ENGL1020: Composition/Analysis
University of Memphis
Revision of Researched Argument Assignment
I have rewritten-
– often several times – every word I have ever published. My pencils outlast their erasers.”
Vladimir Nabokov, Speak, Memory, 1966
“I don’t write easily or rapidly. My first draft usually has only a few elements worth keeping. I have to find what
those are and build from them and throw out what doesn’t work, or what simply is not alive.”
_ Susan Sontag
*Put down everything that comes into your head and then you’re a writer. But an author is one who can judge his
own stuff’s worth, without pity, and destroy most of it.”
– Colette, Casual Chance, 1964
“By the time I am nearing the end of a story, the first part will have been reread and altered and corrected at least
one hundred and fifty times. I am suspicious of both facility and speed. Good writing is essentially rewriting. I am
positive of this.”
– Roald Dahl
“The best advice I can give on this is, once it’s done, to put it away until you can read it with new eyes. Finish the
short story, print it out, then put it in a drawer and write other things. When you’re ready, pick it up and read it, as if
you’ve never read it before. If there are things you aren’t satisfied with as a reader, go in and fix them as a writer:
that’s revision.”
– Neil Gaiman
Running head: Memphis Conspiracy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr
Memphis Conspiracy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr
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February 27, 2022
Running head: Memphis Conspiracy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr
The city separates from where the home to Elvis is located. The religion there is BBQ,
where the blues was born. With the renaissance that the city enjoys, there is a dark history that hit
the peak in 1968 April because it was at this point that the pioneer of the modern civil rights
movement was assassinated on April 4. This paper, therefore, digs into the circumstances that are
believed to have led to the Murder of Dr. King and will thus expose the contradictions that have
been witnessed from the government’s recognized investigative organ at both levels, local and at
the federal, dig into the unanswered questions in the fiasco of James Early Ray’s responsibility
and explain what has been perceived to be a conspiracy.
Is it right to define the murder of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr at Memphis in Lorraine Hotel
as a conspiracy, and is it right to describe it that way, who are were the murderers, and why did
they assassinate him? While examining and interpreting it from credible sources, I feel that the
evidence is sufficient and will, in fact, back the existing conspiracy notion and shall reveal every
reason behind the assassination.
As shall be outlined, a chain of events led to the conspiracy for the death of the King, as
seen later on. Memphis was expected to join with the black sanitation workers, which led to a
garbage collectors’ strike. The strike arose from the abuse which had happened for a long which
they were aiming at the black people, and two people lost their lives due to city truck
malfunctioning. The strike made Dr. Martin Luther King address the issue publicly to every
official and the blacks.
The King gave a speech titled ‘Have seen the promised land, which spoke of his possible
death. King felt it was his duty to step up and address black discrimination and oppression as
immersed to them by the government of Memphis city (Pierce, 2019). He pushed towards equality
Running head: Memphis Conspiracy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr
for all people. The black received the words with joy, but the blacks were not happy with the
speech.
The strike attracted support from the international union. Memphis success consequences
from sanitation workers union will determine wage end and discrimination of blacks rights over
the nations. The Memphis and king’s actions led to the conspiracy. An enormous conspiracy
involves powerful men, while a small conspiracy involves little men of society. Conspiracy is a
combination to perform an inappropriate activity, which needs the participation of two or many
individuals. The king killer could have involved an additional of one person to commit the crime.
Miriam-Webster Dictionary defines conspiracy as an act of together conspiring, the
agreement between conspirators to commit the crime in togetherness. Detailing the event of April
4 where the King is noticed at Loraine hotel accompanied by his entourage in preparation for a
friend’s dinner. Witness spoke that around 6:01 PM, when the King was at the Motel’s balcony in
Memphis, He was shot on his lower jaw on the right of his face by a rifle bullet (Melanson, 2019).
This shot damaged the upper side of his spine, which made it rest on the left shoulder blade, this
made him fall, and he died in Memphis hospital an hour later. James Earl Ray, a victim who
escaped from Missouri State, was detected as the gunman shot down civil leader; he was fueled
by racism and acted alone. Things on his side got worse.
The government claimed that the shot that killed the King has fired from a house bathroom
on top of Jim’s grill where ray was renting a room. It is claimed that just after the death of the King,
he was spotted leaving the premises with a big bag, and when he spotted a police car, he
immediately dropped the bag at the Canapé Amusement Company doorway. The bag had a murder
weapon, binoculars, Memphis commercial appeal, a can of beer and a Scoped Remington pumpaction 30-06 riffle. All of the elements have fingerprints of Ray (Ray & Barsten, 2018). He was
Running head: Memphis Conspiracy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr
seen fleeing in his white mustang leaving Memphis, and then drove into Atlanta later abandoned
his car there fleeing to Canada then later to London.
