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When I tried to mail my review to The Star, the prison officials refused to allow it to leave the prison. One of Kings sons Dexter had expressed his adamant belief that Ray was not his fathers assassin. When authorities caught him in London, hed been planning to travel to Rhodesia, a former African state ruled by a white minority in present-day Zimbabwe. James Earl Ray lowers his head as State Safety commissioner Greg O'Rear, white hat, and Highway Patrol Maj. Mickey McGuire, dark glasses, lead him to prison in Nashville, Tenn., March 11, 1969. . Ray believed in white supremacy and had strong prejudice against the black people. The verdict did convict Loyd Jowers and "other parties known and unknown" for their parts in the vast US government conspiracy to assassinate King. During the four-week trial in Memphis, a 12-person jury heard testimony from over 70 witnesses; but not Jowers, who didnt testify because there were no criminal charges at stake. Benny and I studied programming together, and in 1966 we worked in the programming office together. Martin Luther King Jr. Stoner is the following: Over the years, state and federal authorities have come to suspect that Stoner's violent rhetoric cannot be dismissed merely as fascist ravings. But what do you know about James Earl Ray, the man who assassinated Martin Luther King? Kings convicted killer, James Earl Ray, pled guilty to his murder, received a life sentence, and died in prison of natural causes 29 years later. Dr. Martin . Ray died on April 23, 1998 at the Columbia Nashville Memorial Hospital due to Hepatitis C at the age of 70. Those of us who had been involved in escape attempts did not consider Ray a joke. Guys told me he would hound you relentlessly if you owed him a quarter, but he wouldn't threaten you with violence. Don told me later he was stunned; but he knew if he hesitated too long, a guard would catch Ray. Anyone who remembers the looks on their faces, their resolve and their anger would have to concede that it would have required nothing short of cold hard facts. In 1983, President Ronald Reagan signed the holiday into law, and it was first recognized three years later. The explanation is much simpler. We miss you, James. I went to Memphis to deliver a rifle to this man called Raoul, Ray told me. [3] He would later open his own law practice before being elected as a judge on the State Criminal Court of Shelby County, Tennessee in 1990. In the meantime James Earl Ray had also heard about the bread box, probably through Westberg. If it hadn't been for the two escape attempts, Ray would almost certainly have been paroled by the time he actually did escape. All rights reserved. He believed that King was a serious threat to the dominance of white people in the USA and wanted to stop him through any means. Warren Mass has served The New American since its launch in 1985 in several capacities, including marketing, editing, and writing. The verdict did convict Loyd Jowers and "other parties known and unknown" for their parts in the vast US government conspiracy to assassinate King. Jack Kershaw Is Dead at 96; Challenged Conviction in King's Death. It is clear why tyrants wish to keep people from learning about Price and reading the powerful words he wrote defending freedom and Is Christianity the enemy of science? I grew up in one of the toughest neighborhoods in South Central Los Angeles. In the year 1952, he served a two year prison sentence for the armed robbery of a cab driver. While attending law school, Brown worked as a substitute teacher. King vs. Loyd Jowers and conspirators unknown. In no uncertain terms, Byrd was calling on Johnson to stop Kings march on D.C. That year, Kings son Dexter Scott King visited Ray in prison to draw attention to the familys push to appeal his case. They were not going to have me, or any other convict, expounding on the subject of Ray. It was important for the government to have a lone killer-since blacks across the nation were rioting, and proof of a white conspiracy to kill the black civil-rights leader would have caused a racial explosion. This is why I believe they steered FBI investigators toward convicts who really didn't know anything. McMillans false scenarios portray Ray as a rabid racist in prison. 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 June 8 he was apprehended by London police at Heathrow Airport as he was about to embark for Brussels; the FBI had established him as the prime suspect almost immediately after the assassination. Sometime before 4:00 p.m. on April 4, 1968, James Earl Ray parked his white Mustang on South Main Street and, under an assumed name, rented a room in the second floor rooming house directly above the grill. King was visiting Memphis to settle a strike by garbage workers. In any event, the prison officials never placed him in the same category as Davis, Laster and Westberg, who would unhesitatingly use weapons while escaping. [3], After graduating from law school, Brown moved to Memphis, Tennessee to work as an attorney for the Legal Services Corporation. In subsequent disclosures, Ray said that he was not the only person involved in the murder of King. Jerry began to follow my lead, and that became a source of friction among me, Laster and Westberg. Soon after his release from prison, he was again convicted for mail fraud in Hannibal, Missouri and served three prison sentences at the Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary. Ostensibly only a New York City attorney and businessman, Levison is, in fact, a shrewd, dedicated communist. "[10], In August 2015, Brown served five days in the Shelby County Jail after having been held in contempt of court in March 2014. Thorpe Menn, then book editor of The Star, sent it to me to review. It's a seductive thought. Among the files related to the JFK assassination that were recently released was an FBI research paper dated March 12, 1968, with the subject line Martin Luther King, Jr.: A Current Analysis. The paper was written just a month before the controversial civil-rights activist was shot and killed on April 4, 1968. Between 1998 and 2000, the Department of Justice investigated Jowers claims and the evidence in the civil trial, and concluded that Jowerss claims werent credible. He was sentenced to 99 years at the State penitentiary. That description comes closer to Jerry Ray than to James Earl Ray. When ODells position as a member of the National Committee of the Communist Party was revealed in 1961, King supposedly fired him. 