaped convict with no stable source of income. Directed and funded by Raul, Ray ended up in Alabama, where he was directed to purchase a rifle with a scope and some ammunition. Ray went to the Aeromarine Supply store in Birmingham as instructed and purchased a rifle, but when he delivered it to Raul, he was incensed. Ray had bought the wrong gun. Raul forced Ray to exchange the rifle for a Remington 760 Gamemaster 30.06, the same rifle that the official story tells us Ray dropped off in a convenient bundle in front of a nearby shop just moments after the shooting.
NARRATOR: If the assassin had fired the shot from the bathroom window, he would then have had to get out of the bath, put the rifle in its box, run to his room to pick up the bundle, then run 85 feet across the hallway, go down the stairs, and drop the bundle in the shop entrance before walking to his car and driving away. All rather implausible.
It would have required split-second timing before the first policeman arrived at the scene.Veteran assassinations investigator Harold Weisberg has obtained more FBI documents on the King case than anyone else. He was one of the first people to cast doubts on the state’s case against Ray in his book, “The Cover Up” [sic].
HAROLD WEISBERG: That’s ridiculous. He’s required to have gone to his room in the flophouse and picked up the widest collection of junk. Bobby pins. Bobby pins! Cans of beer that hadn’t been opened. You know, a guy has done a crime like that, he’s fleeing for his life and he’s gonna pick up a couple cans of beer or a bobby pin? The box didn’t hold the rifle, he had to put the rifle in that. All sorts of other junk, I mean a ridiculous collection of it. The one thing that that bundle served to do was to point a finger at Ray.
Even more damning for the official story of the assassination is that this carefully planted “murder weapon” was, in reality, not the murder weapon at all, a fact now conclusively determined through modern forensic science.
JUDGE JOE BROWN: I wound up being the last judge hearing the James Earl Ray matter: Did he in fact assassinate Dr. Martin Luther King? And had he not died and his local attorney not died in close succession, it would have been my finding that he was not the gunman. That Remington 760 Gamemaster they’ve got in the Civil Rights Museum is not the murder weapon. It’s not even close.
The thing the state relied upon was the rifle, but modern scientific methodology excluded that rifle from being the murder weapon. The bullet they pulled out of King’s body has a rate of rifling twist of one turn in every eleven and a quarter inches. The rifle that Ray had had a rate of rifling twist of one turn in every ten inches, and a bad manufacturing defect that is not apparent on the death slug. He was shot with an XM-21, it’s a 7.62 by 51 millimeter NATO caliber weapon with a special stainless steel barrel [and with a] 3:9 telescopic sight modified by a company known as Netherwood. It was a red field site, and they used special subsonic ammunition with a suppressor on the end to reduce the velocity of the bullet to below supersonic to confuse the sound signature.
SOURCE: Judge Joe: James Earl Ray Didn’t Assassinate Martin Luther King Jr.
So if Ray’s rifle was not the murder weapon, and if Ray was, as he maintained for decades, blocks away from the scene at the time of the shooting getting the spare tire on the Mustang replaced, then who did fire the shot?
After decades of investigation, Dr. Pepper has uncovered the man he believes pulled the trigger that day.
PEPPER: MLK was shot by a man called Frank Strausser. He was the best shot of the Memphis Police Department. And we know it was Strausser because he was assigned to the rifle range—the shooting range of the Memphis Police Department. And a man who was a janitor in that Police Department saw a rifle being brought in, and he was actually even shown the rifle as a “special rifle,” they called it. And Strausser was given that rifle and he practiced with it all day the day of the killing. He practiced shooting all day with it. And around about three o’clock he packed up, took the rifle, and got in a car—a car of a colleague of his who was a fireman—and drove down to the to the area of the rooming house. And this man, this witness we had, indicated very clearly that there was no doubt in his mind that he was the shooter and he was he was going to effect the assassination.
Strausser was not alone in this operation. The scene in Memphis that day had been carefully prepared, and the area of the Lorraine Motel was teeming with deep state operatives. As Dr. Pepper’s decades-long investigation has exhaustively documented, there was a police surveillance detail keeping watch on the scene from the fire station across the street, a military intelligence unit on top of the fire station photographing the event (and even taking pictures of the real shooter lowering his rifle immediately after the shot), and a Special Forces back-up sniper unit called Alpha 184, which was connected to the 902nd Military Intelligence Group.
Meanwhile, the police security detail which had been assigned to King on his previous visits to the city was withdrawn without explanation the day before the assassination.
Another mysterious actor in the day’s events is the unidentified man claiming to be with Dr. King’s party who had called the Lorraine Motel the day before and requested that his room be changed from the more secure courtyard room to an unsecure balcony room overlooking the swimming pool, in full sight of the fire station and rooming house.
And the iconic photograph of King’s bloodied body on the balcony reveals yet another deep state operative: Marrell McCollough, supposedly part of the local black power movement but in fact an undercover cop and military intelligence agent working as a provocateur, cradling the slain civil rights leader in his arms.
But these were not the only traps that had been set for Dr. King that fateful day. Remarkably, as Dr. Pepper’s investigation has also uncovered, there is evidence to suggest that it was not the assassin’s bullet that actually killed Martin Luther King.
PEPPER: Oh, the shot did not kill him. We all believed that Martin King was killed by that shot by Strausser. He was still alive when he was taken to the hospital. He was being worked on in the emergency room at the hospital and I think the emergency staff were trying to do their best to keep him alive. And he was still breathing and alive when the head of neurosurgery of the hospital, Dr. Breen Bland, came in to the emergency room with two other men in suits and he said to the people in the emergency room: “Stop working on that nigger and let him die.” And then he said, after a pause, “Now get out of here, all of you. Leave this room, get out!” and he emptied the room. And as he was emptying the room a surgical nurse was the last one out and she heard them do this [makes sucking sound]. Like picking up water in their mouths. And that caught her attention. And she turned and she saw them spit on the body of Dr. King, the three men. Then she saw a blond doctor take a pillow and put it over his face and suffocate him, and that’s how Martin King was killed.
