April 4, 2008
Photo of the week: Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin Fuchs
USA. Alabama. Camden. 1966. Martin Luther King Jr., along with his children who are getting a chance to work with their father, speaks to potential black voters about sacrifies that were made to gain the right to vote. © Bob Adelman/Magnum Photos
On April 4th, 1968 Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot while he stood on the balcony of a Memphis motel. Despite the fact that James Earl Ray had plead guilty to the murder, he spent the rest of his life trying to reverse his plea. Many theories exist which claim that Ray was not the shooter or that he was just one of many who were involved.
More than 300,000 people attended Dr. King's memorial service. Among them was Attorney General and Presidential candidate Robert Kennedy, a strong supporter of the Civil Rights Movement who would also be assassinated two months later. Following King's death, riots broke out in more than one hundred US cities. The Vietnam War, the assassinations, US presidential elections and revolutions abroad would make 1968 one of the most painful years of the century.
After this tragic year the Civil Rights movement continued on though it had lost it's shining star. Though Dr. King was gone, the messages of this Nobel Prize winning humanitarian continues to be taught and practiced throughout the world.
» View more photographs of Martin Luther King Jr. from the Magnum Archive
Published on the Magnum Blog on April 4, 2008
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