STUDENT 1:

Martin Luther King Jr. was a Baptist minister and civil-rights activist who had a

seismic impact on race relations in the United States, beginning in the mid-1950s. 

Born as Michael King Jr. on January 15, 1929, Martin Luther King Jr. was the

middle child of Michael King Sr. and Alberta Williams King.  The King and

Williams families had roots in rural Georgia. King had an older sister, Willie

Christine, and a younger brother, Alfred Daniel Williams King. The King children

grew up in a secure and loving environment. Martin Sr. was more the

disciplinarian, while his wife's gentleness easily balanced out the father's strict

hand. Though they undoubtedly tried, King’s parents couldn’t shield him

completely from racism.

Growing up in Atlanta, Georgia, King entered public school at age five. In

May 1936 he was baptized, but the event made little impression on him. King

attended Booker T. Washington High School, where he was said to be a precocious

student. He skipped both the ninth and eleventh grades, and entered Morehouse

College in Atlanta at age 15, in 1944. He was a popular student, especially with his

female classmates, but an unmotivated student who floated through his first two

years. Although his family was deeply involved in the church and worship, King
questioned religion in general and felt uncomfortable with overly emotional

displays of religious worship.

But in his junior year, King took a Bible class, renewed his faith and began to

envision a career in the ministry. In the fall of his senior year, he told his father of

his decision.

In 1948, King earned a sociology degree from Morehouse College and attended the

liberal Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania. During his last year

in seminary, King came under the guidance of Morehouse College President

Benjamin E. Mays who influenced King’s spiritual development. Mays was an

outspoken advocate for racial equality and encouraged King to view Christianity as

a potential force for social change. After being accepted at several colleges for his

doctoral study, King enrolled at Boston University. King received a doctorate

degree in theology and in 1955 helped organize the first major protest of the

African American civil rights movement: the successful Montgomery Bus Boycott.

Influenced by Mohandas Gandhi, he advocated civil disobedience and nonviolent

resistance to segregation in the South. The peaceful protests he led throughout the

American South were often met with violence, but King and his followers

persisted, and the movement gained momentum.

STUDENT 2:

Between 1957 and 1968, King traveled over six million miles and spoke over

twenty-five hundred times, appearing wherever there was injustice, protest, and

action; and meanwhile he wrote five books as well as numerous articles. In these

years, he led a massive protest in Birmingham, Alabama, that caught the attention

of the entire world, providing what he called a coalition of conscience.

He directed the peaceful march on Washington, D.C., of 250,000 people to

whom he delivered his address, “l Have a Dream”, he conferred with President

John F. Kennedy and campaigned for President Lyndon B. Johnson; he was

arrested upwards of twenty times and assaulted at least four times; he was awarded

five honorary degrees; was named Man of the Year by Time magazine in 1963; and

became not only the symbolic leader of American blacks but also a world figure.

King won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, among several other honors. He

continues to be remembered as one of the most influential and inspirational

African American leaders in history.

Among his many efforts, King headed the Southern Christian Leadership

Conference (SCLC). Through his activism and inspirational speeches, he played a

pivotal role in ending the legal segregation of African American citizens in the

United States, as well as the creation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and
the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The following was the famous part in the “I have a

Dream” speech:
STUDENT 3:

On Thursday, April 4, 1968, King was staying in room 306 at the Lorraine

Motel in Memphis. The motel was owned by businessman Walter Bailey and was

named after his wife. Reverend Ralph Abernathy, a colleague and friend, later told

the House Select Committee on Assassinations that he and King had stayed in

Room 306 at the Lorraine Motel so often that it was known as the "King–

Abernathy Suite".

According to biographer Taylor Branch, King's last words were to musician Ben

Branch, who was scheduled to perform that night at a planned event. King said,

"Ben, make sure you play 'Take My Hand, Precious Lord' in the meeting tonight.

Play it real pretty."

According to Rev. Samuel Kyles, who was standing several feet away, King was

leaning over the balcony railing in front of Room 306 and was speaking with Rev.

Jesse Jackson when the shot rang out. King was struck in the face at 6:01 p.m. by a

single .30-06 bullet fired from a Remington Model 760 rifle. The bullet entered

through King's right cheek, breaking his jaw and several vertebrae as it traveled

down his spinal cord, severing his jugular vein and major arteries in the process,

before lodging in his shoulder. The force of the shot ripped King's necktie off.

King fell backward onto the balcony, unconscious.

Abernathy heard the shot from inside the motel room and ran to the balcony to find

King on the deck, bleeding profusely from the wound in his cheek. Jesse Jackson

stated after the shooting that he cradled King's head as King lay on the balcony, but

this account was disputed by other colleagues of King; Jackson later changed his

statement to say that he had "reached out" for King. Andrew Young, a colleague

from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, first believed King was dead,

but found he still had a pulse.

King was rushed to St. Joseph's Hospital, where doctors opened his chest and

performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation. He never regained consciousness and

died at 7:05 p.m. According to Branch, King's autopsy revealed that his heart was

in the condition of a 60-year-old man rather than that of a 39-year-old such as

King, which Branch attributed to the stress of King's 13 years in the civil rights

movement.
STUDENT 4:

James Earl Ray American assassin of the African American civil-rights

leader Martin Luther King, Jr. He escaped from the jail in 1967. Nearly a year

later, in 1968, from a window of a neighbouring rooming house, he shot King, who

was standing on the balcony of a motel room. The FBI had established him as the

prime suspect almost immediately after the assassination. Ray confessed to the

crime on March 10, 1969 .

But within a few days of confessing, Ray began to claim his innocence,

arguing that he had been set up by a man he knew only as “Raoul”. But the

evidence strongly pointed to him pulling the trigger. Ray’s fingerprints were the

only ones found on the gun, and there were no witnesses who had seen him with

Raoul during the nine months they supposedly knew each other (Ray’s

description of Raoul also changed a few times). Over several decades, federal

investigators have concluded that Raoul doesn’t exist, and Ray was sentenced to

100 years in prison. But King’s family members believed that Ray was blame for.

An FBI Conspiracy?

Coretta Scott King, widow of King, believe in Ray’s innocence. Almost

immediately after her husband’s assassination, she suspected that the FBI involved

in a murder. During the 1950 and ‘60s, the FBI surveilled and harassed King, his
family, and his associates. In one instance, the FBI sent him a tape that allegedly

contained audio of him having an affair. With it came a letter threatening King

with public exposure if he didn’t kill himself, and claiming that the sender had

evidence of other affairs. Indeed, in 1975, a group of former FBI agents called on

Congress to investigate this abusive behavior, but did not reveal any evidence that

the FBI had formally plotted his death. FBI might not have been involved in the

murder ,though people knew the really shameful things that they did now

A Different Gunman?

The King family’s belief in Ray’s innocence was partly influenced by the

strange case of Loyd Jowers, who’d owned the restaurant below Ray’s rented room

in Memphis. For the first 25 years after King’s death, Jowers did not claim any

involvement in the murder. The other people involved in this conspiracy, Jowers

said, included police officers, a Mafia member, and the Raoul. In 1998 and 2000,

the Department of Justice investigated Jower’s claims, and concluded that it wasn’t

credible. Because among the evidence was a recording of Jowers in which he

suggested he was interested in fabricating his story for financial gain.

There still remains questions about King assasination, but in broad

consensus, James Earl Ray is believed a gun man.