THE COVER UP
The cover-up of the assassination was as meticulously planned as the event itself. The scene of the crime was immediately cordoned off, and the convenient bundle of incriminating evidence was found in the nearby shop doorway. One witness even indicated the bundle had been dropped before the shot was fired.
We now know that the crime scene itself was being tampered with even as the sun was setting on Memphis that evening, and key witnesses with inconvenient testimony were being ignored.
ANDREW YOUNG: I started pointing to the rooming house. That’s the only place that it looked like it could’ve come from.
INTERVIEWER: Not that you heard the shot from there?
YOUNG: No, I didn’t know where the shot came from. Now it could have also come from the bushes.
NARRATOR: But strangely, the next morning the bushes were all cut down.
YOUNG: Somebody gave an order in the middle of the night to go out and cut down that underbrush, so that when the sun came up on the fifth of April, the bushes were no longer there.
NARRATOR: To Young, it smacks of cover-up. But the Memphis Police say they cut the brush away to help not hurt the investigation. Still, the motel area was not properly sealed off to protect evidence and at least some key witnesses were never interviewed.
EARL CALDWELL: And then I see this figure directly at eye length coming out of a crouched position in the bushes. When you look directly across from my doorway, you were looking at thicket.
NARRATOR: Dr. King’s driver, Solomon Jones, later told Caldwell and another reporter he, too, saw someone in the bushes.
EARL CALDWELL: He said he saw this figure it’s in the bushes, but he actually saw even the puff of smoke from the shot being fired from there. I quoted him in my story that was in the New York Times the next day.
NARRATOR: The two reporters interviewed others who also said they saw something.
INTERVIEWER: How many people saw somebody in the bushes?
EARL CALDWELL: At least a half a dozen.
INTERVIEWER: And some of them say they saw a rifle?
EARL CALDWELL: Yes.
INTERVIEWER: And do you believe that’s where the shot came from?
EARL CALDWELL: Absolutely.
Soon, police had followed the cookie crumb trail from Ray’s rifle to his various aliases to his fake passport, and, eventually, to London’s Heathrow Airport, where he was caught trying to board a plane to Brussels. The history books, to the extent they cover this at all, now merely note that Ray pled guilty to the killing and consider the case closed.
But in reality, Ray’s guilty plea was done under duress from a deeply conflicted attorney, and Ray himself maintained that he was not the killer for his entire life.
NARRATOR: Two months later, after leaving a trail of false identities, small-time crook James Earl Ray was arrested at Heathrow Airport in London. He was brought back to the States and sentenced to 99 years after pleading guilty to King’s murder. With a trial that lasted only two and a half hours, suspicions were raised. Was the verdict rushed through to cover up a conspiracy?
PERCY FOREMAN: I don’t give a continental damn whether there was a conspiracy or not.
REPORTER: Well, Mr. Foreman, did you ever ask your client whether he was a part of a conspiracy, whether he’d been hired?
FOREMAN: No, I never asked him that but I asked him enough other questions to convince me that he was not.
REPORTER: Did you ever feel that you could ever do more than save his life?
FOREMAN: Never at any time, and so told him from the day I came here.
JOE BROWN: He didn’t get convicted. He pled guilty. You have to understand that though the news media puts it out as “He was the self-confessed killer of King!” that’s not true. All through the transcripts, the entirety of the record, he never confessed and often he said, “I never said I killed King. I didn’t kill him. I’m pleading cause of Alford.” That’s A-l-f-o-r-d. It’s a moderately old US Supreme Court case, and it says even if you are not actually guilty and you are pristinely innocent, you may plead guilty to the charge if you think that doing so is in your best interest under all of the circumstances as you know them to be, and you’re doing so freely, voluntarily, understandingly, knowingly, advisedly and intelligently. So Ray had gone through all of these.
SOURCE: Judge Joe: James Earl Ray Didn’t Assassinate Martin Luther King Jr.
JAMES EARL RAY: When Foreman came in the case, he was all for a trial—at least he pretended to be. And everything went OK up until sometime in February of 1969. We was going to trial up until then. And one time he came in with a paper he wanted me to sign, saying that, you know, we would enter a guilty plea. He gave me a list of reasons why we should enter a plea. He also said the newspapers done convicted me by pretrial publicity. So I told him I didn’t think that was grounds for enter[ing] a guilty plea, ’cause I thought we could overcome some of this adverse publicity going to trial. His next gambit was that if I didn’t enter a guilty plea they might put my brother Jerry Ray in prison as a co-conspirator. He also indicated that if I forced them to trial he wouldn’t put forth his best efforts.
JUDGE: Are you actually stating that you didn’t ever recommend it to Mr. Ray that he plead guilty?
FOREMAN: I have so stated, I state again: I never have recommended to any client. I did tell him the facts as I saw them. I told him I thought he would be convicted. I told him I thought he would be executed, and I had to tell him that, because that was the truth.
NARRATOR: Foreman’s assertion that he didn’t coerce Ray into a guilty plea is belied by the letter he wrote to him on the eve of the trial. Foreman’s fee was coming from a book contract. Ray asked for $500 so that his brother could hire a new lawyer. Foreman agreed “contingent on the plea of ‘guilty’ going through without any unseemly conduct on your part in court.
PROSECUTOR: So Mr. Foreman came to see me and we discussed it and I told him that I would, as in every case where appropriate, accept a guilty plea on the basis of a 99-year sentence. I talked to the Governor of Tennessee, the United States Attorney General, the Department of Justice. I did this as a matter of courtesy that they did not ever interfere with the way I conducted the prosecution of the case.
NARRATOR: It’s only recently become apparent that there was a conflict of interest in the courts appointment of Hugh Stanton, Sr., to assist Ray’s lawyer, Percy Foreman, in Ray’s defense. Stanton had also acted as lawyer for the state’s chief witness against Ray, Charles Stevens.
INTERVIEWER: Did you ever consider that Hugh Stanton was in a conflict of interest because he’d also represented Charlie Stevens? Was that was that ever considered?
PROSECUTOR: No, as a matter of fact, I believe you’re right that Mr. Stanton did—I believe Mr. Stevens finally got somebody else. I don’t know. But, no, we didn’t consider any uh—any uh—. You’re telling me something that I—. If that’s a fact I had forgotten about it, but whatever it was, nothing came up to bother us about it.
