12.Betty Nyagoni, “Washington (D.C.) Riot of 1968,” in The Encyclopedia of American Race Riots, vol. 2, edited by Walter C. Rucker and James N. Upton (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2007), 683–85.
13.Michael Honey, Going Down Jericho Road: The Memphis Strike, Martin Luther King Jr.’s Last Campaign (New York: W. W. Norton, 2007), 445–46.
14.Carol Dietrich, “King, Martin Luther King Jr. (Assassination of),” in The Encyclopedia of American Race Riots, vol. 2, edited by Walter C. Rucker and James N. Upton (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2007), 341.
15.FBI, “Jesse B. Stoner” (April–May 1968.) 157-3082, Jackson Field Office.
16.Jack Nelson. Transcript of interview with unknown White Knight, 1969. Jack Nelson Collection, Manuscript Archive and Rare Book Library, Emory University. MSS 1237 Box 3.
17.Nelson, Terror in the Night, 139–41.
18.Wesley Swift, “4-24-68 Bible Study Q&A” (sermon), April 24, 1968, Dr. Wesley Swift Library, transcript, swift.christogenea.org/content/04-24-68-bible-
study-qa.
19.FBI, “Urgent Teletype from Dallas Field Office to Director, Memphis and Jackson” (April 23, 1968), MURKIN 44-38861-1836.
20.FBI, “Samuel Holloway Bowers Jr.” (August 9, 1968), Bureau File 157-1654, section 23, at 15. This is a summary file obtained by the authors via FOIA. The relevant excerpt from the document reads as follows: “On April 5, 1968, [Jackson Informant] T-2 advised that while in John’s Cafe that morning, he saw Sam Bowers and told him that he did a good job the previous night (making reference to the killing of MARTIN LUTHER KING Jr.). Sam Bowers remarked that he carried Billy Roy Pitts up to Memphis and that ‘poor Billy Roy’ did not know what they were up to, but they got King shot.” At first glance, it seems like Sam Bowers must have been joking. Bowers himself had witnesses to place him in Mississippi when King was shot. Moreover, Pitts was a turncoat, who was cooperating with the FBI in their prosecutions of Bowers and other white Knights for the killing of activist Vernon Dahmer in 1966. On the other hand, there may have been more truth to the remark than was immediately apparent. In separate files related to the Dahmer case, other informants note that Bowers’s underlings were still in contact with Billy Roy Pitts at the time of the King assassination. A “limited hangout” in which Bowers could implicate a White Knights deserter to throw suspicion off his involvement—and the involvement of anyone in his inner circle—would be consistent with what we think White Knights associates Sidney Barnes and Margaret Capomacchia were doing to Thomas Tarrants several months after the crime.
21.Dina Temple-Raston, “An FBI Man’s Inside View of ’60s America in Turmoil,” All Things Considered, National Public Radio, August 7, 2009, www.npr.org
/templates/story/story.php?storyId=111659247.
22.FBI, “Memo to SAC Jackson; Subj: J.B. Stoner” (August 6, 1968), 157-3082-19.
23.FBI, “Samuel Holloway Bowers Jr.” (August 9, 1968), Bureau File 157-1654, section 23, at 15, 21.
24.U.S. House Select Committee on Assassinations, Investigation of the Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.: Final Report, 95th Cong. 2nd, Sess., available online at the Mary Ferrell Foundation, accessed April 20, 2015, www.maryferrell
.org/showDoc.html?docId=800&search=cb_AND+memphis+AND+%22final
+report%22.#relPageId=413&tab=page.
25.Activities of the Ku Klux Klan organizations in the United States: Hearings Before the Comm. on Un-American Activities, 89th Cong. at 1532 (February 1, 7–11, 1966) (testimony of Earl Holcombe). Available online at the Internet Archive, accessed September 15, 2010, www.archive.org/stream/activitiesofkukl05unit
/activitiesofkukl05unit_djvu.txt.
26.FBI, “Re: Suspects W. Davis, B. Chidlow, Vincent Walker, and Lawrence Rand,” MURKIN 44-1987-Sub E-790, available online at the Harold Weisberg Archive at Hood College, jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg%20Subject%20Index%20Files/W%20Disk/William%20Len%20Hotel/Item%2003.pdf.
27.The picture of the matchbook can be found here: register.shelby.tn.us/media/mlk
/index.php?p=hotel+william+len+matchbook+front.jpg&album=Evidence+2.
