Martin Luther King Jr.

Week of Apr. 12, 1968
"It sounded like a firecracker, and I thought it was a pretty poor joke," says a witness at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tenn. An instant later, the depth of the tragedy is clear: a heavy-caliber bullet cut down Martin Luther King Jr., killing the "pre-eminent voice of the just aspirations and long-suffering patience of black America."

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