On June 8, 1968, he was captured and fled to the U.S to face his charges. At first, Ray
admitted to shooting the King but later denied saying he was not present at the boarding house
during the shooting of the King. He later claimed that Rahul was a man who was in charge of the
shooting. He was the more significant part of the conspiracy team, including influential people
who desired the King’s death. His trial bid failed, and the judge pronounced a sentence on him for
99 years imprisonment.
Three eyewitnesses support Ray’s claim that they saw him driving away in his car before
the start of the shooting. The New York Times reporter Earl Caldwell claimed that the shooting
emerged out of the bushes which lay behind the rooming house, in addition, that Ray was spotted
driving his Mustang white car before the start of the shooting. Despite the witness and other
evidence to rescue rays’ life, the government of the U.S still denied the theory beyond the gunman
of Ray, and all trial attempts were dismissed.
The boarding house on top of the Jims Grill where the government claimed the shot took
place is in ownership of Loyd Jowers. In 1999, Unknown conspirators with Jowers were associated
wrongfully with a specific death civil lawsuit accrued by the King’s family regarding 30 years
early assassination. Inside the suit, the King’s jury stated that the King was assassinated due to 8
1999 December claims by Memphis jury verdict (Melanson, 2019). The wrongful death n between
Loyd Jowers’s family and King’s Family joined with other unknown co-conspirators. Dr. Martin
Luther King was murdered by conspiracy from agencies of his beloved government.
Years later, after the assassination of the King at the Loraine Motel in Memphis on April
4, 1968, The responsibility circle from the court was extended for the murder above the late
Running head: Memphis Conspiracy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr
mastermind Earl Ray to the United States government (Tennis, 2020). Author William Pepper
investigated and discovered that on December 16, 1993, Loyd Jowers was spotted on taping ABCs
live primetime, which is aired nationwide.
At the time of the TV interview, Loyd Jowers set Ray free by confessing that he did not
shoot the King but was the one who hired a shooter after Memphis approached him via produce
man Frank Liberto and was given $1000000 for assassination. He detailed further how a man
named Raul visited him and gave out a rifle to hold for the King’s assassination (Ray & Barsten,
2018). According to the arrangement made, Jowers held on to the gun until the right time.
Confession to one of the high profile death coverage by the show, yet it received no coverage. The
government’s complaints were brought to light during the civil trial, yet no person was labeled as
the source behind the incident.
One account emerged from an FBI agent from Atlanta, Donald Wilson. He investigated a
white Mustang that had an Alabama license and abandoned (car belonging to Ray, but Rahul had
the keys). After the agent had opened the passenger’s door, he discovered an envelope full of papers
on the ground. Wilson believed that was a crime scene, and he had disturbed it, which he nervous
shoved the pieces and the envelop into his jacket (Pierce, 2019). Later on, when he examined, he
realized that those papers were evidence of a conspiracy with explosive content. In his conscience,
he believed that once his superior gets hold of them, they will make sure they have destroyed them.
One piece of the papers was plugged from a directory phone at Dallas in 1963, containing
a name Raul written on the top. The letter “J” indicated a club belonging to Jack Ruby in Dallas.
Jack was Oswald’s assassin. The page stated “H” contained several other phone numbers of an Oil
Billionaire who was a friend to an FBI Director, Mr. Edgar Hoover. The two hated Martin Luther
King Jr. On the second sheet, there were the names of Raul and the dates and amounts that he
Running head: Memphis Conspiracy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr
believed to have received as payments (Melanson, 2019). Telephone numbers for the FBI officers
from the Atlanta office were written on the third sheet.
The findings indicate that the security team from the FBI was withdrawn from King the
day that he was assassinated, which made it easier for the assassins to escape after murder
reinforcing the theory of conspiracy. Despite others believing those doubting accounts from the
government relating to the high-profile assassination, facts always tell the truth are unhinged
(Ayton, 2017). Once a government itself is included in the black operations or higher assassins to
eliminate those it believes to be the sources of disruption in its system, it becomes evident that the
same government shall come up with a classic scapegoat. Although the main suspect in the
assassination plot of King might not be known, the evidence is that it was James Earl Ray.
Running head: Memphis Conspiracy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr
References
Ayton, M. (2017). A racial crime: James Earl Ray and the murder of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
ArcheBooks.
Melanson, P. H. (2019). The MURKIN conspiracy: An investigation into the assassination of
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. ABC-CLIO.
Pierce, A. (2019). Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. ABDO Publishing Company.
Ray, J. L., & Barsten, L. (2018). Truth at last: The untold story behind James Earl Ray and the
assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Tennis, A. (2020). Special edition: The life of Raoul: and the death of Dr. Martin Luther King
Jr. Page Publishing.