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. There is an important flaw in that logic as well; the defendant was only sued for $100, which he was ordered to pay. On Feb. 17, 1997, while working for The Tennessean, I sat in the office of ReverendKings youngest son, Dexter, then chairman, president and chief executive officer of the King Center for Non Violent Social Change in Atlanta, as he told me why his family felt Ray should have a new trial. He employed such Communists as Bayard Rustin and Hunter Pitts ODell; and he worked closely with Carl Braden and James Dumbrowski. Ray was convicted in 1969 after entering a guilty pleathus forgoing a jury trial and the possibility of a death sentenceand was sentenced to . Early life [ edit] They would rather ignore the facts than become disillusioned. Page 388 also a racist, was allegedly connected with the late Leander Perez, Louisiana political boss and virulent segregationist. Also, after he moved to St. Louis he lived in south St. Louis, an area known for its racism. the result of a conspiracy that involved Jowers, not Ray, as well as ''others, including governmental agencies. Yet given the way the bureau had treated her and her family, her suspicion of the FBI and its conclusions about her husbands killer came from a very reasonable place, says John McMillian, a history professor at Georgia State University. But for veteran crime writer and crusading editor J. Patrick OConnor, the factsor a lack of themdidnt add up. PRPhotos. While on the lam in the 1950s, Ray lived in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico under the pseudonym Eric Stalvo Galt. While there, Eric Galt ordered video equipment through the mail to start up a business as a small-time pornographer. Ray fled from the scene immediately and could not be located immediately by the police. After he was recaptured, Ray hired attorney Jack Kershaw to promote his claim that he was not the person who actually shot King. [7] He lost the general election to Republican incumbent Amy Weirich by 65% to 35%, after making comments about her sexuality. https://www.thefamouspeople.com/profiles/james-earl-ray-30416.php. In her autobiography, Coretta Scott King wrote how glad she was that both Dexter and young Martin Luther King, III, had a chance to go with their father on . It got so that the very sight of King would galvanize Ray. Benny taught me how to type. With it came a letter threatening King with public exposure if he didnt kill himself, and claiming that the sender had evidence of other affairs. Ray, whose previous history as a criminal was notable only for its ineptness, fled to Canada after the killing, assumed a new identity complete with credentials, then fled to England where he was arrested trying to fly out to another country. The jury was clearly convinced by the extensive evidence that was presented during the trial that, in addition to Mr. Jowers, the conspiracy of the Mafia, local, state and federal government agencies, were deeply involved in the assassination of my husband.. In the early 1990s, he started suggesting that the government might be behind the assassination. He boiled when King came on the tube. It contained a pair of binoculars, a newspaper with a story about King staying at the Lorraine Motel, and a .30-06 Remington Gamemaster that had fired one shot. [3] Brown has spoken about how his upbringing shaped his philosophy. But it turned out that rather than discharging this key Red, he had transferred and promoted ODell to a higher post within Kings Southern Christian Leadership Conference. J.B. Stoner, however, would certainly have had the know-how for both, plus the white-supremacist background to explain why he would do it. "just to throw the public off. In only two decades, the white population fell by over 300,000; DC became majority-black in the late 1950s.. In September 1961, I tried to escape and pulled six months in E-Hall, a 100-year-old building whose third floor was for solitary confinement. USA.gov, The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration . A consequence of Kings alleged involvement in those riots was that it caught the attention of some powerful politicians. Omissions? 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). A member of the Republican Party, White was first elected in District 12 in 2010, which then included Angelina, San Jacinto, Trinity, and Tyler counties.He left office on August 11, 2022. Some have indicated that King vs. Jowers was nothing more than a promotional stunt. It was a theory she maintained until her death in 2006 that has so far never been proven. 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). In the 1950s, Ray became notorious as a petty criminal, and by the end of the decade he was a failed pornographer who had served some jail time and successfully completed a prison escape. 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