Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Murdered in Memphis.

 

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. Charles Kelly/AP

Civil rights leader Andrew Young (L) and others on balcony of Lorraine Motel pointing in direction of assailant after assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who is lying mortally wounded at their feet. Joseph Louw—The LIFE Images Collection/Getty Images

Dr. King arrived in Memphis on April 3rd to speak in support of the city's striking sanitation workers. He spoke at the Mason Temple that night and delivered his famous "I've Been To The Mountain Top" speech. Perhaps he had a premonition because he closed his speech by talking about the threats he had received and that he wanted to live a long life, but if the Lord had decided otherwise, he was fine with that.

King had begun redirecting his passionate Civil Rights campaign to a campaign that was inclusive of all poor people. He didn’t feel the promises of the United States had yet to be fulfilled in Civil Rights, though, and in his speech, he demanded the United States live up to the ideals and promises made in the preamble to the Constitution and in the Bill of Rights. His speech was filled with parables and was a call for economic justice.

Dr. King and his party spent the night at the Lorraine Hotel. He intended to have dinner with a friend and fellow minister. He had come out on the balcony of his room and was speaking to his chauffeur when the fatal shot was fired from a nearby rooftop.

King was rushed to St. Joseph’s Hospital, where he died during emergency surgery. King’s death led to anger and disillusionment, with a feeling that now only violence could solve the problem of inequality and White supremacy. While King’s peers such as Reverend Ralph Abernathy called for calm and non-violence others like Black Panther leader Stokely Carmichael called for armed resistance. Riots exploded in cities across the country. Fortunately, these riots ended rather quickly and had little loss of life or property compared to the civil unrest of 1965.

The career criminal James Earl Ray was arrested in London on June 6^th, 1968. He had fled Memphis to Atlanta and Toronto and then London. He initially confessed to the assassination but later recanted. Conspiracy theories grew instantly and were eventually accepted by the King's family. While there is a great deal of evidence and reason to support the idea of a conspiracy, no real investigation has ever been initiated by authorities. Ray received a life sentence of 99 years when he was convicted of the killing.

A private funeral for King's family and closest associates was held at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. Afterwards, as many as 100,000 people accompanied the mule-drawn coffin and funeral procession through the city to Morehouse College. Among the mourners were Ethiopian leader Halie Selassie, Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, Robert Kennedy, and Richard Nixon. UN Ambassador Ralph Bunche. Civil Rights leaders such as John Lewis, Stokely Carmichael, and Rosa Parks. Celebrities such as Paul Newman, close King family friends Harry Belafonte, and Sidney Poitier. Actor activists Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Diahann Carroll, Eartha Kitt and Dick Gregory. Over a hundred elected leaders and famous individuals attended the public funeral, with over 50,000 mourners.

Three Black Men Lynched To Protect A White Grocer's Monoply

 

People's Grocery marker at Walker Avenue and Mississippi Boulevard, Memphis Tennesee by Thomas R Machnitzki.

Memphis, TN 1892 – The Curve neighborhood in Memphis was a mixed community in the southeast corner of the city. It was called “The Curve” because of the tight turn street cars had to make going through that part of the city. For several years this was an area that was dominated by a single White grocer, William Barret. Because he had a monopoly Barret could charge higher prices to his Black customers who had little choice but to pay.

Today such areas are called “Food Deserts” by economists, anthropologists, politicians, and activists. This euphemism hides the fact this is the practice of economic apartheid and purposefully determined restrictions. This practice still happens today but in more subtle ways.

Barret’s monopoly ended for a brief period when Thomas Moss opened The People’s Grocery in 1889. While Moss was the majority owner the store worked as a cooperative with a business model based on the successful Colored Farners Alliance. Money local Black citizens had contributed to the business. The grocery thrived and brought more money and a sense of pride to the Blacks who lived in the Curve. This success made Barret resentful and increased racial tensions.

