Ray left school when he was just fifteen due to his familys financial condition. Westberg, in turn, liked James Earl Ray. He is a male registered to vote in Wayne County, Michigan. He was sentenced to 99 years at the State penitentiary. One of Kings principal advisors is Stanley David Levison. He was transferred to the maximum security facility called Lois M. DeBerry Special Needs Facility in Nashville which had hospital facilities. "just to throw the public off. That description comes closer to Jerry Ray than to James Earl Ray. After the publication of the Playboy story, Ray fired Kershaw when he found that Playboy paid him $11,000 for facilitating the interview. They laid out the evidence before he entered his plea, and he said, OK. He said his lawyers were incompetent, and that proved false. Over the years, parties other than Ray have filed additional lawsuits related to the assassination. He reacted as if King's remarks were directed at him personally. He later joined the American army at the end of the Second World War and served in Germany. A mock trial of Ray in which he was represented by Dr. William Pepper was later telecast on TV to criticize the government for denying him the trial. He was sentenced to twenty years in prison. Ray was also Stoner's bodyguard and chauffeur. Kershaw and Ray approached the United States House Select Committee on Assassinations and got approval for the conduct of ballistics tests. Ray believed in white supremacy and had strong prejudice against the black people. He simply hounded you (not that Ray was a coward, or afraid to fight, but he wasn't the type to start the fight). bullet and also revealed the absence of nitrites (the presence of Early Ray fired a single shot by standing in the bathtub of his shared room and balancing the rifle on a window ledge. The Revenge of George Wallace If they hadn't located Westberg in a few minutes, they would have shut down the entire prison. If it hadn't been for the two escape attempts, Ray would almost certainly have been paroled by the time he actually did escape. When I got out the third time, I worked in the Tag Plant. McMillans false scenarios portray Ray as a rabid racist in prison. Back in Memphis, Ray pleaded guilty, forfeiting a trial, and was sentenced to 99 years in prison. Lee Harvey Oswald James Earl Ray Sirhan Sirhan . Ray confessed to the crime on March 10, 1969 and received a 99-year prison sentence, which increased to a 100-year sentence after he briefly escaped in 1977. Using their logic, the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. should be attributed to a Democratic U.S. It was even rumored that on the second attempt he'd gotten tired of hiding out, and had deliberately set off an alarm so he could get caught and get something to eat. Born in a poor family, Ray had a difficult childhood as his father could not support his family. [18][24][25], This article is about the person. Even after Ray died in 1998 from complications caused by hepatitis C, the family continued to assert there was, as Coretta King said in 1999, overwhelming evidence that identified someone else, not James Earl Ray, as the shooter, and that Mr. Ray was set up to take the blame.. Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. James Earl Ray was white. Based on the results of a civil trial in 1999, Byrds speech would have almost necessarily have played an even more direct role if the verdict is to be accepted. After Ray was arrested for the assassination of Martin Luther King, it was widely believed that those erroneous prints were proof that the King conspiracy began in Jefferson City, and that someone employed at the prison was involved. Why did James Earl Ray have cancer? On January 26, 1976, My findings are that there is nothing whatsoever to substantiate any conclusion that James Earl Ray financed either his escape or his activities after his escape through any means while he was an inmate at the Missouri State Penitentiary. [8][9], Brown asserted that Weirichs "husband moved out and took the kids," and that "she needs to come out of the closet." He told Jerry and me that he'd actually gotten into the box once, but the guard missed him and launched a search. McMillan is the primary source for the widespread belief that Ray was a major drug dealer in Jeff City; that he smuggled large sums of money out of prison; that he used that money to finance his travels after his escape. While serving in the military, Ray was often charged with drunkenness and breaking arrest. Westberg once described Ray to me as, "Kind of countryfied, but he's okay." In June of 2008, Harding spoke at Stanford University and said the following: Many people within the movement said, Martin, you cannot raise your voice against Johnsons war because Johnson is our man and if you raise your voice against Johnsons war, Johnson being Johnson, is not going to like it.'. Dr. Martin . Ten years after his death, Rays brother John Larry Ray wrote a book along with writer Lyndon Barsten called Truth At Last: The Untold Story Behind James Earl Ray and the Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. James Earl Ray, (born March 10, 1928, Alton, Illinois, U.S.died April 23, 1998, Nashville, Tennessee), American assassin of the African American civil-rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. Ray had been a small-time crook, a robber of gas stations and stores, who had served time in prison, once in Illinois and twice in Missouri, and received a suspended sentence in Los Angeles. January 30, 1961. James Earl Ray did it, case closed! On the first one he'd fallen and stunned himself; on the second he'd hidden in a ceiling. Most recently, after Ray's death in . With the release of this FBI document, however, it seems that the FBI and the JBS were on the same page regarding King. assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.: The assassin: James Earl Ray, This article was most recently revised and updated by, https://www.britannica.com/biography/James-Earl-Ray, James Earl Ray - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up). Omissions? He is a member of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity. So, even if I conceded the possibility that Ray had sold drugs, it would have been in small quantities, and for a brief period of time. On April 4, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot while standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. He began to call him Martin "Lucifer" King and Martin Luther "Coon." James Earl Ray confessed to shooting