Special Features
- Bonus Video: Interview with Hampton Sides
- Preview: Roads to Memphis Preview
- Photo Gallery: The Manhunt for James Earl Ray
- Further Reading: Related Books and Websites
- Timeline: The 1968 Hunt for Martin Luther King's Killer
On April 4, 1968, escaped convict James Earl Ray shot and killed Dr. Martin Luther King. This is the fateful narrative of the killer and his prey, set against the seething, turbulent forces in American society at that time.
My American Experience
Share Your Story
Did you ever see Dr. King speak? Do you remember learning of his assassination? What impact have his life and teachings had on you?
Series Blog
Sides: Motivations of a Political Assassin
Author Hampton Sides, a frequent AMERICAN EXPERIENCE consultant and author of Hellhound on his Trail, on which our 2010 film Roads to Memphis was based, draws a parallel between the Arizona shooter Jared Loughner and the infamous MLK assassin James Earl Ray in a recent Newsweek article. "Though he spent his criminal career striving for anonymity, he desperately wanted the world to know he existed," wrote Sides. "Like a certain deranged young man in Tucson last week, Ray imagined the best way to leave his mark was the gun down someone young, eloquent, and charismatic."
AMERICAN EXPERIENCE has an exclusive interview with Hampton Sides talking about his memories of the MLK assassination and the character of James Earl Ray and his motivations for killing Dr. King.
Adam Clayton Powell
A civil rights leader in Harlem before entering politics, Powell was one of the most charismatic black leaders of the 20th century.
Film Details
Roots of Resistance - The Story of the Underground
Men and women, black and white, risked their lives to carve an elaborate network of escape routes out of slavery.
Film Details
Malcolm X - Make It Plain
Malcolm X, a man who both terrified and inspired, expressed the anger and struggle of black people for freedom in the 1960s.
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A Class Apart
From a small-town Texas murder emerged a landmark civil rights case that successfully challenged Jim Crow-style discrimination against Mexican Americans.
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The Abolitionists
How five abolitionist allies turned a despised fringe movement against chattel slavery into a force that literally changed the nation.
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Jesse Owens
His stunning triumph at the 1936 Olympic Games captivated the world even as it infuriated the Nazis. Premiering May 1.
Watch Online
John Brown's Holy War
Murderer, martyr, hero - John Brown's violent crusade against slavery would divide the nation and spark the Civil War.
Film Details
Soundtrack for a Revolution
The story of the American civil rights movement is told through its powerful music -- the freedom songs that protesters sang on picket lines, in mass meetings, in police wagons, and in jail cells as they fought for justice and equality.
Watch Preview
