Why was Martin Luther King assassinated?

Martin Luther King Jr. began his rise to national attention in December 1955, after the arrest of Rosa Parks triggered a citywide boycott of segregated buses in Montgomery, Alabama.

Local Black leaders had selected King, then a 26-year-old pastor at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, to lead the Montgomery Improvement Association, which organised the boycott against a campaign of arrests and threats that included violent suppression.

The protest lasted over a year and ended with a United States Supreme Court decision, Browder v. Gayle (1956), which had declared racial segregation on public buses unconstitutional, and which had brought King to national attention and introduced his philosophy of nonviolence to a wider audience. 

Through the establishment of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in 1957, King developed a wide network of ministers, churches, and activists across the South, and he began to coordinate peaceful campaigns that exposed the cruelty of segregation and the hypocrisy of American democracy.

His speeches, sermons, and leadership style drew inspiration from both Christian theology and the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi, which provided a moral framework that appealed to international audiences as well as domestic supporters. 

Major campaigns in Birmingham, Albany, Selma, and St. Augustine showed his skill when he attracted media attention to police brutality and legal injustice, while his arrest in Birmingham in April 1963 and the publication of his “Letter from Birmingham Jail” established him as a national moral voice who called for conscience to guide public life and for concrete legal and social reform.

When he helped to organise the March on Washington in August 1963 and delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech there, he became a central figure in the civil rights movement and helped bring about the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed segregation in public places and banned employment discrimination. 

As he continued to advocate for equal rights, King became more than an organiser of protests.

His receipt of the Nobel Peace Prize in December 1964, at the age of 35, made him the youngest person to have received the award at that time and gave him international recognition.

His leadership during the Selma to Montgomery marches in early 1965 helped lead to the passage of the Voting Rights Act later that year, which outlawed literacy tests and other discriminatory practices used to suppress Black voters. 

Many Americans, especially those who benefited from segregation or feared federal overreach, rejected King’s message and saw his actions as disruptive and a threat to public order because they said his methods would provoke unrest.

In Southern states, political figures such as Alabama Governor George Wallace, who later ran for president on a segregationist platform in 1968, and Mississippi Governor Ross Barnett, who personally attempted to block James Meredith's integration of the University of Mississippi in 1962, regularly attacked King in public speeches.

They described him as an outside agitator who encouraged civil disorder and lawlessness, and they worked closely with local police and white supremacist groups to undermine protest movements in their areas. 

King also encountered resistance from law enforcement and federal agencies, particularly the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover, which had monitored his movements, had tapped his phones, and had collected material about his private life to discredit him publicly and privately.

These efforts were part of a broader covert program known as COINTELPRO (Counterintelligence Program), which aimed to monitor, infiltrate, and disrupt domestic political organisations that officials considered dangerous.

In November 1964, the FBI anonymously mailed King a threatening letter, disguised as being from a disillusioned follower, alongside a tape recording of his private conversations, in an attempt to pressure him into suicide.

These tactics were a clear indication of the growing view among federal authorities that King had become a threat to national security. 

Apart from official hostility, King began to lose support among white moderates and liberals after he had expanded his message in 1967 to include criticism of American foreign policy, particularly the Vietnam War.

In a speech delivered on 4 April 1967 at Riverside Church in New York City, titled “Beyond Vietnam,” King called the war immoral, said the United States exploited developing nations, and called for major social and economic reforms.

The backlash was immediate and harsh, as major newspapers, civil rights allies such as the NAACP and Urban League, and government officials accused him of going too far, dividing the movement, and aligning with anti-American groups. 

King’s insistence on linking civil rights to economic justice and anti-war activism caused splits within the civil rights community as well.

Some activists, including younger members of groups like SNCC and the Black Panther Party, criticised King’s commitment to nonviolence and gradual reform, and they argued instead for more assertive tactics in the face of continued state violence and structural racism.

By 1968, King faced opposition from segregationists, law enforcement agencies, political leaders, and even parts of the movement he had once unified. 

In the final months of his life, King began a project called the Poor People’s Campaign, which tried to unite poor Americans of all races in a joint effort to demand fair wages and secure housing, and improved access to employment from the federal government.

His goal was to organise a major occupation of Washington, D.C., sometimes called “Operation Resurrection,” where protesters would carry out ongoing civil disobedience until Congress passed major anti-poverty laws.

By framing poverty as a national moral crisis, King directly challenged both capitalist structures and American military spending, which made him a target for criticism from conservatives, liberals, and government agencies alike. 

During this period, King also became involved in the Memphis sanitation workers’ strike, which began in February 1968 after two African American workers, Echol Cole and Robert Walker, were crushed to death by faulty equipment.

The city of Memphis refused to provide safe working conditions or fair pay, prompting over 1,000 workers affiliated with AFSCME Local 1733 to go on strike.

King viewed the strike as a clear example of economic exploitation caused by racial discrimination, and he travelled to Memphis to support the workers and lead their protest marches. 

On 28 March 1968, King attempted to lead a peaceful march through downtown Memphis, but the demonstration broke down after young protesters clashed with police, and looting erupted.