King and was sentenced to 99 years in prison. He escaped from the prison hiding in a truck that was transporting bread from the prison bakery. Don told me later he was stunned; but he knew if he hesitated too long, a guard would catch Ray. Some of the books written about the assassination describe him as a major drug dealer in Jefferson City, which is ludicrous. The 12-person jury verdict unanimous exonerated the "patsy" James Earl Ray for any role in the assassination of MLK. I know they interviewed some inmates, but they did not interview the people most likely to know something (and also the most likely to tell them to go to hell). In fact, King's family was as convinced of Ray's innocence as the families of Nicole and Ron were convinced of Simpson's guilt. [3], After graduating from law school, Brown moved to Memphis, Tennessee to work as an attorney for the Legal Services Corporation. It is known that, after escaping from Jeff City, James Earl Ray went to Chicago, where Jerry Ray was living. James Earl Ray, a 40-year-old convicted armed robber who had escaped from the Missouri State Penitentiary in Jefferson City, Mo., on April 23, 1967, pleaded guilty on March 10, 1969, in Shelby County (Tenn.) Criminal Court to the first degree murder of Dr. King. In the year 1977, Ray escaped from the prison for the second time along with six other convicts from the Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary located in Petros, Tennessee. Dexter King went so far as to name Memphis Police Department Officer, Lt. Earl Clark as his fathers assassin. Corrections? He employed such Communists as Bayard Rustin and Hunter Pitts ODell; and he worked closely with Carl Braden and James Dumbrowski. The paper quotes Kings statement explaining his strategy: To dislocate the function of a city without destroying it can be more effective than a riot, because it can be longer lasting, costly to society, and not wantonly destructive., Kings admission that the strategy he planned for Washington, D.C, would be costly to society is startling in view of a fact noted in The Urban Institute report, Our Changing City, which observed: 1950 also marked the start of the white exodus to the suburbs. No vehicle traffic would have been allowed in or out until he was found. and condition of the Q64 bullet. Westberg was the first to learn that the bread box wasn't searched. Earl Rays family had problems with the law enforcement ever since he was a child. He escaped from the Missouri State Penitentiary on April 23, 1967; and in Memphis, Tennessee, nearly a year later, on April 4, 1968, from a window of a neighbouring rooming house, he shot King, who was standing on the balcony of a motel room. While he was still in Los Angeles, Ray had the desire to immigrate to Rhodesia (now called Zimbabwe) where a white minority regime declared independence from England in the year 1965. Ray fled to Toronto, secured a Canadian passport through a travel agency, flew to London (May 5), then to Lisbon (May 7? Among the first to rear his head in Ray's defense was J.B. Stoner, a lawyer who was also head of the National State's Rights Party (and who would later be charged with the bombing of a Birmingham church in which several children died). Stoner's hatred of blacks would not have been offensive to him Ray; he might have viewed it as a little extreme, but he would have admired Stoner for being a rebel and for having a network of trusted associates. Brown apparently raised his voice and interrupted a magistrate judge while representing a woman seeking child support in Shelby County Juvenile Court. More:Manhunt in the mountains: James Earl Ray and the Brushy Mountain Prison breakout of 1977. Search for the Killer (April 4- June 8, 1968), the Young & Morrow rooming house Examine the rooming house where James Earl Ray stayed on the day of the assassination, the bathroom window documented as the site of the fatal shot, evidence recovered at the scene, and evidence leading to the capture and arrest of James Earl Ray. In subsequent disclosures, Ray said that he was not the only person involved in the murder of King. I watched my parents tough it out on a daily basis, and I saw that what really kept them going was making a difference to others. McMillan, and through him Time magazine, are also the primary sources for the general belief that Ray financed his after-escape activities with money earned in Jeff City. For example, if you worked in the laundry you could charge people to starch and iron their clothes. 1-86-NARA-NARA or 1-866-272-6272, The President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection, John McAdams (The John F. Kennedy Assassination Information Center), Evidence of Ray's contact with his brothers, 1967-68, Motive with respect to John and Jerry Ray, The backgrounds of Kauffmann and Sutherland, How to File a FOIA Request for Archival Records. FACT CHECK: We strive for accuracy and fairness. A confirmed racist and small-time criminal, James Earl Ray began plotting the assassination of revered civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. in early 1968. He decided to assassinate him to stop blacks from getting equal status to the whites. Each day the prison's bakery would bake enough bread to feed not only the 2,300 men at Jeff City, but also the convicts housed at Church Farm and Renz Farm (two satellite honor farms, where most of the prison's food was grown and raised). While taking dancing classes, he was attracted to the presidential campaign of George Wallace. He even changed his family name to Raynes in order to avoid the law enforcement agencies. The US will celebrate the life of Martin Luther King Jr on Monday, January 18, 2021, remembering all of the tremendous strides the activist-led in promoting civil liberties for all Americans. Updates? The Galileo Case Revisited | Beyond the Cover. In 1997, King told Ray personally that both he and his family believed him. B. Mr. Kershaw was a Tennessee lawyer who argued that James Earl Ray, convicted in the 1968 assassination of the Rev. The 12-person jury verdict unanimous exonerated the "patsy" James Earl Ray for any role in the assassination of MLK. One of Kings sons Dexter had expressed his adamant belief that Ray was not his fathers assassin. On April 4, 1967 a year to the day prior to Kings assassination King delivered his Beyond Vietnam speech at Riverside Baptist Church in New York City. As noted, the committee concluded that James Earl Ray was the assassin of Dr. King. 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