MLK Jr. Assassinated (1968)

Thu Apr 04, 1968

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On this day in 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated at the age of 39 while supporting striking sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee. Although James Earl Rey was convicted for the murder, but speculation of government involvement has persisted for decades after his death.

Although he is lionized today fo his activism, at the time he was was the target of multiple assassination attempts, arrested 23 times, and surveilled and harassed by the government.

In particular, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover harmed Dr. King by making him a target of COINTELPRO, a secret program where FBI agents spied on, infiltrated, attempted to discredit, and even assassinated members of “subversive” political movements, black liberation movements in particular.

King was killed just a month before the Poor People’s Campaign of 1968, which he had been helping organize with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). The march was carried out in May and June, under the leadership of Ralph Abernathy.

“Well, I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn’t matter with me now, because I’ve been to the mountaintop. And I don’t mind.”

- MLK Jr., April 3rd, 1968