4 April 1968 A.D. Dr. Martin Luther King Assassinated
4 April 1968 A.D. Dr. Martin Luther King Assassinated Editors. “Dr. King is assassinated.” History. 2009. http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/dr-king-is-assassinated . Accessed 1 Apr 2015. Just after 6 p.m. on April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. is fatally shot while standing on the balcony outside his second-story room at theLorraine Motelin Memphis, Tennessee. The civil rights leader was in Memphis to support a sanitation workers’ strike and was on his way to dinner when a bullet struck him in the jaw and severed his spinal cord. King was pronounced dead after his arrival at a Memphis hospital. He was 39 years old. In the months before his assassination, Martin Luther King became increasingly concerned with the problem of economic inequality in America. He organized a Poor People’s Campaign to focus on the issue, including an interracialpoor people’s marchon Washington, and in March 1968 traveled to Memphis in support of poorly treated Afric...