Martin Luther King Jr. assassination location

This is the motel where Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated.

It is located at 450 Mulberry Street in Memphis, Tennessee.

In April 1968, King was staying in room 306 on the second floor of the Lorraine Motel (close to the red circle in the image above).

In the months leading up to the shooting, King had been making frequent trips to Memphis to support African American sanitation workers who were striking for better pay and safety conditions.

His plans to return to the city had recently been published in a number of newspapers. Furthermore, it was common knowledge that he often stayed at the Lorraine Motel.

On the evening of April 4th, 1968, King was standing on the balcony outside of his room. Unbeknownst to him, a pro-segregationist and petty criminal named James Earl Ray had taken up a shooting position in a rooming house that was just 200 feet away.

At exactly 6.01 p.m., Ray fixed his scope on King and fired a single shot with his Remington Model 760 rifle.

The bullet struck King in the face and traveled down his spinal cord, severing his external jugular vein and two major arteries.

It is unlikely that the civil rights activist heard the shot that killed him, as he immediately lost consciousness and slumped onto his back.

As shocked onlookers rushed to King's aid, Ray hurriedly gathered up his belongings and fled from the rooming house.

King was rushed to St. Joseph's Hospital on Overton Avenue, where he was pronounced dead roughly one hour later.

During the investigation, the authorities discovered Ray's fingerprints on a rifle and binoculars that had been dumped in a store doorway close to the crime scene. Furthermore, a witness saw a man matching Ray's description fleeing from the rooming house shortly after the gunshot rang out.

Following the assassination, Ray drove to Canada, where he used a fake passport to board a flight to the United Kingdom. However, he was detained at Heathrow Airport while he was attempting to fly to Belgium. By that stage, the authorities had placed his alias on a watch list.

He was charged with murder shortly after he was extradited back to Tennessee.

Ray agreed to plead guilty to the crime to avoid the death penalty.

Three days later, he attempted to recant his confession after he learned that a recent Supreme Court ruling would have resulted in any death sentence being commuted to life imprisonment. However, his attempts to withdraw his guilty plea ultimately failed, and he spent the rest of his life behind bars.

On April 23rd, 1998, Ray died in prison at the age of 70.

Photos

Photos of the motel and other related images.

Bessie Brewer's rooming house

This is a Google Street View image of the former rooming house that Ray used to carry out the shooting. He fired his rifle from the small window on the top right.

Ray purchased his Remington rifle just six days before the shooting.

Initially, he traveled to Martin Luther King Jr.'s hometown of Atlanta, Georgia. At the time, he had a map with the locations of King's house and church circled on it.

However, shortly after arriving in Atlanta, he picked up a local newspaper and saw that the civil rights activist had plans to return to Memphis for a couple of days. Consequently, he decided to follow him there.

After driving to Memphis, he rented a room at the New Rebel Motel on Lamar Avenue. Once there, he learned that King was staying at the Lorraine Motel on Mulberry Street.

At around 3.30 p.m. on April 4th, 1968, Ray walked into Bessie Brewer's rooming house and rented room 5B, which was situated at the back.

That afternoon, he purchased binoculars and set up his rifle in the bathroom window, which had a direct line of sight to King's room.

Coordinates: 35.134980, -90.058096

Google Maps

New Rebel Motel

After arriving in Memphis, Ray rented a room at the New Rebel Motel, which was situated at 3462 Lamar Avenue. The motel was roughly 10 miles away from Bessie Brewer's rooming house.

These days, it is called the South East Motel.

Coordinates: 35.073765, -89.947845

Google Maps

Lorraine Motel

This Google Street View image of the Lorraine Motel was captured in March 2020.

At the time of the shooting, it was owned by Walter Bailey, who had marketed it toward African-American visitors during the segregation era.

It stopped operating as a motel in 1988.

Three years later, it reopened as the National Civil Rights Museum.