Slow and incremental progress in uncovering the clues that would help to unravel the plot were collected through the diligent efforts of a number of researchers over the years, including Harold Weisberg and Philip Melanson and, of course, William Pepper, who took up the case not only as a researcher, but as Ray’s attorney.
By the 1990s, Dr. Pepper—running out of legal avenues to prove the innocence of his client—arranged for an unscripted, televised “mock trial” providing James Earl Ray with the chance to defend himself that the penal system never afforded him. The trial, which featured real evidence, witnesses, a judge, and a counsel before an independent jury—for the first time presented to the public the many holes in the official story and the evidence pointing to a larger conspiracy. It ended with the independent jury acquitting Ray of King’s murder.
The well-publicized trial and acquittal of Ray opened the floodgates as new witnesses stepped forward with new pieces of information. One of those stepping forward was not just a witness, but an actual party to the conspiracy: Loyd Jowers.
As owner of Jim’s Grill, located across Mulberry Street from the Lorraine Motel, Jowers claimed that he had been paid $100,000 by Frank Liberto, a member of the Dixie Mafia, to arrange the hit on King. He even—according to Jim’s Grill waitress Betty Spates—had been seen running from the bushes behind the building into the kitchen, where he stowed a rifle directly after King was shot.
Jowers’ admission, which he repeated on national television, formed the basis for the next battle in the legal odyssey of Dr. King’s assassination. In 1998, the King family filed a wrongful death suit against Jowers. The trial stretched into 1999 and presented the testimony of over 70 witnesses and thousands of new pages of evidence that had never before been seen by the public.
And then, remarkably, on December 8, 1999, a jury found Jowers guilty of a plot to kill Dr. King that, they found, involved a “high-level conspiracy” that included the federal government.
PEPPER: Today a jury of 12 men and women, after hearing the proof for nearly a month, decided that there was a conspiracy to kill Martin Luther King that involved Loyd Jowers, a local man, as well as other unknown co-conspirators associated with the Memphis Police Department, the state of Tennessee, and the government of the United States. That’s what the jury actually held—that’s what they actually ruled today.
SOURCE: Martin Luther King Jr. Conspiracy Trial Verdict, 1999
One might expect that this startling finding would bleed out of the 24-hour news cycle and into the pages of the history books. But one would be wrong.
The government’s reaction was perfectly predictable. Years later, it was shown that the FBI never even investigated Loyd Jowers, the man who confessed to, and was convicted of, his role in the conspiracy to assassinate King.
Even more galling, though, has been the steadfast refusal of the media to cover any aspect of Dr. Pepper’s investigation or to hold any governmental agents or entities’ feet to the fire with regards to the assassination.
PEPPER: The media has covered up all aspects of the truth about this case and this horrific killing of this great prophet. The mainstream media has been totally controlled by the owning corporate rulers, and it has never revealed this. When we had the trial, the media was present when Coretta King took the stand or any member of the King family took the stand, Andy Young took the stand, testified. They were present for that. But then they were absent for the evidence. They walked out when it came time for the evidence under instructions. Court TV was supposed to cover the trial and they said, “This is the trial of the century. We definitely need to cover this trial.” And they didn’t at the last minute. They refused.
And it’s not only the killing of King or Kennedy or Malcolm or Robert Kennedy—and I’ve also been involved in the Robert Kennedy assassination—it’s not only those critical assassinations in the 60s, but it’s anything to do that will shake the core of credibility in the institutions and the agencies of the American government—and how they actually function. You have to remember, Carl Sulzberger gave Allen Dulles twelve slots on The New York Times back in 1959. Those twelve slots in my view have probably been rotated right to the present day. They are agents who will deal with the most sensitive matters.
I have been blacklisted by The New York Times forever. Forever. They won’t use my name—they didn’t use my name on virtually anything. I think they slipped once—one report on the trial that they had to do, they quoted a witness and the witness said, “Mr. Pepper showed us. . .” and they were quoting him. They put that in. But other than that I may be recognized as the attorney for the King family, but never named, and I am not to be named in that newspaper. And it’s as simple as that. I’ve had to live with this, as have many other progressive journalists in areas of very delicate strategic issues. They don’t want this out and they won’t allow it out. That’s the basis of corporate control over the media.
TRUTH AT LAST
KING: All we say to America is be true to what you’re saying on paper. [Applause] If I lived in China or even Russia or any totalitarian country, maybe I could understand some of these illegal injunctions. Maybe I could understand the denial of certain basic First Amendment privileges, because they haven’t committed themselves to that over there. But somewhere I read of the freedom of assembly. Somewhere I read (Yes) of the freedom of speech. (Yes) Somewhere I read (All right) of the freedom of press. (Yes) Somewhere I read (Yes) that the greatness of America is the right to protest for right. [Applause]
SOURCE: I Have Been To The Mountaintop
50 years. 50 years of investigation. 50 years of lies. 50 years of cover-up.
Half a century later, key pieces of the MLK assassination puzzle have been lost to the sands of time. But the picture that has emerged through the tireless efforts of those who have dedicated their lives to the truth is unmistakable. James Earl Ray was not a lone nut acting on the spur of the moment. He was one cog in a much larger plot, one that involved the federal government, military intelligence, local mafia and local officials. A plot that converged on one point: Memphis, April 4, 1968.
The details of that plot, including hundreds of pages of elaboration and hundreds more pages of depositions, testimony and evidence have been compiled by Dr. Pepper in The Plot to Kill King: The Truth Behind the Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. But history is written by the winners, and the media, the textbooks and the historians have largely ignored this investigation.
The truth is there. In black and white. All we have to do is look.
The Final Summation and Afterword
When it happened, I was shocked
How naïve were we then,
Thoughts of conspiracy openly mocked
Against the sword above the pen.Half a lifetime later, the truth appears
And darkness yields to light,
Long gone and dried are all the tears,
Dawn follows our longest night.A painful truth takes its turn,
Without relief or solace,
Even justice, for which we yearn
Can never compensate the loss.So, what was it for this long endeavour?
The expensive trial for family and love,
And why this tie I could not sever?-er-ver-?
