Martin Luther King Jr., was assassinated by a sniper's bullet on April 4, 1968. King had arrived in Memphis, Tenn., to support the city's striking sanitation workers.

After a public address, King was out on the balcony of the motel where he was staying when a gunman opened fire.

King's original plans for a Poor People's March to Washington had been interrupted by this visit to Memphis.

On March 10, 1969, the accused James Earl Ray pleaded guilty to the assassination and was sentenced to 99 years in prison.

Reporter Gary Sheppherd from CBS news begins the broadcast. The recording also includes an eyewitness account by Samuel B. Kyles, the announcement of the death at Carnegie Hall, comments from President Johnson and Henry Swanson, a warden for the Missouri State Penitentiary, commenting on Ray.

Click on the headphones to hear the report.

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