The 1968 assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. changed Atlanta and the nation forever. This exclusive, interactive story – which includes never-released interviews with some of King’s closest associates – captures the events surrounding that April day. It represents the combined reporting efforts of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Channel 2 Action News and WSB Radio.
In considering the life of Martin Luther King Jr., everyone talks about April 4, but nobody talks about April 4.
Two days, actually. One year apart.
April 4, 1968, when a bullet took him down.
April 4, 1967, when he made one of his most controversial speeches.
The 365 days between would be the most trying of King’s life. The path from Selma to Montgomery had been clear and unambiguous. But the road ahead was fraught and painful. His movement was splintering. New voices mocked his creed of nonviolence. He couldn’t sleep and was suffering from depression and exhaustion.
In that 1967 speech he departed from the core mission of the civil rights movement and set himself on the path toward a more radical global perspective: he would also speak out against the war and the crippling poverty he saw across the nation.
Those 365 days would lead him to Memphis.
You'll find much more on Martin Luther King Jr. by following the links below.
King's 1946 letter to the editor in the Atlanta Constitution
In late July 1946, the lynchings of five African-Americans in Georgia made national headlines and pricked the conscience of a Morehouse College student.
The first killing was of Maceo Snipes, an African-American World War II veteran. Snipes was killed in Taylor County, in retaliation for daring to vote in a statewide primary election. For that four white men shot him outside a relative’s home.Days later, two black couples, George and Mae Murray Dorsey and Roger and Dorothy Malcom, were killed by a mob at the Moore’s Ford Bridge between Monroe and Watkinsville. They were murdered after Roger Malcom had a dispute with a local white farmer. Dorsey was seven months pregnant when she was beaten and shot to death.
All of this was too much for the 17-year-old Morehouse student. He penned a letter to The Atlanta Constitution in which he called out the immorality of racism and showed a burgeoning passion for social justice. The writer also referred to the murderous tactic that had led to so many lynchings across the South: black men erroneously accused of assaulting white women. He signed the letter, “M.L. King, JR.”
— Rosalind Bentley