As though being driven from above.But all journeys must one day end,
So it is with this one,
Confronting the loss of a dear friend
Now, nearly half a century gone,Punishment is not the goal,
Of a mission driven by love
Each involved has a personal soul,
Without any respite from above.
KING: Well, I don’t know what will happen now; we’ve got some difficult days ahead. (Amen) But it really doesn’t matter with me now, because I’ve been to the mountaintop. (Yeah) [Applause] And I don’t mind. [Applause continues] Like anybody, I would like to live a long life–longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. (Yeah) And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. (Go ahead) And I’ve looked over (Yes sir), and I’ve seen the Promised Land. (Go ahead) I may not get there with you. (Go ahead) But I want you to know tonight (Yes), that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land. [Applause] (Go ahead, Go ahead) And so I’m happy tonight; I’m not worried about anything; I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord. [Applause]
SOURCE: I Have Been To The Mountaintop
James – it looks like you have become an ‘unperson’ on twitter. I trust this is due to your actions rather than one of corporate / state censorship.
https://www.corbettreport.com/deletetwitter/
All is explained in the above link.
Awesome work James and Brock……probably the best work on this subject ever. Thank you for your
clear concise evidence based work as always. One for the history books!
King was not lilly white in his morals as portrayed…. That Caribbean Island he went to on his vacation was Bimini in the Bahamas…. He checked into the Buccaneer point Hotel on S. Bimini….. My Parents ran that hotel back then….
The 1st.thing King did was ask for the white women.. (Hookers) My mother was incensed.. Sir we don’t run or have this type of thing going on here..(not the exact wordage)…. King was pissed.. and demanded girls /women…. The hotel refused any such request…. Later… across on N. Bimini, King visited the “Red Lion”.. Restaurant frequented by everyone.. and that nite my parents.. (They were friends of the owners) My parents and the owners were eating in the back part of the restaurant… Front section and back section for overage or private parties etc. anyway King came in and saw that there were white people eating in the back section while everyone else was in the front section and at the bar… he proceeded to raise a ruckus about the white people only in the back.. etc. He was told by the bartender and the boat capt who brought him that was the owners and guests and no problem .. King started raising a fuss.. and was punched out by the boat capt..(note the boat capt was a Black Bahamian.) Evidently King ran out and took the 1st. flight back to the states.. Now this was told by my parents many years ago.. and I was there but around 6-7 years old….So I really have no personal reflection.. But my mom wouldn’t make that stuff or lie.. So This is a part of Kings history visiting Bimini.. and may still possibly be verified.. Just a historical note…
captsam
Your prob right…I’ve read things like that about him. Few people are really as good as they would like us to think them.
Its only an issue when people let the cult of personality take over and forget that just because somone fights something bad doesnt mean that they are a good person or even that they wouldnt be as evil given the chance. The separation of powers is all about making sure bad (powerhungry) people spend their time fighting each other and trying to steal each others power.
captsam,
Interesting personal anecdote.
Thank you very much for this edition of the Corbett Report! For one, it brings to the internet commons the largely undisseminated research findings on MLK’s assassination from the last 50 years. Second, in juxtaposing the popularized version of King’s killing against a patient factual analysis of the actual evidence, it highlights the censorship and the limits of public discourse characterizing controlled media reporting. It is after all Bernays’ “invisible government” and “true ruling power of our country” writing history for public consumption and steering “the organized habits and opinions of the masses…in democratic society.” That said, this episode will reach many thousands of viewers and help to weaken the cloaking device alluded to by Bernays. Here’s to the discussion your report elicits and to the research it inspires!
Regarding Malcom X and the place of “violent revolution” in his thinking, I think it is important to note the often overlooked realization he had at Mecca before his death in 1965 and how it impacted his views:
“After his epiphany at Mecca, Malcolm X returned to the United States less angry and more optimistic about the prospects for peaceful resolution to America’s race problems. ‘The true brotherhood I had seen had influenced me to recognize that anger can blind human vision,’ he said. “America is the first country … that can actually have a bloodless revolution.’ Tragically, just as Malcolm X appeared to be embarking on an ideological transformation with the potential to dramatically alter the course of the Civil Rights Movement, he was assassinated.” (See https://www.biography.com/people/malcolm-x-9396195)
Thank you again!
Thanks for the context.
Isn’t it funny how the media never makes a fuss about Malcolm? Almost as if they don’t want us to think that arming ourselves to defend a purpose is a good idea. The fearlessness with which he approached changing his mind when it became obvious that he oughta is what has helped him maintain that Top Score slot in Civil Rights on my list. JimBob who knows that Malcolm sure did have a lot of cattle for no bigger a hat that he had.
Well said all the way up this thread. Thanks for the intelligent discussion. Cheers.
Thank you, thank you, thank you…
I have been posting in the comment sections of News Outlets.
Sample:
April 4th, 2018 marks the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. However, most Americans do not know how the government was involved. Much was revealed in Federal Civil Court. The transcripts are on the King Family Website.
See this remarkable, sourced documentary by The Corbett Report released on April 4th 2018 “Truth At Last: The Assassination of Martin Luther King”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TLkpQd-i0U
I encourage folks to post in the comment sections of NEWS ORGANIZATIONS.
This is timely. April 4th
There is a brief window of opportunity.
Let’s help get the word out.
Or, I guess there is another option… A person could tell their grandkids: “I didn’t do anything about informing others.”
I’ve taken a lot of abuse and persecution for spreading the truth. I’m even banned from posting on IMGUR. People are mostly cowards and think that if they behave, like a good little boy/ girl, they will avoid trouble. In fact, they openly mock you, give you dirty looks, consider you crazy and talk about you behind your back for trying to wake them up. Now I only hint at things. You can tell immediately if they’re too afraid to face the truth. If their lives aren’t tortured already by observing the daily injustices of this insane asylum, who are we to wake them up? You tell me how I can get someone to face the truth when it’s right in front of their face. I’M ALL EARS!!!!
I hear ya. Sometimes it is a real bummer. I don’t have all the answers. I’ve been mocked many times, (somewhere in the thousands), but I have also been very, very active on getting the word out about things like 9/11, health, etc.
