Readers Guide To The MLK Assassination: Books, Videos, Archives

The Justice Integrity Project presents a “Readers Guide to the MLK Assassination” of key books, videos, documents, websites and other archives most relevant to the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s murder on April 4, 1968.

In a rare if not unique combination, the materials focus heavily on questions still remaining regarding responsibility and motive for King’s shooting in Memphis, TN. Included also is research that explores the assassination’s current implications for the U.S. justice system and other governance.

The materials contain varied perspectives. Readers can find evidence of injustice and official cover-up. But evidence is provided also for the official explanations and defenses of the official verdict that the late James Earl Ray, an ex-convict and racist, acted alone to kill King.

The format thus parallels our 31-part Readers Guide to the JFK Assassination. Authorities have consistently maintained that Ray was a lone criminal, much like oft-disputed allegations against President John F. Kennedy’s accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald.

The first installments of our MLK readers guide feature two timely elements as of this writing in mid-2016.

One is the announcement this spring of the new Coalition Against Political Assassinations (CAPA) as a non-partisan citizen group advocating release of sealed records pertaining to major suspected political assassinations, including of King (“MLK”) and Kennedy (“JFK”). This editor is one of CAPA’s founding directors. Information from this website is expected to be excerpted on CAPA’s site, subject to CAPA’s review procedures from its board of scientific, historical, and legal experts.

Another development this spring is the scheduled June publication of The Plot To Kill King, the third and final volume in a series by King’s friend Dr. William F. Pepper, an attorney and educator who represented the accused killer James Earl Ray beginning in 1978.

Pepper has long argued that Ray was the designated patsy in a plot by King opponents to use contract killers from the Mafia to kill the civil rights leader as King expanded his advocacy into antiwar and economic justice policies that were far more threatening to elite interests than King’s desegregation and voting rights agendas. Pepper developed evidence for that argument in part via confessions he obtained from others.

Pepper has advanced that argument two previous books, most notably An Act of State (first published in 2003) based on the successful civil suit King v. Jowers that he litigated on behalf of King’s surviving family members. A Shelby County jury deliberated less than an hour in 1999 to make a finding that restaurant owner Lloyd Jowers was liable in the case. Jowers, a former Memphis policeman, was one of the conspirators that Pepper had persuaded to confess, at least in part.

Pepper has argued that the murder occurred with backup support from federal, state and local government operatives who perpetrated a cover-up that continues for the most part to the present.

Pepper has said he never would have represented Ray unless he were “one hundred percent certain” of the accused man’s innocence.

Pepper’s new book is reputed to include explosive new allegations against named individuals, with details still under wraps. In May, Pepper outlined on a panel with me in New York City the pervasive nature of political assassinations in history, including Socrates and Julius Caesar. We shall report separately on that panel as the next installment of this series.