From Emmett Till to Barack Obama

Memphis, 1968
Amidst the rising tensions in the civil rights movement, King traveled to Tennessee in April 1968 to help organize a strike of sanitation workers in Memphis. In the early evening, King and his associates, including Rev. Ralph Abernathy, Andrew Young, and Jesse Jackson, stepped out onto the balcony of the Lorraine Motel, when a shot rang out. King was struck by the bullet, and died within the hour.

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