Chasing King's Killer: The Hunt for Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Assassin Read online

  physical appearance of, 98, 100

  post-prison life on the run, 90, 92–95, 97–100, 99, 101–102, 103

  prison escape of (1967), 81–84, 89–90, 103

  prison escape of (1977), 249, 249, 250

  and race relations, 94, 237

  search for (see also manhunt for Ray)

  trial for, 234–235

  wanted posters for, 214–216, 215, 217–218, 250

  warrants for arrest of, 214

  See also assassination of King; escape of Ray; manhunt for Ray

  Reeb, James, 66

  Religion and civil rights movement, 37

  Richmond, W. B., 143, 145

  Rifle used in assassination of King, 112–113

  abandoned after assassination, 150, 151, 188

  bullet used in, 112, 144, 169, 170, 188, 192

  and escape from crime scene, 146

  and FBI investigation, 187, 192

  fingerprints left on, 192

  found by police, 159, 165

  path of bullet, 152–153

  purchase of, 110–112, 111, 115, 146, 171, 187, 236

  scope of, 110, 112, 142, 188, 192

  serial number of, 187

  Riots

  following King’s assassination, 176–178, 177, 178, 182

  and sanitation workers’ strike, 109, 118

  in Watts area of Los Angeles, 68

  Riverside Church in New York City, 74

  Robertson, Carole, 53

  Robinson, Jackie, 2

  Rockefeller, Nelson, 2

  Rooming house rented by Ray

  and bathroom used as sniper’s nest, 134–136, 135, 142, 143, 188

  diagrams of murder scene, 133, 152–153

  entrance to, 131

  and escape from crime scene, 133

  fingerprints left at, 135, 191–192

  room rented, 130–136, 132, 133

  searched by police, 168–169

  and view of the Lorraine, 131–134, 135, 138, 142, 147

  Sanitation workers’ strike in Memphis, Tennessee

  city’s injunction against march, 120, 129, 138

  and deaths of trash collectors, 101

  and The Invaders, 108–109, 129–130

  King’s address to strikers, 101, 107

  marches planned for, 107, 108–110, 109, 113, 118–119, 120, 129

  march led by Coretta King, 202

  and “Mountaintop” address of King, 123

  Schwerner, Michael, 58–59

  Scotland Yard, 224, 227, 229, 232

  Seale, Bobby, 71

  Segregation in America

  and bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama, 1, 31–34, 32, 33

  in Chicago, 69–70

  and Freedom Riders, 39–40, 40

  and “Jim Crow” laws in America, 19–22, 20, 22

  and King’s youth, 25–27

  Supreme Court ruling on, 33

  and violent opposition to civil rights, 33, 58–59, 63

  and Wallace, 94

  Selma, Alabama

  anti-civil rights violence in, 65, 66, 66

  and civil rights marches, 66–68, 125

  and Ray, 101, 103, 108

  Sit-ins, 38, 39, 42, 125, 256

  Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing, 52–54, 53, 257

  Slavery, effects of, 36

  Smith, T. H., 162–163

  Sneyd, Ramon George (false identity of Ray), 193–194, 227, 230

  Southern Christian Leadership Conference, 34, 65–66, 163

  Spelman College, 198–199, 198–201

  Spingarn, Arthur, 4

  Springfield, Illinois, 21

  Spying on King, 60, 72, 182–183, 248

  Stephens, Charlie, 148

  St. Joseph’s Hospital, 169

  Strength to Love (King), 173, 173

  Stride Toward Freedom (King), x, 1–4, 3

  Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), 71

  Sullivan, William, 60, 61, 183

  Tactical Unit 10

  and description of Ray, 165

  and escape of Ray, 150

  at firehouse near Lorraine, 140, 145, 153

  immediate response to assassination, 145, 148, 157–161

  “The Talk,” 25

  Thoreau, Henry David, 27

  Time magazine, 34, 35

  Trash collectors, fatal accident involving, 98, (see also Sanitation Workers Strike)

