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Posts Tagged ‘assassination’

RFK 50

Wednesday, June 6th, 2018

June 6, 2018

Fifty years ago today, on June 6, 1968, United States Senator Robert Francis Kennedy (who was often called Bobby Kennedy) died at age 42, one day after being shot at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, California. Kennedy (widely remembered by his initials, RFK) was running for the Democratic nomination for president of the United States at the time, hoping to follow in the footsteps of his older brother, John, who was elected president in 1960. Unfortunately, Bobby’s path followed John’s in a different way: he was shot and killed less than five years after John died by an assassin’s bullet in November 1963.

On June 14, 1963, attorney General Robert F. Kennedy speaking to a crowd of African Americans and whites through a megaphone outside the Justice Department; sign for Congress of Racial Equality is prominently displayed.  Credit: Library of Congress

Robert F. Kennedy speaks to a crowd in Washington, D.C., in June 1963. Credit: Library of Congress

Bobby Kennedy was born in Brookline, Massachusetts, on Nov. 20, 1925. He was the seventh of nine children. He graduated from Harvard University and the University of Virginia Law School. Kennedy entered the government in 1951 as an attorney in the Department of Justice. He gained public attention in the late 1950′s as chief counsel for the Senate committee that investigated improper labor and management activities.

As a senator and later as president, John F. Kennedy worked closely with his brother Robert, right. This picture was taken in 1960 during the campaign for president. Credit: AP/Wide World

President John F. Kennedy, at left, talks with his brother, Robert F. Kennedy, during the 1960 presidential campaign. Credit: AP/Wide World

Kennedy managed his brother John’s campaigns for the U.S. Senate in 1952 and for the presidency in 1960. He was appointed attorney general of the United States in 1961, and he was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1964. Kennedy’s 1968 assassination was part of a difficult year in the United States that included the killing of Martin Luther King, Jr., heightened racial tensions and riots in American cities, and an escalation of the Vietnam War (1957-1975).

In 1969, Sirhan Bishara Sirhan, a Palestinian immigrant born in Jerusalem, was convicted of Bobby Kennedy’s assassination and sentenced to death. The sentence was changed to life imprisonment in 1972 after the California Supreme Court declared the state’s death penalty unconstitutional. Sirhan confessed to shooting Kennedy, but he claimed not to recall the crime, and his reasons for the assassination were never made clear. Some people suspected that Sirhan took the fall as part of a larger conspiracy, and that someone else had helped Sirhan or had actually killed Kennedy. Others saw Sirhan’s actions as revenge on the United States for its support of Israel, the creation of which in 1948 displaced many Palestinians. Still others thought Sirhan suffered from diminished capacity, an unbalanced mental state that can make a person less responsible their actions. Regardless, Sirhan’s case is closed and he remains in a correctional facility near San Diego, California.

Tags: assassination, john kennedy, robert kennedy, sirhan sirhan
Posted in Current Events, Government & Politics, History | Comments Off

The Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Wednesday, April 4th, 2018

April 4, 2018

Fifty years ago today, on April 4, 1968, American civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. The killing shocked the world and dealt a major blow to the civil rights movement in the United States. Numerous events are being held to remember King’s life and legacy, including a solemn 50th anniversary commemoration at the National Civil Rights Museum, which is built around the Lorraine Motel where King was killed. The commemoration is part of a yearlong program of events at the museum called MLK 50.

This black-and-white photograph of the American civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., was taken at a meeting of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in Atlanta. Credit: © Flip Schulke, Corbis

American civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated 50 years ago today on April 4, 1968. Credit: © Flip Schulke, Corbis

Martin Luther King, Jr., was the most prominent leader of the civil rights movement, which sought to end discrimination against African Americans. While organizing a campaign against poverty, King went to Memphis to support a strike of black garbage workers. At about 6 p.m. on April 4, 1968, King stood on the balcony outside his room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis. A bullet struck King in the neck, killing him. James Earl Ray, a white drifter and escaped convict, pleaded guilty to the crime in 1969.

