Martin Luther King Jr. Is Assassinated at the Lorraine Motel
A day after his "I've Been to the Mountaintop" speech, King is shot on a Memphis balcony while supporting striking sanitation workers
Quick facts
- Location
- Lorraine Motel, Memphis, Tennessee
- Date
- April 4, 1968
- Convicted
- James Earl Ray, pleaded guilty
What happened
King traveled to Memphis in 1968 to support a strike by the city's Black sanitation workers, delivering his "I've Been to the Mountaintop" speech at Mason Temple on April 3. On April 4, 1968, he was shot while standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel, a hotel that had served Black travelers when much of Memphis remained segregated. He died at St. Joseph's Hospital shortly after. James Earl Ray, an escaped convict, was arrested at London's Heathrow Airport in June 1968 and pleaded guilty to the murder. King's assassination set off riots in more than 100 American cities, including Washington, D.C., Chicago, and Baltimore, over the following days.
Why it matters
King's death removed the movement's most prominent advocate for nonviolent integration at 39 years old, and the riots that followed underscored the same frustration with slow, incomplete progress that had already pushed part of the movement toward Black Power; Congress passed the Fair Housing Act one week later partly in direct response.
How we know
The National Park Service, which preserves the Lorraine Motel as part of the National Civil Rights Museum, documents the shooting, King's death, and Ray's arrest and guilty plea.
Sources
- National Park Service. Tennessee: The Lorraine Motel · Primary source (author-declared)nps.gov · Cited as a "primary" source (no stronger domain match). · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
- HISTORY (A&E Networks). Martin Luther King Jr. Assassination - Facts, Reaction & Impact · Reputable sourcehistory.com · The domain "history.com" is on our Reputable source registry. · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
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