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.

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.

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.

April 14, 2015

Today, the 150^th 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)