The day my political education began.
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James Earl Ray shot and killed American civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. on April 4, 1968. Ray, a volunteer for George Wallace’s segregationist Presidential Campaign, stalked King for weeks, from Atlanta to Birmingham and, finally, to a boarding house room in Memphis, across the street from the Lorraine Motel.
Sighting King leaning on the railing outside Room 306, Ray fired one shot at 6:01 pm 207 feet from a Remington Model 760 with a Redfield 2X-7X Scope. The bullet smashed into the right side of King’s face and neck. He would be declared dead one hour after an ambulance ride and medical treatment at a local hospital.
The Lorraine Motel Civil Rights Museum site was the first stop Rebecca and I made two years ago on a tour of Civil Rights museums in the American South. I took several photos of the assassination site, but this one is my favorite because its tilted angle illuminates my 55-year-old memory of King’s killing.
Two months after Ray shot King, on June 5, Sirhan Sirhan assassinated Senator and presidential candidate Bobby Kennedy at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. Kennedy had just won the California Primary. Sirhan, a Palestinian, was angry because Kennedy had supported Israel’s Six-Day War.
I had just completed my first year of college and was living at home. My father, an engineer with the Bendix Corporation, settled after work on the pull out couch in the TV room that doubled as my parents’ bedroom. My mom was downstairs cooking dinner. My brothers Peter and Pat were outside. Dad and I were watching Walter Cronkite on the CBS Evening News. I was on the carpeted floor in my usual pose, with my right arm and hand propping up my head, tilted upwards toward Walter.
Who proceeded to recap the 18 hours since another Kennedy and public figure had been gunned down. At the first commercial break, my silent American, Republican, and unflappable father said so quietly I asked him to repeat it.
“What is happening to our country?”
The OUR stuck out. I sat up straight.
My political education had begun.
Was there a moment when you wanted to know more about what was happening in the world outside your family and friends?
