| Address |
| 450 Mulberry St, Memphis, TN 38103, USA (Memphis, Tennessee)
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| Information |
The Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.
The National Civil Rights Museum is located on the grounds that formerly held the Lorraine Motel. It was at this motel on April 4, 1968 that Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated at the height of the Civil Rights Movement. King was in Memphis trying to mediate a garbage worker's strike at the time of his murder. His death at the age of 39 sparked worldwide mourning and race riots in several U.S. cities. Escaped convict James Earl Ray was captured and quickly confessed to the crime. However, Ray recanted his confession after sentencing and would begin to fight to clear his name. He would gain the unlikely supporters of King's family, who would join forces with him in a fight for a new trial. Those efforts would come to a halt in 1998 when Ray died at the age of 70 from liver failure.
The Lorraine Motel was forced into foreclosure in 1982, but was purchased by the Martin Luther King Memorial Foundation in December of that year. After a massive fundraising campaign, the group broke ground in 1987 and on September 28, 1991, officially opened the National Civil Rights Museum. In 2001, they embarked on an expansion project that ultimately connected the museum to other nearby buildings, including the Main Street Rooming House where James Earl Ray allegedly fired the shot that took King's life.
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| See Also on TheCabinet.com |
| Blog: A Museum Where Time Stands Still (09/29/08) |
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| Available from Amazon.com |
Who Killed Martin Luther King Jr.?: The True Story by the Alleged Assassin |
Conspiracy? Who Killed Martin Luther King,jr.? the History Channel |
Assassination of Martin Luther King |
An Act of State: The Execution of Martin Luther King |
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