  University of Mississippi, 41

  US Civil War, 25, 58, 122

  US Congress, 37, 57

  US Constitution, 33

  US Supreme Court, 33, 33

  Vietnam War

  and Johnson, 73, 75–76, 95, 97, 114

  Vietnam War (continued)

  and King, 73–77, 74, 81, 97, 114, 122, 176, 203

  public opposition to, 95

  Tet offensive of, 97, 241

  Violence associated with civil rights movement

  and aftermath of King’s assassination, 176–178, 177, 178

  and Birmingham marchers, 44, 44, 45

  bombing of King’s home, 33

  bombing of Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, 52–54, 53

  Freedom Riders attacks, 40, 40–41, 41

  and King’s personal risks, 13–14, 128

  and law enforcement, 163

  and marches from Selma to Montgomery, 66–67, 66–68

  and march of sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee, 109–110, 118, 129–130

  murders of civil rights workers, 46, 58–59, 68

  at nonviolent marches, 44, 44, 45

  and political/racial climate, 63

  Watts riots, 68

  Voting Rights Act, 1965, 65, 68, 75

  Voting rights of blacks, 20, 37, 65

  Wallace, George, 94

  Wanted posters for Ray, 214–216, 215, 217–218

  Washington, DC, 178

  Water fountains, separate, 20, 20

  Watts riots, 68

  “We Are On the Move Now” speech of King, 67, 68

  Wesley, Cynthia, 53

  Where Do We Go from Here? (King), 73, 245

  White Citizens Council, 12

  White supremacists

  black supremacy compared to, 3

  and “Jim Crow” laws in America, 19

  and murder of Evers, 46

  and Ray, 237

  violence perpetrated by, 21

  See also Ku Klux Klan

  Willard, John (false identity of Ray), 131, 195–196

  Williams, Hosea, 120, 121

  Wiretapping of King by FBI, 60, 72, 182–184, 248

  Wolfe (patrolman), 162

  Woolworth lunch counter sit-in, 38, 39, 256

  World War II, 27

  Wright, Barney, 145, 157

  X, Malcolm, 63–65, 64, 70

  Young, Andrew, 72, 119, 120, 138

  Zwerg, James, 41

  COVER Cover photos ©: top: Joseph Louw/Getty Images; bottom and spine: Flip Schulke Archives/Getty Images; front flap: Bettmann/Getty Images; back cover: Andrew Miller.

  INTERIOR Photos ©: i: Robert Abbott Sengstacke/Getty Images; ii–iii: Henry Groskinsky/Getty Images; 3: Wurts Bros. (New York, N.Y.)/Museum of the City of New York. X2010.7.1.9974; 5: General Research Division, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations from The Amsterdam News, 1958; 7: New York Daily News Archive/Getty Images; 9: New York Daily News/Getty Images; 11: Donald Uhrbrock/Getty Images; 15: Bettmann/Getty Images; 16–17: Bettmann/Getty Images; 20: Underwood Archives/The Image Works; 22: Hulton Deutsch/Getty Images; 24: Everett Collection/Superstock, Inc.; 29: Donald Uhrbrock/Getty Images; 32: Gene Herrick/AP Images; 33: Bettmann/Getty Images; 35: © 1957 Time Inc. All rights reserved. TIME and the TIME logo are registered trademarks of Time Inc. Used under license; 39: The Granger Collection; 40: Underwood Archives/Getty Images; 41: Bettmann/Getty Images; 43: Bettmann/Getty Images; 44: Bill Hudson/AP Images; 45: Charles Moore/Getty Images; 47: Bettmann/Getty Images; 48–49: Bettmann/Getty Images; 51: AFP/Getty Images; 5
3: AP Images; 55: LBJ Library photo by Cecil Stoughton; 59: LBJ Library photo by Yoichi Okamoto; 61: Author’s Collection; 64: Bettmann/Getty Images; 66–67: Bettmann/Getty Images; 71: Stephen Shames/Polaris; 72: Courtesy of the Department of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries, Bob Fitch Photo Archive, M1994; 74: Bettmann/Getty Images; 78–79: AP Images; 85: Bettmann/Getty Images; 91: AP Images; 99: Shelby County Register’s Office/Archives; 104–105: Joseph Louw/Getty Images; 109: akg-images/The Image Works; 111: Shelby County Register’s Office/Archives; 112–113: Courtesy of the National Civil Rights Museum, Memphis, Tennessee; 119: Preservation and Special Collections Department, University Libraries, University of Memphis; 121: AP Images; 127: Bettmann/Getty Images; 131: Shelby County Register’s Office/Archives; 132: Shelby County Register’s Office/Archives; 135: Steve Schapiro/Getty Images; 142: Shelby County Register’s Office/Archives; 147 top: Joseph Louw/Getty Images; 147 bottom: Shelby County Register’s Office/Archives; 149: Shelby County Register’s Office/Archives; 151: Shelby County Register’s Office/Archives; 154–155: Joseph Louw/Getty Images; 160: Shelby County Register’s Office/Archives; 170: AP Images; 173: Henry Groskinsky/Getty Images; 174: Henry Groskinsky/Getty Images; 175 top: Henry Groskinsky/Getty Images; 175 bottom: Henry Groskinsky/Getty Images; 177 top: Lee Balterman/Getty Images; 177 bottom: The Washington Post/Getty Images; 178: Bettmann/Getty Images; 181: Indianapolis Recorder Newspaper Collection, Indiana Historical Society; 183: Bettmann/Getty Images; 185: Henry Groskinsky/Getty Images; 186: Flip Schulke Archives/Getty Images; 189: Robert Abbott Sengstacke/Getty Images; 190: Flip Schulke Archives/Getty Images; 195: Shelby County Register’s Office/Archives; 198 left: Bob Adelman; 198 right: Bob Adelman; 199 left: Bob Adelman; 199 right: Bob Adelman; 200–201: Bob Adelman; 203: Constantine Manos/Magnum Photos; 204: Author’s Collection; 206: Bettmann/Getty Images; 207: Bob Adelman; 208–209: Bob Adelman; 211: Author’s Collection; 212: Author’s Collection; 215: Author’s Collection; 217: Author’s Collection; 218: Author’s Collection; 222: Shelby County Register’s Office/Archives; 226: Popperfoto/Getty Images; 228: Author’s Collection; 231: Bettmann/Getty Images; 232–233: Shelby County Register’s Office/Archives; 240: Abraham, Martin and John. Words: Richard Holler. Copyright © 1968 Regent Music Corporation (BMI). Used by permission. International Copyright Secured. All Rights Reserved; 242–243: NASA; 247: Andre Chung/MCT/Getty Images; 249: Bettmann/Getty Images; 250: Author’s Collection; 251: Strat Douthat/AP Images; 254: Charles E. Kelly/AP Images.

