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Dr. Martin Luther King in photos
Civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated on this day in 1968 in Memphis. He was there to lend his support to a group of striking black sanitation workers when he was gunned down outside his motel room by James Earl Ray, an escaped convict who later confessed to the killing.
King was in New Orleans on more than one occasion, and three of our photographs here date from those trips. The rest are from the archives of The Associated Press and show King as he led his nonviolent protest movement for civil rights for black Americans. One of the funeral photographs was taken by Jack Thornell, the AP’s Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer based in New Orleans at the time.
The 1960s were an era of great turbulence and change in American society, and King was at the vortex of those changes. Throughout it all, he projected a calm and dignity that shines through in these images.
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Dr. Martin Luther King in photos
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on this day in 1968. (AP Photo/Horace Cort)
Andrew Boyd, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune
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Dr. Martin Luther King in photos
Attorney Israel Augustine Jr. (left), with Martin Luther King Jr., middle, and Butch Curry, a reporter for the New Orleans office of the Pittsburgh Courier, gather on Feb. 15, 1957 at the New Zion Missionary Baptist Church on 3rd Street in New Orleans. This was a 2nd meeting to plan the founding of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference after an earlier session in Atlanta. John Carter, a member of the Cornerstone Missionary Baptist Church, is in the background. (Photo courtesy of Rev. Samson “Skip” Alexander)
REV. SAMSON ‘SKIP’ ALEXANDER
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Dr. Martin Luther King in photos
Congress of Racial Equality members march from the New Orleans Municipal Auditorium to Union Bethel A.M.E. Church, S. Liberty at Thalia Sts. Dec. 14, 1961, after Mayor Victor Schiro’s administration got a court order to prevent their use of the auditorium. Martin Luther King addressed the crowd at the church. Rev. Avery Alexander, in the dark suit and overcoat at the left, led the march. (Photo by Terry Friedman, The Times-Picayune archive)
Terry Friedman
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Dr. Martin Luther King in photos
After the civil rights rally at the Municipal Auditorium was banned by court order, members of the Congress of Racial Equality held a prayer meeting in Congo Square outside the auditorium Dec. 15, 1961. They then proceeded to Union Bethel A.M.E. Church, S. Liberty at Thalia. The Rev. Avery Alexander, in the dark overcoat and gray suit, center, led the procession. Martin Luther King spoke to the assembly. (Photo by Terry Friedman, The Times-Picayune archive)
Terry Friedman
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Dr. Martin Luther King in photos
Rev. Ralph Abernathy, left, and Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., right are taken away by a policeman as they led a line of demonstrators into the business section of Birmingham, Ala., on April 12, 1963. (AP Photo)
AP
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Dr. Martin Luther King in photos
The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. delivers his famous “I Have a Dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. August 28, 1963. (AP Photo/Charles Gorry)
Charles Gorry
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Dr. Martin Luther King in photos
Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., speaks to an overflow crowd in Detroit’s Cobo Hall Arena on Sunday, June 24, 1963, following a march. An estimated 100,000 people paraded to the hall through downtown Detroit and gathered to hear him speak. (AP Photo)
Anonymous
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Dr. Martin Luther King in photos
On July 2, 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson reaches to shake hands with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. after presenting the civil rights leader with one of the 72 pens used to sign the Civil Rights Act in Washington. (AP Photo archive)
AP
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Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., center, speaks to a cheering crowd of supporters, Jan. 2, 1965, in Selma, Ala. King was calling for a new African American voter registration drive throughout Alabama and promised to “march on the ballot boxes” unless African American were given the right to vote. (AP Photo/Horace Cort)
Horace Cort
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Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., is completely hemmed in as he and his aide Rev. Ralph Abernathy (right) lead a march to historic Boston Common in 1965. King came to Boston to lead the demonstration to protest segregation in schools, jobs and housing. (AP file photo)
AP (Associated Press)
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Dr. Martin Luther King in photos
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., accompanied by his aide Rev. Ralph Abernathy (right) and Rev. Virgil Wood, head of the Boston branch of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, lead a civil rights march down Charles Street as they neared historic Boston Common in this 1965 photo. King came to Boston to lead the demonstration to protest segregation in schools, jobs and housing. (AP file photo)
AP (Associated Press)
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Dr. Martin Luther King in photos
March 7, 1965, tear gas fumes fill the air as Alabama state troopers, ordered by Gov. George Wallace, break up a demonstration march in Selma, Ala., on what became known as Bloody Sunday. (AP file photo)
