James Earl Ray, the suspected assassin of civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., was arrested on June 8, 1968, at London’s Heathrow Airport. Ray’s arrest followed an intense international manhunt that began shortly after King was fatally shot on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee. His capture was a crucial development in the legal proceedings following King’s assassination, a pivotal event that had a profound impact on the civil rights movement and American society. Ray’s subsequent trial and guilty plea, and the ongoing debates about the circumstances surrounding the assassination, have kept this case in the public consciousness for decades.