National Civil Rights Museum on November 13, 2016. It is built around the former Lorraine Motel, where Martin Luther King was assassinated. Credit: © F11 Photo/Shutterstock

The National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tennessee, is built around the Lorraine Motel where Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated in 1968. The wreath on the balcony outside room 306 marks the spot where King was shot. Credit: © F11 Photo/Shutterstock

People throughout the world mourned King’s death. The assassination produced immediate shock, grief, and anger. African Americans rioted in more than 100 cities. A few months later, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1968, which prohibited racial discrimination in the sale and rental of most housing in the nation.

In March 1969, Ray pleaded guilty to killing King. Ray was sentenced to 99 years in prison. He later tried to withdraw his plea, but his conviction was upheld. Ray died in 1998. Although Ray confessed to King’s killing, many people doubted that Ray had acted alone.

Following the shooting, the owner of the Lorraine Motel kept King’s room, 306, as a memorial. In 1991, the motel became the centerpiece of the National Civil Rights Museum. The Memphis museum preserves King’s room in period detail. Events at the museum marking King’s death began at 6:01 p.m. on April 4, 2017, and will continue through the end of April 2018.

 

Tags: 1968, assassination, civil rights movement, martin luther king jr, memphis
Posted in Crime, Current Events, Government & Politics, History, People, Race Relations | Comments Off

150th Anniversary of Lincoln Assassination Commemorated

Tuesday, April 14th, 2015

April 14, 2015

Today, the 150th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination is being observed throughout the United States. Ford’s Theatre, where Lincoln was shot, is having an around-the-clock vigil today and tomorrow, marking the events of Lincoln’s assassination. The Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan, which owns the chair that Lincoln was sitting in when he was shot, will remove the chair from its glass-enclosed case and allow visitors a closer view. The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, Illinois, will have a special ceremony tomorrow to commemorate Lincoln’s life and death.

A late portrait of Abraham Lincoln, taken in February 1865. (The line running across the top is a scratch in the negative.) Meserve Collection, Library of Congress

Lincoln, who was president of the United States from 1861 to 1865, led the United States during the American Civil War. He helped end slavery in the nation and helped keep the Union states together during the war. The Civil War, which began in April 1861, was a conflict between the United States government and a group of Southern States that had seceded (withdrawn) from the union to form the Confederate States of America. After four years of bitter war, on April 9, 1865, Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered his army at Appomattox Court House, Virginia. With Lee’s army gone, the end of the war was near.

The president’s box at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C., where Abraham Lincoln was sitting when John Wilkes Booth shot him on the evening of April 14, 1865. Lincoln died the next day. Library of Congress

Five days after Lee’s surrender, Lincoln attended a performance of the comedy Our American Cousin at Ford’s Theatre in Washington. At 10:22 p.m., John Wilkes Booth, one of the best-known actors of the day and a Confederate sympathizer, shot Lincoln in the head. Lincoln was carried unconscious to a boarding house across the street. Lincoln’s family and a number of high government officials surrounded him. Lincoln died at 7:22 a.m. on April 15. As president, Lincoln had been bitterly criticized. After his death, however, even his enemies praised his kindly spirit and selflessness. The train carrying Lincoln’s body traveled from Washington, D.C., to Springfield, Illinois. Mourners lined the tracks as it moved across the country. On May 4, Lincoln was buried in Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield.

After shooting Lincoln, Booth jumped to the stage, caught his spur in a flag draped in front of the box, and fell and broke his leg. But he limped across the stage brandishing a dagger and crying: Sic Semper Tyrannis (Thus Always to Tyrants), the motto of Virginia. Booth fled to Maryland and later escaped to Virginia. On April 26, 1865, federal troops trapped Booth in a barn near Port Royal, Virginia, and shot and killed him. Booth’s shooting of Lincoln was part of a larger plot to not only assassinate the president, but to also kill Vice President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of State William H. Seward. (Johnson was not attacked and Seward survived the attempt on his life.) Eight people were charged with conspiracy to assassinate federal officials and put on trial. A military commission convicted all eight defendants and sentenced four of them to be hanged.

Other links and articles:

  • Mary Surratt
  • When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d (Poem by American poet Walt Whitman about Lincoln’s assassination and funeral procession—Poetry Foundation)

 

Tags: abraham lincoln, assassination, fort theatre, john wilkes booth
Posted in Current Events, History, Military Conflict | Comments Off

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