AP
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March 17, 1965, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. uses a megaphone to address demonstrators assembled at the courthouse in Montgomery, Ala. after a meeting with Sheriff Mac Butler, left, and other public officials. (AP Photo/File)
Anonymous
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Dr. Martin Luther King in photos
March 17, 1965, thousands of demonstrators march to the Montgomery, Ala. courthouse with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to protest treatment of demonstrators by police during an attempted march. At foreground center in white shirt is Andrew Young. King is about three rows back, visible in a coat and tie to the right of center. (AP file photo)
Anonymous
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Dr. Martin Luther King in photos
Civil rights leaders, Floyd McKissick, left, of the Congress of Racial Equality, Dr. Martin Luther King, center, and Stokely Carmichael of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, arrive at William F. Bowld Hospital for a visit with James Meredith in 1966. (AP file photo)
AP (Associated Press)
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Dr. Martin Luther King in photos
In this photo taken April 2, 1968, Rev. Martin Luther King is presented with a federal restraining order prohibiting him from leading any marches in Memphis, TN. King was in town to support a strike by sanitation workers. He would be assassinated the next day. (AP file photo)
Anonymous
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Dr. Martin Luther King in photos
Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. is pictured walking across the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tenn. at approximately the spot where he was shot by a hidden assassin. This picture was made, April 3, 1968, the day before the shooting, shortly after King arrived in Memphis. (AP file photo)
AP
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Dr. Martin Luther King in photos
The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. stands with other civil rights leaders on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tenn., on April 3, 1968, a day before he was assassinated at approximately the same place. From left are Hosea Williams, Jesse Jackson, King, and Ralph Abernathy. (AP file photo)
ANONYMOUS
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Dr. Martin Luther King in photos
This is how the morning newspapers in London headlined the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, April 5, 1968. (AP Photo)
AP
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Dr. Martin Luther King in photos
This aerial photo shows fire-gutted buildings, some still smouldering, along a block of H Street between 12th and 13th Streets in the northeast section of Washington, D.C. on April 5, 1968. Rioting broke out after the assassination of civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in Memphis, Tenn. on April 4. (AP Photo)
ASSOCIATED PRESS
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Dr. Martin Luther King in photos
This aerial view shows clouds of smoke rising from burning buildings in northeast Washington, D.C. on April 5, 1968. The fires resulted from rioting and demonstrations after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in Memphis, Tenn. on April 4. (AP Photo)
AP
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Dr. Martin Luther King in photos
Smouldering ruins remain where a building stood on 7th Street, N.W. in Washington, D.C., April 6, 1968. Numerous fires accompanied the second night of turmoil in the nation’s capital following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in Memphis, Tenn., April 4. (AP Photo)
ASSOCIATED PRESS
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A brace of plow mules pull the farm wagon bearing the mahogany casket of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., along the funeral procession route in Atlanta, Ga., April 9, 1968. Reverend Jesse Jackson, in green, and Andrew Young, at the left corner of the casket, are among some of the mourners. (AP Photo)
AP
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An unidentified woman weeps at the R.S. Lewis funeral home in Memphis, Tenn., as hundreds of mourners filed past the body of civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., April 5, 1968, before it was to be sent to Atlanta for burial. (AP Photo/Charles Kelly)
CHARLES KELLY
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Dr. Martin Luther King in photos
Coretta Scott King, wearing hat and gloves, and her four children view the body of her husband, slain civil rights activist leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., in Atlanta, Ga., on April 7, 1968. The children are, from left, Yolanda, 12, Bernice, 5, Martin III, 11, and Dexter 7. Dr. King was assassinated in Memphis, Tenn. on April 4. (AP file photo)
AP
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Thousands of mourners file into Sisters Chapel at Spellman College in Atlanta to pay final respects to slain civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., lying in state, April 8, 1968. (AP photo by Jack Thornell)
Andrew Boyd, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune
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This photo of Loretta Scott King comforting her daughter, Bernice, 5, during the funeral in Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church for her husband Dr. Martin Luther King, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for feature photography in 1969. It was made by Moneta J. Sleet Jr. of Ebony Magazine.
Monet J. Sleet Jr.
Source: Nola|| BY ANDREW BOYD
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