Just yesterday, I mentioned to two fellow employees (much younger than I), about the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s assassination. I started talking about what was proven in Federal Civil Court and the government’s involvement. They yawned…immersed with their phones and rap music. If I had mentioned Xanax or other drugs, they would be all ears. But they had no interest. So, after a couple sentences, I stopped talking and went back to work.
Some folks don’t have interest in matters of substance.
Or sometimes, at that particular moment in time, they don’t have an interest.
However, the more we all talk about the “Truth At Last: The Assassination of Martin Luther King”, the more acceptable it becomes to talk about.
There are things which we Corbett members can do to spread the word. Comment sections of mainstream news outlets (especially local) are a great, simple method of getting the information out there.
~~~~
By the way, I want to commend James Corbett for promoting William Pepper’s book in his documentary. That is the way to “get the word out”.
I’ve given a lot of thought to that Allegory of a Cave thing. I even read excerpts of the Great Dialogues along with it. Socrates was a jerk. All he ever did was tear people down without building them up. All to make himself look smart. And just how smart is it to be executed on account of your a jerk? But I digress. You can’t coax people out of that cave. They’ll hurt you if you try. But you can throw a pack of Honey Badgers in there. It may not work, but it sure will be fun to watch. JimBob who thinks the redneck ways are a lot more fun.
Good work on getting the word out guys. I genuinely appreciate all the work that others do in this regard.
I have tried for many years, mostly on Facebook, to get the truth out to my “friends”, which to me seems like my best shot. I’m just not personally configured with the ability to endure public attacks. Complicated. Kudos to those of you that are. Actually, yesterday, I did send a comment through about James’ documentary on a live YouTube MLK broadcast put on by RealNews I think. Even had someone ask me a question about it.
Just about the only person that ever currently responds to me on FB is himself already partially awake and interested in this stuff. I keep posting it out there, hoping that other folks see it, even if they don’t “like” it or comment. My take after all these years of posting is that basically almost none of my “friends” (and family for that matter) wants anything to do with this and at least some of them probably think I’m just crazy. I was so enthusiastic at first, probably too much so.
What I’ve seen is that others can’t really come around to the truth without researching into it for themselves, and that it’s not my responsibility to push them in that direction. They have to have a genuine desire, and do it for themselves. I’m certain that some of them are just not capable of actually acknowledging and facing the truth as it is. It’s just too much to handle for them and they’d go over the edge. Too much cognitive dissonance. It was certainly no piece of cake for me. A lifetime of thoughts and beliefs turned upside down and inside out.
So I just keep posting without expectation of anything in particular, hoping that I’m adding just a bit to the pile of evidence that may eventually push them over the edge into researching into the reality of these subjects for themselves.
What I’ve seen is that others can’t really come around to the truth without researching into it for themselves, and that it’s not my responsibility to push them in that direction. They have to have a genuine desire, and do it for themselves. I’m certain that some of them are just not capable of actually acknowledging and facing the truth as it is. It’s just too much to handle for them and they’d go over the edge. Too much cognitive dissonance. It was certainly no piece of cake for me. A lifetime of thoughts and beliefs turned upside down and inside out.
There’s the rub. I think people have reached the point where they don’t doubt the government is behind almost everything out there, but they’re even more afraid of looking for the courage to live their own lives. Sometimes extroverts are just wusses in the art of reflection. Which is yet another good reason to throw a pack of honey badgers in that cave. Honey badgers are great for motivational events.JimBob whose noticed that people are too lazy to just google anything and would rather spend a month arguing in a comment section than do anything worth doing and we want this person why?
Just in case you haven’t seen this Honey Badger video. We think it’s hysterical.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4r7wHMg5Yjg
That narration was perfect! JimBob who is too scared to get near a Honey Badger’s scraps.
Finally a *real* documentary about the MLK assassination. Just a fantastic job – outstanding. This was amazing and disturbing and encouraging to me. Wow. I think it should be required viewing for all U.S. high school students. Now wouldn’t that be something? All U.S. citizens really. And if not, why not? Fear of the actual truth?
C-SPAN – April 4
Martin Luther King Jr. Assassination 50th Anniversary Commemoration
A commemorating ceremony marking the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination took place in front of the Lorraine Motel where Rev. King fell mortally wounded.
https://www.c-span.org/video/?442986-1/martin-luther-king-jr-assassination-50th-anniversary-commemoration
Yep; MLK was a jerk. So am I. But I didn’t move mountains. And when Pepper kept complaining about the media, he kept saying corporate. I think he should have said state. Just me. JimBob
Yea, a lot of us are jerks. Me included. And we all, everyone of us, have done dumb, stupid things.
However, it is a long game we are playing.
There are things that we can do which improve conditions.
For all his faults, Martin Luther King did help to improve conditions.
With each passing year, I find Dr. King’s words becoming ever more poignant, and ever more prescient. With incredible magnificence, this fearless minister and warrior of justice, had a singular gift, delivering his soulful words in a cadence so greatly magnifying and enriching the significance and logic of their truth. His legacy, by his words, truly are our gift that we may learn peace, and with these same words, lay his sacred Truth and his mission.
May this great man and prophet rest in peace.
Just to set the real record straight on rednecks and MLK. Rednecks were the ones in the south (on the paler side of the argument)to start breaking the social taboo against open co-mingling. While it’s true that covert co-mingling was accepted; open could get you dead. So, not all rednecks are born with a sheet over their head, no matter what those New Yorkers think when they find out I’m from South by God Georgia and they figger they can spew all their racist thoughts out to me. JimBob who notes though that there ain’t no MLK streets in rich neighborhoods.
Yep. That’s right about rednecks in the south.
Back in the late 1960’s or early 70’s (after integration of the schools) when I was in High School, I dated a Black girl, Janet, for a while. Sometimes, we would hold hands walking down the hallway. It shook things up. I was white looking as white can get, with long blonde hair.
One time there was a big gang fight in the back, gravel parking lot of the High School. Around 60 Blacks got into it with about 60 white boys. Most of the crackers were goatropers. Those boots a’ kicking were kind of scary. Funny though…Guns were in the trucks and cars of that parking lot. No one even thought of using one. I was smoking a cigarette watching the melee.
