Religion News Service is marking the 50th anniversary of the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. with stories and commentaries looking back at the tragic, momentous event. The rest of the package can be found here.
(RNS) — The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was an iconic spiritual and cultural figure. King understood the power of the media in disseminating his messages and highlighting civil rights causes. Fifty years after his assassination, images still convey the power of his work.
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- The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. speaks at an interfaith civil rights rally at the Cow Palace in San Francisco on June 30, 1964. Photo by George Conklin/Creative Commons
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- The Rev. Ralph David Abernathy follows the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King as the Abernathy children march on the front line, leading the Selma to Montgomery march in 1965. The children are Donzaleigh Abernathy in striped sweater, Ralph David Abernathy III and Juandalynn R. Abernathy in glasses. The name of the white minister in the photo is unknown. Photo courtesy of Abernathy Family/Creative Commons
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- The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. speaks about his opposition to the war in Vietnam at Riverside Church on April 4, 1967, in New York. RNS file photo by John C. Goodwin
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- The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., right, and other civil rights leaders, are pushed off the road as they resume a voting rights march begun by James Meredith. Later they continued their walk, marching single file along the highway’s shoulder. Meredith was shot by a white man as he was marching from Memphis, Tenn., to Jackson, capital of Mississippi, in an effort to encourage black residents to vote in the state’s primary election. Religious leaders were quick to condemn the shooting and called for greater efforts on behalf of voting rights. Religion News Service file photo
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- The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. stands with other civil rights leaders on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tenn., on April 3, 1968, a day before he was assassinated at approximately the same place. From left are Hosea Williams, Jesse Jackson, King, and Ralph Abernathy. The 39-year-old Nobel laureate was the proponent of nonviolence in the American civil rights movement of the 1960s. (AP Photo/Charles Kelly)
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- The Rev. Ralph Abernathy, right, and Bishop Julian Smith, left, flank the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. during a civil rights march in Memphis, Tenn., on March 28, 1968. (AP Photo/Jack Thornell)
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- A stirring climax to ceremonies at the Lincoln Memorial during the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom was reached when the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. stepped to the rostrum and called on the nation to end racial discrimination “now.” The Baptist minister, head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, was widely hailed as the “civil rights and religious leader” of the event. Religion News Service file photo
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- The wedding portrait of Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott in Marion, Ala., on June 18, 1953. From left: Christine King, A.D. Williams King, Martin Luther King Jr., Naomi King, Coretta Scott King, Martin Luther King Sr., Edythe Scott Bagley, Bernice Scott, Alberta Williams King, with flower girl Alveda King and Obadiah Scott. Photo courtesy of The Estate of Coretta Scott King
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- A young usher, holding cap at right, stands solemnly with religious, civil rights and labor leaders on the platform in front of the Lincoln Memorial during the national anthem at the opening of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom program on Aug. 28, 1963. Five of the 10 chairmen of the march also on the platform were, from left to right: Whitney M. Young Jr., executive director of the National Urban League; the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference; Walter P. Reuther, president of the United Automobile Workers Union; the Rev. Eugene Carson Blake, chief executive officer of the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A., and acting chairman of the National Council of Churches’ Commission on Religion and Race; and, second from right, Rabbi Joachim Prinz, president of the American Jewish Congress. Religion News Service file photo
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- The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. speaks at Southern Methodist University’s convocation in McFarlin Auditorium on March 17, 1966, in Dallas. Photo by Laughead Photographers, courtesy of SMU Archives
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- Pastors, priests and rabbis joined the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., (center) in the 1965 march on Selma. Religion News Service file photo by Robie Ray
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- On March 21, 1963, this aerial view shows a half-mile-long column of civil rights demonstrators — including many clergy — on the first leg of the 50-mile march from Selma to Montgomery, the state capital of Alabama, in support of a voter registration drive. The marchers — an estimated 3,500 left Selma — are shown crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge, where the first scheduled freedom march was broken up by state troopers on Sunday, March 7. This time, the march was authorized by a federal court and was protected by Army and federalized Alabama National Guard troops. Leading the walk was the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which has been spearheading the long registration effort. Religion News Service file photo
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- The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., second from left, and Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, second from right, during a Selma march in 1965. Courtesy of Susannah Heschel
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- An undated photo of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. RNS file photo
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- The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Harry Belafonte, at podium, at the Montgomery march in 1965. Photo courtesy of Center for Jewish History
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- The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., speaks at North Carolina Central University in Durham, N.C., in 1966. Photo courtesy of the State Archives of North Carolina
