Memphis rooming house used in MLK assassination, and National Civil Rights Museum protest

MLK assassination: Memphis rooming house, protest

by | July 5, 1999 — 12:22 pm

Memphis, Tennessee — The shot that killed Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. is said to have been fired by James Earl Ray through the fourth window from the right, a bathroom in Bessie Brewer’s Rooming House at 422 S. Main St.

Dr. King had just stepped out of Room 306 of the Lorraine Motel on his way to dinner at the home of Rev. Samuel “Billy” Kyles.

In the foreground is National Civil Rights Museum protester Jacqueline Smith. The last resident of the Lorraine Motel, Ms. Smith has kept her protest site on Mulberry St. opposite the museum since January 12, 1988. Her position is that the “museum has become a Disney-style tourist attraction, which seems preoccupied with gaining financial success, rather than focusing on the real issues.”

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