The whole town got in a tiff about the fight.
That night of the fight I went with Janet to the old, wood framed Black church where there was a community meeting among the Black community (which was in a segregated part of town). She was pretty brave, because a lot of Blacks didn’t like the idea of her being with a white boy. My presence in the church probably helped to keep the dialogue from boiling over the pot. I was the only white person in that church.
About a quarter mile away from the church, still in the Black community, was the town whore house. A white friend of mine’s sister was the girlfriend of the Pimp. Pimps really did dress the part in those days. He had the classic Cadillac. Eventually, years later, he got shot with a shotgun by the Ft Worth pimp through the kitchen window one night.
One of my High School classmate Black friends would shine shoes at the Whore House for extra change. One night there was gunplay. The bullet went through the wall and just missed his heart. When he recovered, I had him describe the ordeal.
It was an interesting era.
Yep. Of course those were the days in which the mortality rate was a bigger factor in high school graduation rates than the pregnancy one that they always harp on about. JimBob who had pretty much ran out of friends by the time he survived high school with nary a trace of sophistication.
One of my regrets in life is not rafting down the Suwannee River to the gulf one summer. Wait a minute…… I ain’t dead yet! This could make for a nice summer. JimBob who ain’t never growed up so he can act as big a fool as he likes.
thanks for the link, Mellander. Stang’s testimony suggests that MLK was really a communist agitator who got whacked by his own handlers because he had passed his use-by-date — was no longer effective in his chief role as destabilization provocateur.
This combined with the communist backgrounds of the creepy, murderous
Mandela duo in S Africa add a lot to David Duke’s interesting take on modern history as Zionist communist onslaught on white Christian culture. It’s fascinating how Duke gets much of his info from Jewish media which is not reproduced (not allowed to be reproduced) in western countries.
Perhaps the strongest single historical point in Duke’s favour is the straightforward simplicity with which his thesis explains the dismantling and pillage of the USSR in the 90s ; because the Jewish Bolsheviks who created it gradually lost control during the 70s-80s, supplanted by native (Slavic) Russians. Hence the western elite’s hatred of Putin today, because a Russian nationalist who heavily funds and promotes the Orthodox Church.
So how about it, James? – a little less focus on sensational assassination minutiae and a bit more on the grandiose and often persuasive historical perspectives such as inform Duke’s work, or the makers of the info-packed documentary, Europa : the Last Battle.
Just remember, only losers hate the rules. JimBob who also notes that you shouldn’t be hating the player when it’s the game that’s the problem. Course JimBob’s too busy being a jackass to play that game anyway.
VoiceOfArabi,
I agree. You are spot on. In my opinion, this Lawsuit against Saudi Arabia by the Families of the Victims is part of the extortion plot by the U.S.
James has pointed out aspects of this in some of his podcasts.
Washington Post – March 30
Who killed Martin Luther King Jr.? His family believes James Earl Ray was framed.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2018/03/30/who-killed-martin-luther-king-jr-his-family-believes-james-earl-ray-was-framed/?utm_term=.a9758ccdcf48
Some great photos and worth reading.
I’m surprised by mainstreammedia.
I would comment at the article, but I am not on any of those Social Media platforms to log-in a comment.
Perhaps this is the WaPo story Pepper mentioned in his interview as imminent. It certainly doesn’t give enough detail about what was uncovered in the trial to be persuasive to WaPo-type readers not already familiar with it, and devotes a fair amount of time to skeptical types, but it IS surprising that it was done, unless one accepts Pepper’s idea that the WaPo currently hates the FBI enough to actually do something like this — a falling out among thieves.
Wow….James is on fire!..what a mighty, mighty fine piece of work! Thankyou James & all. SHARE IT & DOUBLE YOUR CR contributions I say..we all owe JC for this!
Thank you James and Brock, this was excellent. It’s important to make the truth clear that the government was responsible for his death, not the lone wolf racist BS narrative. It’s certainly no coincidence that Dr. King was murdered a year to the day after his ‘Beyond Vietnam” speech at Riverside Church. Challenging racism was one thing, but making the distinction that, not only was the wholesale destruction of a country and enumerable loss of Vietnamese and American lives, fighting a senseless war unconscionable and perverse, but that, to use King’s words:
Even many of his strongest supporters abandoned him when he chose to take a strong stand against the military industrial complex, rightfully exposing the concept that poverty is an issue which crosses color lines.
The last thing the elite want is for people across cultural, racial, and political lines to recognize that they’re being oppressed and deprived by a system which requires us to subsidize immoral wars when many are struggling just to get by. It’s divide and conquer though, which makes some of the comments I see here all the more disappointing. Sometimes I forget that I’m coming from a much different social perspective than many of the members here. But I suppose, that’s what makes it all the more important to engage with one and other here, recognizing that even if we don’t agree on any number of things, finding some solidarity, enough to at least set aside some our differences in order to take on an agenda which looks on all but a small ruling elite with equal disdain is an important key to fighting back in the ways that we can.
Good point VoiceOfArabi. I have often wondered what the heck was going on with Saudi involvement in 9/11. What you say really makes a lot of sense. I’d guess that maybe, like many other patsies, they were unwittingly used to whatever degree and that perhaps Saudi Arabian leaders didn’t know about the plan at all, and that is why they can be pointed at without fear of blackmail from S.A. towards the U.S.
On the other hand, I believe that Israel (Mossad) is involved up to their ears as well evidenced by the “dancing Israelis”, Israeli Mossad “art students”, Israeli U.S. based phone company that has backdoor access to wiretap almost anyone and everyone. Etc. But the U.S. can’t ever point a finger at Israel because Israel can point back with the devastation of the details of the inside job. Pact between two devils.
I don’t really know about all of MLK’s flaws. As most are probably already aware, JFK had some fairly sizable ones. Seems like just maybe we all have flaws, and they appear to magnify along with increases of power and money. Few exceptions within the group of “men with power” to this apparently human condition. “Power corrupts” seems to have at least a bit of reality.
