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Politics by Assassination

This year, 2018, it will be 50 years since Martin Luther King Jr. was shot. I am not a “conspiracy nut,” so I still believe that Harvey Oswald killed Pres. Jack Kennedy and that Sirhan Sirhan killed Sen. Robert Kennedy. But the murder of Martin Luther King Jr. having been proved as a conspiracy makes me suspicious of when our 3 most progressive politicians were assassinated in 5 years. Maybe I should think again. Yes, I said proved!

James Earl Ray never had a trial but died after 31 years in jail for the murder of MLK. In 1992, he wrote a book describing in detail how he was framed as the assassin and logically explains many other questions. His book could, of course, be self-serving and doubted. But the results proving a conspiracy and finding James Earl Ray innocent at the King family civil trial in December 1999 bring validity to his book.

On December 8, 1999, the Los Angeles Times reported that, quote, “a Memphis jury hearing a lawsuit brought by his wife and children found Wednesday that [ML] King was a victim not of a lone racist gunman but of a vast conspiracy,” End quote. You never heard about that? I’m not surprised. That was because the federal government rigidly controlled the news.

The rumors had always been there. J. Edgar Hoover was known to hate and fear Martin Luther King Jr. In his fourth book, Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?, MLK moved from theology into the social and political conditions surrounding the Vietnam War. His conscience on fire and his eloquent, powerful words regarding the obvious inequality of sacrifice by the Negroes were moving. His despair at the failing conscience of the United States was strongly emphasized. It could be said that J. Edgar Hoover could now view him as an enemy.

The bullet that killed MLK in the Lorraine Motel (now the National Civil Rights Museum) came from the nearby Jim’s Grill owned by Loyd Jowers. Almost 30 years later, an ageing Jowers, beginning to worry about his celestial reception, became religious and confessed that he had cooperated with a Mafia friend who wanted MLK killed.

The King family heard this and decided to sue Jowers for one hundred dollars in a civil trial. The federal government, greatly concerned about who might be affected, rigidly controlled the press, allowing them in at only certain trial moments. A torrent of evidence was presented, the jury took only 3 hours to decide, Jowers paid his $100, and the secret trial records were sealed until 2029.

In such a case, the two sides would be sworn to silence. There was minimal press coverage. The jury had determined the culprit was a “vast conspiracy.”  And I am impelled to “think again” about the deaths of JFK and RFK.

For more stories of the follies of war, grab a copy of my book, Perspective: The Golden Rule. Follow me on Facebook, Twitter, and Goodreads.