The outbreak of violence deeply disturbed King, who had returned to Atlanta feeling physically exhausted and emotionally shaken.

Determined to restore discipline and nonviolent principles to the movement, he announced that he would return to Memphis to lead another peaceful march and prove that nonviolence could still succeed, even in the most difficult of circumstances. 

On the evening of 3 April, King delivered his final public address at the Mason Temple, the headquarters of the Church of God in Christ.

In his speech, he referenced threats against his life and spoke about the years of struggle that had brought him to Memphis.

He ended by declaring that he had seen the “Promised Land” and did not fear death, which added a sense of unease about his safety to what would become his final words to a public audience. 

Late in the afternoon of 4 April 1968, King stepped onto the second-floor balcony of the Lorraine Motel to prepare for dinner with his colleagues from the SCLC.

At precisely 6:01 p.m., a rifle bullet struck him in the jaw and passed through his neck, severing his spinal cord and leaving him motionless on the balcony floor.

His companions rushed to his aid and directed police toward the source of the shot, which had come from a nearby boarding house across the street.

King was taken by ambulance to St. Joseph’s Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 7:05 p.m. 

The news of King’s death spread rapidly through radio and television broadcasts, and this prompted widespread grief and an outpouring of public outrage that included disbelief.

Riots broke out in over 100 American cities, with major violence occurring in Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Chicago, and Kansas City.

Historians estimate that more than 110 cities experienced unrest. Government officials, police departments, and National Guard units struggled to control the upheaval, which resulted in dozens of deaths and thousands of arrests and produced extensive property damage across affected areas.

Political leaders, including President Lyndon B. Johnson, called for calm and unity, and Johnson declared a national day of mourning to honour King’s memory. 

In Atlanta, preparations began for King’s funeral, which took place on 9 April. His body was carried in a simple wooden farm cart pulled by two mules, symbolising his dedication to the poor and his rejection of materialism.

The funeral procession attracted more than 100,000 mourners, and memorial services were held in cities around the world.

Meanwhile, the investigation into the assassination intensified, as forensic evidence and witness accounts pointed to a single suspect who had left the scene immediately after the shooting. 

The manhunt quickly identified James Earl Ray, a convicted criminal who had escaped from the Missouri State Penitentiary in 1967 and had travelled across North America using false identities.

Fingerprints found on the murder weapon, a Remington .30-06 rifle, and on a set of binoculars left behind at the scene, matched Ray’s prison records.

Investigators determined that Ray had rented a room under the name “John Willard” at a boarding house located across the street from the Lorraine Motel, which provided a clear view of King’s balcony. 

Ray fled Memphis within hours of the shooting and drove through Atlanta and Birmingham before crossing the U.S.-Mexico border.

He later travelled to Europe using a fake Canadian passport issued in the name Ramon George Sneyd and was ultimately arrested at London’s Heathrow Airport on 8 June 1968, where he had attempted to board a flight to Brussels.

British police from Scotland Yard detained him, and the FBI coordinated his extradition to the United States.

After his return, Ray had entered a guilty plea to avoid the death penalty and had received a sentence of 99 years in prison.

He later retracted his confession, claiming that he had been set up as part of a conspiracy.

Questions about how he financed his international travel with limited means further fuelled suspicion. 

Although Ray never provided conclusive evidence to support his claims, his story kept public suspicion alive for decades.

In the 1970s, the United States House Select Committee on Assassinations reviewed the case and concluded that Ray had acted as the assassin but may have had help from unknown individuals.

In 1999, a civil suit brought by the King family, led by Coretta Scott King, resulted in a jury verdict that found Loyd Jowers, a Memphis businessman, responsible for participating in a conspiracy to kill King.

The jury concluded that others, including government agencies, were likely involved, although this finding was part of a civil ruling and not supported by a subsequent federal investigation.

The U.S. Department of Justice later reviewed the case and found no convincing evidence of a wider conspiracy. 

The assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. caused a national crisis that showed how much of the civil rights struggle remained unfinished in America.

Within a week of his death, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1968, which included the Fair Housing Act that outlawed discrimination in the sale or rental of housing.

Although the legislation had been stalled for months, King’s death pushed lawmakers to act quickly. 

Across the country, King’s murder ended a period of hope and moderation within the civil rights movement, and it created a gap in leadership that no single figure could fill.

Some activists turned toward more militant strategies, while others focused on community-based efforts.

The Poor People’s Campaign went ahead without King, but it failed to achieve its goals and lacked the clear moral leadership that had once united the cause. 

In the decades that followed, King’s reputation in national memory grew. His birthday became a federal holiday in 1986, and monuments, museums, and school curricula came to include his life and teachings.

However, many of the structural inequalities that he fought to address, including poverty, discrimination, voter suppression, and police violence, remained ongoing challenges. 

The bullet that ended Martin Luther King’s life could not stop the message he had preached.

His assassination became a turning point in American history because it forced the nation to confront what kind of justice it truly intended to deliver rather than ending the civil rights movement.

Thanks to his leadership and sacrifice, King turned the struggle for racial and economic equality into a moral demand that continued to influence American politics and society.