The People’s Grocery was a success for three years and inspired the community and at this time in the South, such things were not acceptable to the White community. Always alert for any social infraction, trouble began for Moss and two of his employees on March 2^nd when two boys, one White, and one Black, began fighting over a game of marbles. The Black boy was Armour Harris, and the White boy was Cornelius Hurst, during the argument Hurst’s father stepped in and began hitting Harris. Two men, Will Stewart and Calvin McDowell, came from the grocery to stop the assault. This escalated the situation and soon several other people joined in.

The scuffle lasted just a few minutes before it broke up, yet William Barret was hit with a club. He decided that this was a weapon he could use to end his rival. The next morning Barret took a police officer with him and entered the People’s Grocery. They were intending to arrest William Stewart one of the store’s employees who Barret blamed for the attack with a club.

Inside the store they didn’t find Stewart but had an encounter with another employee, Calvin McDowell, when confronted with the fact that Stewart wasn’t there Barret became enraged and hit McDowell with his revolver, in doing so he lost his grip on it, dropping the pistol which McDowell recovered, he ordered the men out of the store and when Barret advanced on him instead he shot at him and missed. This led to McDowells arrest

McDowell was released on Bond the next morning inflaming White residents. Black residents started meeting as well primarily to plan and prepare to protect themselves, however, some wanted to rid the Curve of White trash. Tensions were high between Blacks and Whites across Memphis. This was highlighted by another incident where a White grocer got into an argument with a Black shopper, John Mosby. Mosby was thrown out of a store and a few hours later returned with a club and got shot by the clerk.

Moss and other Black residents of the Curve concerned about protecting themselves consulted a lawyer but were told that because the Curve was technically outside the city limits, they wouldn’t have police protection and should prepare to protect themselves and their property.

On March 6^th the sheriff with a newly deputized posse surrounded the People’s Grocery and then went to arrest Stewart. This led to an armed confrontation where at least one deputy was shot and left blind in one eye. The posse retreated to Barret’s store and requested aid. Soon two hundred armed White men entered the Curve. They soon arrested the men in the grocery and started a house-to-house search and arrest. By morning they had arrested McDowell, Stewart, and Moss as well as Armour Harris.

After the arrests, the White posse stayed in town near the Shelby County jail as they waited to hear about deputies who had allegedly been shot and were near death. To protect the men the Black group known as The Tennessee Rifles stood outside the jail ready to protect the arrested men. However, when word came that no deputy would die the Tennessee Rifles decided that there was no threat of a lynching and left.

They were wrong and in the early morning hours of March 9^th 75 White men broke into the jail and took the three men from the grocery store from the jail. The mob took them to the nearby Chesapeake and Ohio rail yards. All three men tried to fight back but the mob shot them to death and left the bodies under some piled brush. Moss said to the White men, “Tell my people to go west. There is no justice for them here.” This statement was published the next day in Memphis Appeal-Avalanche.

The Appeal-Avalanche had been writing about the violence in the Curve with racial bias and wrote up the crime as something well done and necessary. Most southern newspapers would write lynching support stories during the Jim Crow era.

The lynchings in the Curve also initiated Ida B. Well’s crusade to end the practice. She had been friends with Moss and wrote of her friend, “A finer, cleaner man than he never walked the streets of Memphis. He was well-liked, a favorite with everybody; yet he was murdered with no more consideration than if he had been a dog… The colored people feel that every white man in Memphis who consented in his death is as guilty as those who fired the guns which took his life.”

No one was ever arrested or punished for the murders, or for the death threats Miss Wells received that forced her to move to Chicago. 6,000 Blacks fled Memphis in the next two years following Moss’s advice.

The Memphis Appeal-Avalanche from March 3rd, 1892

Sources: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-the-murder-of-a-black-grocery-store-owner-and-his-colleagues-galvanized-ida-b-wells-anti-lynching-crusade-180984350/

https://daily.jstor.org/peoples-grocery-lynching/

https://blogs.memphis.edu/benhooksinstitute/2015/09/30/memphis-and-the-lynching-at-the-curve/