Chasing King's Killer: The Hunt for Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Assassin

Swanson describes the Jim Crow South in which King was born. King was born in Atlanta, Georgia, on January 15, 1929. The Civil War resulted in the abolition of slavery in 1865; however, life was still hard for Black people in the United States. In the South, so-called “Jim Crow laws” ensured that Black people were not treated equally. These laws were based “on the white supremacist belief that blacks were an inferior race” (27). Black people and white people could not live in the same neighborhoods, go to the same schools, or drink from the same water fountains. Black voters were also suppressed, meaning that politicians across the South were white. 

White racists controlled Black people’s lives not only through Jim Crow laws, but also with violence. The Ku Klux Klan, a “racist terrorist organization” that operated throughout the South, was responsible for countless “horrific and senseless assaults” (29). Law enforcement did nothing to stop these attacks, and some police officers were even members of the Klan themselves. Across the country, many Black people were lynched, often just to “create fear and reinforce white supremacy” (29). 

Segregation also meant that many Black people remained poor. They lacked access to good jobs and education, so “there was no clear path to get ahead” (29). Swanson describes Abraham Lincoln calling slavery “a hopeless prison in which blacks were jailed behind a cell door locked with one hundred keys, making it impossible ever to escape” (29-30). Even though slavery had been abolished, Black people remained in a similar position. King was born into this world, which was ready for a change.

Growing up, King was “a member of the black elite” (31). His father, grandfather, and great-grandfather were all pastors, and “[r]eligion was a natural and important part” (31) of the young boy’s life. King was an intelligent and curious child. The family was comfortable, as his father could ensure the family had everything they needed.

When King was still a boy, his mother tried to explain to him the racism he would find outside of their neighborhood. It was a conversation that King would always remember. She told him about the history of slavery and the current reality of segregation, but insisted that these “racist practices” should never make her son “feel inferior” (33). King’s early experiences with racism and segregation had a profound impact on him. He often felt angry, but his parents always reminded him not to hate white people. 

Before King began college, he worked on a tobacco farm in Connecticut. In the North, King was treated the same as the young white men he worked with. He could eat in restaurants and choose his seat on the bus. These experiences were a revelation for King. However, returning to the racism of the South made him feel depressed.

At 15 years old, King enrolled at Morehouse College. He read the essay “Civil Disobedience” by Henry David Thoreau and was “deeply moved” by the idea of nonviolent resistance. In 1948, at just 19 years old, King was ordained as a minister at his father’s church, Ebenezer Baptist in Atlanta. He graduated from Morehouse and enrolled in Crozer Theological Seminary as a theology student. There, he heard a speech by Dr. Mordecai Johnson, the president of Howard University, who spoke about Mohandas Gandhi and his nonviolent resistance to colonial Britain. 

In 1951, King enrolled in Boston University’s School of Theology. The following year, he met Coretta Scott, a beautiful young woman who studied music and wanted to become a concert singer. The two were married in 1953, and Coretta gave up her “dreams of travel and a glamorous career” (35) to become a preacher’s wife. King became the pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1954, and earned his doctorate degree in theology the following year. He and Coretta welcomed their first child, and King settled in for a “quiet life as a minister, husband, father, and respected local community leader” (36). However, life had other plans for him.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks was riding a Montgomery bus and refused to give her seat up to a white passenger. She was arrested, and Black community leaders saw an opportunity. They founded the Montgomery Improvement Association and elected King as the leader. They decided that Black people would stop using the bus if they could not expect equal treatment. The MIA organized carpools, and many Black people began walking to work. The bus company began to suffer without money from Black people’s fares. 

King faced violent repercussions from segregationists, some of whom bombed his home while he was at a meeting. No one was harmed, but King began to understand the danger to himself and his family. The boycott lasted for almost an entire year until the Supreme Court finally ruled that segregation on buses was unconstitutional. 

King’s involvement in the boycott made him famous. He appeared on the cover of Time magazine and was invited to speak at an event in Washington, DC. He was also elected president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. His career was nearly derailed when he was stabbed by Izola Curry in 1958. At this moment, King could not ignore the danger his work put him in. However, instead of abandoning the fight, he “chose to recommit himself to the civil rights movement” (42).

King was attempting to undo racist systems that had been in place for more than 350 years. This was a huge task. King was in the international spotlight and already considered the “spokesman and the symbol” (43) of the civil rights movement. However, he needed help from many others to reach his goals of changing the law and public opinion about segregation. King formed a group of people and organizations to help.

His approach had two main areas of focus. The first was “peaceful, nonviolent but relentless” protests and demonstrations (43). This would generate publicity that King hoped would win them more support and “shame” those who opposed the movement. His second focus was on the law. King hoped he could overturn unjust, racist laws and create new ones that protected the rights of Black people.

In 1959, King went to India, where he met with leaders and learned about Gandhi’s philosophy of nonviolent protest. One year later, in 1960, the first “sit-in” took place in Greensboro, North Carolina. These nonviolent demonstrations soon spread across the South. Black people sat at lunch counters that were meant only for white people and asked for service. When they were refused, the protesters refused to leave. Many people were arrested, including King, who was jailed in an attempt to “teach him a lesson” (46). After several days in jail, then-presidential candidate John F. Kennedy helped free him, a move many think led to Kennedy’s narrow presidential win a few weeks later. 

In 1961, the Freedom Rider movement began when 13 demonstrators boarded a bus from Washington, DC, to New Orleans to protest public bus segregation. Even though the Supreme Court had ruled this practice unconstitutional, no one enforced this new law. The Freedom Riders were frequently attacked and beaten by mobs of white racists, indicating “the culture of rising violence that Martin Luther King, Jr., faced” (47).

In 1962, James Meredith became the first Black student to attend the University of Mississippi. This was a huge victory for the civil rights movement, but “behind each victory, there remained the threat of violence” (49). Meredith had to be escorted around campus by federal troops to protect him from the rioting mobs of white segregationists.