Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a civil rights leader and Nobel Prize winner, was killed by James Earl Ray on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968. We’ll discover James Earl Ray’s background, his involvement in the killing of Martin Luther King, Jr., and his political association in this blog.
What Is Known About His Early Life?
James Earl Ray was born on March 10, 1928, in Alton, Illinois, the oldest of nine children into an impoverished family. John, Franklin, Jerry, Melba, Carol, Suzan, and Marjorie were among the siblings that his mother, Lucille Ray, had. Marjorie, his sister, caught fire while playing with matches when she was 4 years old and perished in a fire in 1933. Ray’s father was detained in Alton in February 1935 as a result of passing a bad check.He relocated his family to Ewing, Missouri, and changed their last name from Ray to Raynes after being caught passing the bogus check. He soon stopped attending school at the age of 12. When Ray was 16 years old, he moved away from his parents and back in with his grandmother in Alton. He quickly secured employment at the International Shoe Tannery.
How His Crime Life Started?
James Earl Ray left for Los Angeles when he was 21 years old in 1949. He was detained by police one October night, not long after landing in LA, on suspicion of breaking into a cafe; the charge would subsequently be reduced to a suspended sentence. Over the years, he committed several crimes as a career criminal while incarcerated for a variety of offenses. It consists of armed cab robberies, mail fraud, and grocery shop robberies. Ray received a twenty-year jail term for a slew of misdeeds.
How He Assassinated Martin Luther King?
Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968, as the civil rights activist was standing on the second-floor balcony outside of his Lorraine hotel room. James Earl Ray was standing in the bathtub of the bathroom while supporting his Remington rifle on a window sill. Witnesses noticed James escaping from a rooming house across the street from the hotel shortly after the shot was fired. The Memphis police discovered that a package they had received close to the scene of King’s shooting had been abandoned. It included a weapon and a pair of binoculars, both of which had Ray’s prints. Immediately after shooting Martin Luther King Jr., Ray ran away, starting a global manhunt that lasted more than two months and encompassed five nations. At the time, it was claimed that this was the most costly and extensive investigation the FBI had ever conducted.
What Is Known About James Earl Ray Political Party?
The George Wallace Democratic presidential run was of particular interest to James Earl Ray. Wallace’s segregationist agenda swiftly drew Ray, a racist, to it. He volunteered a lot of his time when he was in Los Angeles at the Wallace campaign’s North Hollywood headquarters.