I did grow up in the 60’s and I can tell you that racial inequality has been enormously reduced from what it was in my childhood, and this improvement is significantly due to the work and words and efforts of MLK. His words had the power of truth behind them, regardless of his own personal flaws and failures.
A short story: We were hungry. We drove a number of miles on dirt roads following the restaurant’s signs to get there. When we drove up to the cattle crossing entrance gate of the restaurant, there was a sign with bold handwritten print: “No Niggers, Spics, Waps, Jews…” We were white as snow, but wanted no part of that place. Not even a slight consideration for us to turn around and go somewhere else.
It takes time to recover from madness, but we’re well along the way in my view, regardless of what the evening news says.
The Dude says:
…racial inequality has been enormously reduced from what it was in my childhood, and this improvement is significantly due to the work and words and efforts of MLK. His words had the power of truth behind them, regardless of his own personal flaws and failures.
(I just love that name: “Dude”
Reminds me of the 60’s, Dude.)
We moved to south georgia in 1964 after my dad escaped the Air Force. I never saw any of those signs. Of course, we only went into town once a week, but still. There was a lot of violence, but you couldn’t really say it was overwhelmingly devoted against any single group. They were just very violent times in general. Sort of a tradition for that part of the country. JimBob who gets no more violent than screaming at those brats across the street for being such smar-alecky whippersnappers.
Grew up in a small town on the east coast of Florida. We didn’t usually see those signs either. We were out exploring around Lake Okeechobee when we ran into that sign. If I remember correctly, nobody said a word when we drove up and saw it. We just turned around and left.
We had fairly regular black vs white riot days in high school, and there were white guys trying to recruit me for this. Seemed to me like the trouble was mostly coming from redneck white guys that came in from more central/rural areas (poorer). I told my mom what was going on, skipped school, went surfing instead, and generally stayed as far away from that mess as possible.
There was one road that separated the two parts of town. Black people lived on the other side of that road. I never ever went into “Nigger Town” as it was commonly called back then. Basically looked like what you see in a 3rd world country. Shacks with corrugated metal roofs, dirt floors. Not good.
I used to go and deliver eggs in Rat Row. Shotgun houses. Went on Saturdays (started when I was about 13), and there was a lot of fun down there. Of course there were also a lot of shotguns and other party devices as well. First day there, my dad got out to deliver some eggs and said, “there’s the pistol” and left me alone. Not 30 sec later a knife fight breaks out in front of the car (I knew they didn’t know anything about fighting though) and then a drunk asked me for a smoke. Had 5 packs on the dash and said nope. Good days! JimBob loving all the hoods.
The 60’s anecdotes on this thread are really interesting.
Thanks ya’ll.
I had a similar experience john.o. There was a black woman that was housekeeper for the family next door to us. She always joyfully fed everybody that came over there to visit. Her husband occasionally came over and trimmed the hedges and did yard work. Every new time he’d come over and see me, he’d stop what he was doing, his face would light up, and he’d say in a booming voice: Hey Dale, how are you doing!? As you say, they were some of the very kindest people that I’ve ever had the pleasure to spend time around.
As a result of reading Bill Pepper’s second book “An Affair of State” back in early 2011, and being blown away by its level of detail, I created a web presence on the issue at http://dickatlee.com/mlk, and devoted significant space to an outline of the evidence presented at the 1999 trial at http://dickatlee.com/issues/assassinations/mlk/king_assassination.html.
Much of the main text of “The Plot to Kill King” was a reprise of evidence from “An Affair,” with two notable exceptions, both of which were elucidated in the incredible collection of depositions in the Appendix. I extracted sections of those depositions. One was the story of Dr. Bland’s killing of King (http://dickatlee.com/issues/assassinations/mlk/king_death_shelby_deposition.html).
The other, to me more earth-shattering (since Bill Pepper got expert opinion that King would have died anyway), was the revelation about Jesse Jackson’s involvement (http://dickatlee.com/issues/assassinations/mlk/jesse_jackson_role.html). We had been told in “An Affair” about Jackson’s suspicious movement down to the parking lot in the minutes before the shooting. And in the collection of MLK assassination videos I searched out and linked to, there is a very damning presentation sequence by Steve Coakely starting at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hp2dEBygjt0, pointing out that King had distanced himself from Jackson on the suspicion Jackson was an agent.
But it wasn’t until Pepper’s deposition of Russel Adkins’s son Ron that Jackson’s role was clearly revealed by an ultimate insider with intimate knowledge as (a) a Hoover-paid spy, (b) the person who told the Lorraine Motel owner to move King to the easy-shot corner room from the safer one he started in, and (c) the person who, a short time before the shooting, told the Invaders gang who were protecting King that they had to leave the motel. King was apparently both an accuser and an overshadower of Jackson — providing a powerful set of motivations. And subsequent history looks very different with that in mind…
To me, this is sufficiently important new information that I’m not sure why Dan Dicks didn’t include it in his interview with Bill Pepper. Perhaps he hadn’t read the book. In any case, I’m relating it here because of what I believe to be its importance. Others may take it with a different mileage.
Thank you!
I think I recall listening to one of Pepper’s interviews where he mentions Jesse Jackson. Evidently, Jesse dipped his hands in King’s blood and rubbed it on his shirt for the PR effect.
(But alas, I don’t know what video that is from.)
It actually would be helpful in understanding your allegations if you would provide a definition of the proper noun “Communist,” which seems to have various meanings in the places you use it.
Having lived through the 50s, when the word was applied to people who were demonstrably not Communists, but happened to have goals similar to those espoused by Communists, I’m leery of its usage without clear definitions. I was called a Communist by high school classmates because I participated in peace marches, and later, during the Vietnam War, I was called a Communist for participating in anti-war demonstrations. I can tell you authoritatively, to put it in HUAC terms, that I am not now, and never have been, a Communist. But if my behavior would lead you to use the term to refer to me, I can at least understand your definition.
So, for starters, what is meant by saying “King was a Communist?” Thanks for any clarification.
Thanks for the clarification. With that settled, what actual evidence do you have that MLK was secretly a Party member, or that he was working WITH the Communists, which I hope we can agree excludes working with non-Communists on issues which Communists may happen to also support. Given what we know about Mr. Hoover and his fabrication of evidence, I hope we also can exclude any claims by him.