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- President Lyndon B. Johnson meets with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in the White House Cabinet Room on March 18, 1966. Photo by Yoichi Okamoto/Creative Commons
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- President Lyndon B. Johnson and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. shake hands at the signing of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Photo courtesy of Creative Commons
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- The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. said following a 1966 meeting in Chicago with Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad that they held a common concern over slum conditions. He later was sharply attacked as a “deceiver” by the Muslim leader. Religion News Service file photo
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- On Aug. 28, 1963, the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. addressed the crowd gathered during the March on Washington, delivering his “I Have a Dream” speech. RNS file photo
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- A U.S. Senate vote to launch formal debate on the House-passed Civil Rights Bill was received happily by supporters of the legislation in 1964. Victory signs, signifying rejection of Southern senators’ attempts to delay debate by subjecting the bill to committee hearings, are made by, from left to right, key legislative leaders Sen. Hubert Humphrey and Sen. Philip A. Hart, and the Rev. Ralph Abernathy, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth. Religion News Service file photo
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- The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X wait for press conference on March 26, 1964. Photo by Marion S. Trikosko/Creative Commons
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- The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. speaks in Eutaw, Ala., in June 1965. King was head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and a Nobel Peace Prize winner. (AP Photo)
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- The “Big Three” of the civil rights movement – left to right, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth and the Rev. Ralph Abernathy – put their heads together just before releasing a May 10, 1963 statement that accord had been reached on their grievances. Religion News Service file photo
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- The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke from San Francisco on March 28, 1965, on a television program originating in Washington (“Meet the Press”) and announced his intention of asking for an economic boycott on goods made in Alabama. King spoke to an overflow crowd in Grace Cathedral atop Nob Hill in San Francisco. (AP Photo)
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- The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and his wife Coretta, both wearing garlands, are received by admirers after landing at the airport in New Delhi on Feb. 10, 1959. King, who was known as the American Gandhi, went on what he called a “four-week pilgrimage in India, which to me means Mahatma Gandhi.” (AP Photo/R. Satakopan)
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- President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the 1964 Civil Rights Act as the Martin Luther King, Jr., and others, look on July 2, 1964. Photo by Cecil Stoughton, White House Press Office (WHPO) via Creative Commons
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- The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy calls Christians to keep pressing forward toward justice and equality. Photo courtesy of UIC Digital Collections
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- The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and evangelist Billy Graham in a 1962 photo. Photo courtesy of Billy Graham Evangelistic Association
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- President Lyndon Johnson meets with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Photo courtesy of Creative Commons/National Archives/Yoichi R. Okamoto
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- Left to right, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., the Rev. Virgil Wood and the Rev. Gil Caldwell at a school in the Roxbury section of Boston in April 1965. Photo courtesy of the Caldwell Family Collection
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- The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. discusses his planned Poor People’s Campaign from the pulpit of the Washington National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., on March 31, 1968. (AP Photo)
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- Strong bipartisan support will be necessary to push civil rights legislation through Congress, President Kennedy told leaders of the historic March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. The march chairmen spent an hour with the chief executive following the demonstration that drew over 200,000 people to the capital on Aug. 28, 1963. Shown here, from left, are: Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, Floyd B. McKissick, national chairman of the Congress of Racial Equality; Mathew Ahmann, executive director of the National Catholic Conference for Interracial Justice; Whitney M. Young Jr., executive director of the National Urban League; the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., founder and president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference; John Lewis (in rear), chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee; Rabbi Joachim Prinz, president of the American Jewish Congress; the Rev. Eugene Carson Blake (in rear), chief executive officer of the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. and acting chairman of the National Council of Churches’ Commission on Religion and Race; A. Philip Randolph, founder and president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, director of the march; President Kennedy, and Walter P. Reuther, president of the United Automobile Workers Union. Religion News Service file photo
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- The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., left, meets with the Rev. Joseph E. Lowery, center, and the Rev. Wyatt Tee Walker at First African Baptist Church in Richmond, Va., for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference convention on Sept. 25, 1963. Lowery died Friday (March 27) at age 98. King was SCLC president at the time, Lowery was vice president and Walker was executive director. (Carl Lynn/Richmond Times-Dispatch via AP)
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- The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. makes his last public appearance at Mason Temple in Memphis, Tenn., on April 3, 1968. The civil rights leader was standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel when he was killed by a rifle bullet on April 4, 1968. (AP Photo/Charles Kelly)