James Earl Ray (above) an escaped American convict, was arrested 
in London, England, and charged with the assassination of African
American civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.

On April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Rev. King was fatally wounded by a
sniper’s bullet while standing on the balcony outside his second-
story room at the Motel Lorraine.

That evening, a Remington .30-06 hunting rifle was found on the
sidewalk beside a rooming house one block from the Lorraine
Motel. During the next several weeks, the rifle, eyewitness reports,
and fingerprints on the weapon all implicated a single suspect:
James Earl Ray.

Martin Luther King Jr. (1929 – 1968)

James Earl Ray (1928 – 1998)

Ray died on April 23, 1998, just 19 days after the 30th
Anniversary of King’s Assassination, at the age of 70,
at the Columbia Nashville Memorial Hospital in Madison,
Tennessee from complications related to kidney disease
and liver failure caused by hepatitis C.

CAMILLE
BOHANNON

Rosa Louise McCauley Parks (February 4, 1913 – October 24, 2005)
was an American activist in the civil rights movement best known
for her pivotal role in the Montgomery bus boycott. The United
States Congress has honored her as "the first lady of civil rights"
and "the mother of the freedom movement."

The Montgomery bus.

On this day in history, February 3, 1870, the 15th Amendment is ratified, granting Black males
the right to vote.

  
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
   
On the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., the
African American civil rights movement reached its high-water
mark when Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his "I Have a Dream"
speech to about 250,000 people attending the March on
Washington for Jobs and Freedom on August 28, 1963.      

The demonstrators—Black and white, poor and rich—came
together in the nation’s capital to demand voting rights and        
equal opportunity for African Americans and to appeal for 
an end to racial segregation and discrimination.