When are people going to realise that they are all the same?
The answer my friend is blowin’ in the wind.
‘Cause it sure ain’t gonna come from school text books!
Naivety, a condition or affliction of the human condition that slowly erodes away thought. My thoughts are sweeped away like ashes from an old fire. I can hardly, but still vaguely remember the warmth but like the smoke dissipates till nothing remains. What will rush in to fill the place of naivety ?
It all reminds me of Ho Chi Miens delima of love for ones race that drove him into the arms of the communists. To rise from the horrors and suffering of the past what would anyone do to over come insurmountable obstacles? Become a communist? Become a Christian ? Become a martyr? So that your race, your country ,your whatever burning quest will force you to deal with the devil to reach the ultimate end to all suffering? Sacrifice for the cause is an often told story through out history. What cause? Seems to be the same one everytime! Cross eyed Mary signs no contracts.
My dear, very nice to include the link to Allen Stangs work on Dr. King. I wonder if there could be any other site than this one where two or more divergent viewpoints could be viewed with such pleasant decorum.
I would consider the position of Ho Che Miens in relation to him and Dr. King and “their people.” Old Ho was not a commy by choice but by necessity .Could the mountain top speech by King be his admission of cutting a deal with the devil so his people could reach the promised land like Ol’ Ho did for his people? Just asking?
In the late 1970’s, I worked as a bellman (guy who carries luggage and helps Hotel guests) for a 650 room Hotel in Dallas which looked like a Castle spread out on 16 acres.
There was a crew of old, seasoned bellmen who I worked with. I once “interviewed” Chase, an old black bellman. I asked him to tell me stories of the days prior to integration.
He told me that integration destroyed the local Black community’s economy. In the early days, the Black community had their own theatres and stores and places to go. It was a hopping place, people dressing up and going out on the town. I really got the mental picture.
However, when integration occurred, the Black community started spending their dollars at White businesses. Of course, this drained the local prospering economy.
This made a lot of sense to me. Prior to integration, the Black folks who worked for White people would take their earnings and spend it in the Black community. After awhile, there would be a lot of dough floating around the Black community.
I’ve also heard the same thing about Urban Renewal programs. They just took the choice out of where you spent your money. Gosh, isn’t it wonderful how government helps us out so much? JimBob who thinks that all statists are slab dab crazy and so he keeps that hammer cocked at all times.
I did not know of your sister’s fate. Sorry to hear of it. My own best (and last real) friend’s murder by a coke head was covered up by our local sheriff as they worked for the coke operation. My not exacting blood for that is one of the few regrets I have in my life. There is a place for savage in justice. JimBob who likes those who claim to be his master to always be scared half to death.
Powerful personal anecdote.
manbearpig says: “Again, the Yeakeys of this world don’t make it to widespread posterity and adulation.”
Nobody is or was perfect, least of all JFK, MLK and RFK. MLK, in his last year, especially stood for
Civil Rights
Workers’ rights (he was in Memphis during a garbage collectors’ strike).
Peace and anti-Vietnam War.
He was allowed to live until he focused on the last 2 items, especially the Vietnam War. His faithfulness to certain religious doctrines is irrelevant. He would only be a hypocrite if he had professed to be religious but had practiced war, like all of our political misleaders.
I haven’t read all of the comments, but if it hasn’t been said, the King family, unlike any of the Kennedys, have courageously come out in public with their disbelief in the official myth about the killing of their loved one. The trials (mock and civil) that exonerated James Earl Ray would not have been conducted without their public bravery.
Bravo, James! I was already very familiar with the subject, including the work of Dr. Pepper. However, you captured the spirit of Wm Pepper, MLK and the King family so well, in addition to the forensic aspects. I do hope that you will do a similar documentary about RFK when the time comes.
An RFK documentary would be really cool.
I only know bits and pieces.
May 2017
By the way, James Corbett and his interview with William Pepper is mentioned on WASHINGTON’S BLOG.
Dr. Martin King assassinated by US government: 70-minute full walkthrough of facts by Martin’s friend and family attorney on civil trial verdict. Corporate media, .01% political ‘leaders’ ongoing criminal accomplices after the fact to hide US rogue state empire
http://washingtonsblog.com/2017/05/dr-martin-king-assassinated-us-government-70-minute-full-walkthrough-facts-martins-friend-family-attorney-civil-trial-verdict.html
Thanks for the great report. I am interested to know more about a passing claim made by Dr. Pepper about the 12 positions at the NYT that the CIA fills. Perhaps this could be a new open source investigation?
He referenced Carl Bernstein’s 1977 Rolling Stone piece:
THE CIA AND THE MEDIA
How Americas Most Powerful News Media Worked Hand in Glove with the
Central Intelligence Agency and Why the Church Committee Covered It Up
By Carl Bernstein
http://www.carlbernstein.com/magazine_cia_and_media.php
Pepper said he didn’t know what the figures are now, but he opined that he thought they were probably greater.
Thanks Atlee, I haven’t finished it yet, but that is a superb article. I like how he doesn’t impose judgement. That’s old school journalism there. And even rarer in the old days. Most of it really is legitimate, I’m sure. Just think where certain journalists are supposed to go. And many more are trapped in the web of patriotism. Or a number of reasons. However, paid journalists, while working, management working formally; that’s the hell express by any measure. I do confess the use of the phrase “Founding Fathers” in reference to the CIA sent a chill down my spine. I think this song might help that chill resonate a bit better. JimBob who’s seen those circles and think their a bunch of jerks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lIqNjC1RKU
Wow, cool story john.o. Black on White crime is currently 10x that of White on Black crime so a lot of these stories are absolutely falling by the wayside for younger generations who see “Knock out a white kid day” at public schools and think, “is this equality?” Just my 2c.
Thanks Dan, this is precisely what happened. The Money Trust (Federal Reserve) is at the heart of our problems. As N. Rothschild once said, “Give me control of a nation’s money and I care not who makes its laws.”
Here is a clip from the late Dick Gregory’s lecture. Was the man who “stepped aside so he could get a clear shot” the same man who was cradling the wounded Dr. King? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiOq85bLFnE