  Chasing King’s Killer is my fourth book for young adults, and it is the final installment in my trilogy on the lives, last days, and assassinations of three American heroes: Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King, Jr.

  My wife, Andrea E. Mays, provided encouragement and, most importantly, valuable editorial assistance and a careful and perceptive reading of several versions of the manuscript. This is a story about one of the bravest, most courageous men in American history, yet it would have to end in tragedy and heartbreak. Andrea kept me focused on the fact that this is not just a book about a sad and tragic death, but about a great life.

  The incomparable David Lovett, lawyer, historian, and bibliographer on American political assassinations, made many valuable contributions. From his huge library—the best in the country—on the murders of Kennedy, Lincoln, and King, he loaned me many rare items. David scrutinized and improved the manuscript, bibliography, and notes with expert eyes. I also thank my good friend Lucas Morel, Professor of Politics at Washington and Lee University, for a careful and thoughtful reading of the manuscript.

  Erica Munkwitz, a professor of history at American University, provided indispensable research and editorial advice. A scholar of the British Empire, Erica is a talented writer and discerning editor, with a natural storytelling gift and instinct for dramatic detail. Not only did she add a fresh and compelling perspective to the narrative, but she also discovered several rare photos that proved essential to telling the story in images as well as words. At the same time, Erica helped save me from getting bogged down in the weeds by admonishing me not to overload the book with too much arcane minutiae that, while fascinating to me, would interrupt the story’s momentum and not engage young readers.

  The Achilles’ heel of anyone who writes about history is the temptation to assume that you always need more and more facts, and that if you just accumulate enough of them, you will always find the answers. Perhaps the most frustrating yet alluring thing about history is that its mysteries sometimes defy explanation, and we cannot always discover the answer to every question.

  I thank my friend Dan McCarthy for photographing Martin Luther King, Jr., artifacts that appear in this book. Dan’s enthusiasm and support for this project was contagious.

  My agent, Richard Abate, is also a passionate historian in his own right and his judicious advice helped steer this book on the right course. This is our seventh book together, and he has—as always—acted as a trusted advisor, confidante, and friend.

  Congressman John Lewis, with whom I am proud to serve on the Advisory Council of the Ford’s Theatre Society, was kind enough to contribute the foreword to this book. A heroic veteran of the civil rights movement, Congressman Lewis not only lived through history, he helped to make it.

  I thank my friend Congressman Joe Crowley for his wise counsel and personal assistance throughout this project. Congressman Crowley has a true sense of history, and I have benefited from our many conversations about the American story.

  I also thank the late Julian Bond for a memorable conversation about the King assassination that we had at Ford’s Theatre on the night of April 14, 2015, the 150th anniversary of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. And I thank Dorothy Nash, another great veteran of the movement, for encouraging words.

