Saturday, April 05, 2008

Who Killed Martin Luther King, Jr.?

Stuart Wexler and Larry Hancock, authors of an upcoming book, "Seeking Armageddon: The Effort to Kill Martin Luther King Jr.," are exploring evidence that members of the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan in Mississippi were involved.

"It's becoming more and more evident they had the motive, the means and the opportunity to assassinate Dr. King, and in fact, that had been a major goal of theirs for years," Wexler said.

Some proof can be found in FBI and Miami police documents that suggest White Knights members may have helped jam Memphis police radios when King was shot on April 4, 1968.

Vivian is among civil rights leaders gathering today in Memphis to remember

King and to sign their support for legislation that would create a Justice Department unit aimed at solving the unpunished killings from the civil rights era.

The House passed the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act by an overwhelming margin of 422-2, but the bill has stalled in the Senate, where U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., has put a "hold" on the legislation, putting it in limbo. He has cited the cost - $10 million a year to examine civil rights killings before 1970 and $3.5 million to help local law enforcement conduct investigations.

In the '50s and '60s, King was friends with Mississippi NAACP field secretary Medgar Evers.

In 1963, a member of the White Knights shot Evers in the back outside his Jackson home, and King attended the funeral.


Continued, from the Hattiesburg American

And from Sovereignty Commission records, there were many files kept on MLK and some on the White Knights, too.

Here are a few posts.

A memo on King dated Jan. 18, 1963 from Carl Braden: "...people ... the CORE group are very jealous of Martin's connection with a group like ours ..."

"Reward for the bodies of" Martin Luther King and others...

List of Civil Rights Disturbances in Mississippi over a decade

Memo to governor, Nov. 1957, Martin Luther King to attend meeting in Mound Bayou

White Knights "no cause for concern" to Mississippi Sovereignty Commission

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