- Home
- Introductory Essay
- Lives of the Sanitation Workers
- The Strike Begins
- Negotiations, Vigils, and Sandwiches
- The Macing March
- A Community Awakens
- A Nation Awakens
- Dr. King Arrives In Memphis
- Terrible Thursday
- The Men March, The Guards Watch
- I've Been To The Mountain Top
- Lorraine Motel
- Mourning
- Victory for Local 1733
- Impact on the South, 1968-1970
- Remembering Memphis
- Resources
- Credits/Contact
Lorraine Motel
April 4, 1968 was a day that changed the nation. After a series of meetings, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was sleeping late at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, in a room with Reverend Ralph Abernathy. At 5:30, Reverend S.B. Kyles arrived to take them to dinner.
King emerged from Room 306 at about 6:00 and chatted with friends Jesse Epps, Ben Branch and Reverend Kyles. He leaned over the balcony to greet the many supporters gathered in the courtyard just to get a glimpse of the great civil rights leader. By 6:03, King lay dying, the victim of a sniper's bullet.