  Two men inspired me to write this book. My father, Lennart Swanson, set it in motion when he came home from work on April 5, 1968, the day after King’s assassination. He was the president of the Maurice Lenell Cookie Company, a beloved Chicago institution, and he told me that many of his employees had asked him if they could leave work early that day. In the aftermath of the assassination, riots and fires had broken out in their neighborhoods on the south and west sides of Chicago and they wanted to go home to protect their families. Together my father and I, just age nine, watched the rioting and fires on the television news. Later, when it was all over, my father drove me through the ruins. He wanted me to see history with my own eyes, and to remember it. It took decades for parts of my city to recover from the King assassination.

  This book also takes me back to some of my earliest, formative childhood memories. I remember the funeral of President John F. Kennedy; the assassination of his brother, Senator Robert Kennedy; the Vietnam War; and the Apollo space program—and I also remember Martin Luther King, Jr. Every evening, I watched the network evening news with my parents, and I remember the coverage of Dr. King’s visit to Chicago in 1966, how he was greeted with hatred. I also recall that some of my elementary school classmates (no doubt repeating what they heard at home) said cruel things about King. And I watched television coverage of his assassination. Later on, at our local post office, I saw the FBI wanted posters for James Earl Ray—the same ones that you now see in this book—displayed inside a locked glass case hanging on the wall. Today, not far from my home in Washington, DC, the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial stands tall when I drive past it at night. King could not have imagined it: a colossal statue of himself within sight of the Lincoln Memorial, the location of his triumphant speech in August 1963, and not far from the Vietnam War Memorial, the conflict he had hoped to end.

  The other man who inspired me to tell this story is John Hope Franklin, my professor, mentor, and friend at the University of Chicago. John Hope was a titanic figure. His landmark book, From Slavery to Freedom, as well as his other writings, made the compelling case that African American history is a vital and central part of the American experience and must not be shunted aside and studied in isol
ation. In his field, he was the best there ever was. And he was one of the finest men I have ever known. Since his death in March 2009 at age 94, I’ve come to realize even more how much he has influenced my literary choices and understanding of the past.

  My wonderful editor, Dianne Hess, shares my vivid memories of the tumultuous 1960s. From our first meeting, we recognized what a profound and emotional impact that the decade had on us, especially the stories of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. This book takes us back to the shared experiences and memories from our childhoods. We hope that, in addition to telling the story of Dr. King’s last days, the book transports readers back in time and gives them a feeling of what it was like to be alive in 1960s America. Dianne’s passion for the subject, her sense of story, and her editorial skill made this a more engaging story. I have fond memories of us standing around my dining room table and sorting through piles of photographs as we discussed each image we wanted to include in the book. Our mutual obsession to find just the right images to advance the story made this a better book. I thank her for indulging me on numerous occasions when I pleaded, “Can’t we include just one more picture?”

  I thank my other friends at Scholastic, too. Ellie Berger, president of Trade Publishing, has offered generous support for all of my books. When I was a boy, I eagerly awaited the arrival of the latest Scholastic book club catalog so I could order the newest history titles. Now we have published three books together, with more to come. Tracy van Straaten, vice president of publicity and marketing, works hard to make sure that my work reaches the widest possible audience, as does my publicist, Lauren Donovan. The talented and amazing Phil Falco did a beautiful job creating the cover and the layout. This is my third book that Phil has designed, and he has outdone himself every time.

  Finally, I thank you, my readers, for your interest in my books. I have enjoyed reading your letters and meeting many of you at events across the country. I hope to visit your school someday to speak about reading, storytelling, and history.

  James L. Swanson

  Washington, DC

  JAMES L. SWANSON is the author of the New York Times best-sellers Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln’s Killer and its sequel, Bloody Crimes: The Chase for Jefferson Davis and the Death Pageant for Lincoln’s Corpse. Manhunt won the Edgar Award for best nonfiction crime book of the year. James’s page-turning, you-are-there, historic crime dramas include the bestselling classic Chasing Lincoln’s Killer, an adaptation of Manhunt for young readers, which has more than one million copies in print. He also penned Bloody Times, the young adult version of Bloody Crimes. His pictorial book Lincoln’s Assassins: Their Trial and Execution is an acclaimed photo history of the crime, the pursuit of the conspirators, and their fates. He also wrote about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in his award-winning young adult book, “The President Has Been Shot!”: The Assassination of John F. Kennedy as well as the adult version, End of Days: The Assassination of John F. Kennedy. He was a recipient of a Historic Deerfield Fellowship in Early American History, and he serves on the advisory councils of the Ford’s Theatre Society and the Gettysburg Foundation. He also serves on the board of the Abraham Lincoln Association. James has degrees in history and in law from the University of Chicago and UCLA, and he has held a number of government and think-tank posts in Washington, DC, including at the United States Department of Justice.