Chapter 12: Manhunt
1.U.S. House Select Committee on Assassinations, Investigation of the Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.: Appendix to Hearings Before the Select Comm. on Assassinations, 95th Cong., 2nd Sess., vol. xii, 252, available online at Mary Ferrell Foundation, accessed December 11, 2010, www.maryferrell.org/mffweb
/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=95659&relPageId=392. In Los Angeles in December 1967, Ray wrote to the U.S.–South Africa Business Council requesting information about emigration to Rhodesia. His choice of destinations in Africa is corroborated by a variety of his contacts in 1968, after he had successfully left Canada and traveled to Portugal, exploring possible mercenary jobs in Angola.
2.FBI, “Teletype: From Director to Birmingham, Memphis, Mobile, Los Angeles” (April 15, 1968), Memphis Field Office MURKIN 44-1987-SUB E-356.
3. U.S. House Select Committee on Assassinations, Summary of Findings and Recommendations, H.R. Rep., section 6, Evidence of a Conspiracy in St. Louis, 377, available online at the National Archives, accessed December 11, 2010, www
.archives.gov/research/jfk/select-committee-report/part-2c.html#klan. 20; also
FBI, “Airtel from SAC Miami to FBI Director re: BAPBOMB, Sidney Crockette Barnes a.k.a. Racial Matters” (March 12, 1964), FBI file.
4.Activities of the Ku Klux Klan Organizations in the United States: Hearings Before the Comm. on Un-American Activities, 89th Cong. 2936 (February 1, 7–11, 1966), available online at the Internet Archive, accessed September 15, 2010, www
.archive.org/stream/activitiesofkukl05unit/activitiesofkukl05unit_djvu.txt.
5.FBI, “Airtel from SAC Oklahoma City to Director re: Donald Eugene Sparks . . .” (April 24, 1968), King Assassination FBI Central Headquarters File, MURKIN 44-38861-2926; and FBI, “Airtel from Tampa to Director re: Donald Eugene Sparks . . .” (April 18, 1968), King Assassination FBI Central Headquarters File, MURKIN 44-38861-1331.
6.Mitchell, “KKK Killed Ben Chester White.”
7.Gerard Robinson, in discussion with the authors, September 29, 2011. Robinson knew of Tarrants from his time as a racist rabble-rouser at Murphy High School. It is worth noting that Robinson remembered the integration efforts in Mobile in 1963—and the response at local high schools—as being one of the few other occasions that he was asked to work in the city proper. In that instance, the small field office was stretched thin because of the sheer number of protests and counterdemonstrations at so many high schools. Robinson could not be positive that the search for Tarrants was the one in response to Tarrants jumping bond; however, the context of his comments/recollection made that obvious.
8.FBI, “BH 44-1740. Airtel: SAC Birmingham to Director,” report by Special Agents Robert Barrett and William Saucier (April 8, 1968). The information was taken on April 6, 1968, and dictated on April 8, 1968. Under Tarrants’s name, reference is made to a file 157-758, which turns out to be a Mobile field office file. The authors attempted to access this information via FOIA only to learn that Mobile 157-758 file had been destroyed in 1977. It is rare for the FBI to destroy a file while an individual (in this case, Tarrants) is still alive; it also came on the heels of Congress’s new inquiry into Dr. King’s murder, for which Tarrants’s files were requested only a few months after this Mobile file had been destroyed.
9.FBI, “Teletype from Jackson To New Orleans” (April 10, 1968), Jackson Field Office MURKIN file 157-9586, CD-ROM 59161160, 147–149.
10.FBI, “Memorandum from SA Richard F. Kilcourse to SAC Los Angeles” (April 23, 1968), 62-5101.
11.Jim Ingram, in discussion with the authors, June 20, 2009.
12.Melanson, The Martin Luther King Assassination, 86–88.
13.FBI, “Urgent Teletype from Dallas Field Office to Director, Memphis and
Jackson” (April 23, 1968), MURKIN 44-38861-1835.
14.FBI, “Samuel Holloway Bowers Jr.” (August 9, 1968), Bureau File 157-1654, section 23, at 15.
15.Nelson, Terror in the Night, 140.
16.FBI, “Memo to SAC Jackson; Subj: J.B. Stoner” (August 6, 1968), 157-3082-19.
17.Waldron and Hartmann, Legacy of Secrecy, 504.
18.Ibid., 606.
19.Dan Christensen, “King Assassination: FBI Ignored Its Miami Informer,” Miami, no. 12 (October 1976), 37–38, available online at Cuban Information Archives, last modified February 23, 2008, accessed September 15, 2010,
cuban-exile.com/doc_101-125/doc0114.html.
20.“James Earl Ray: Selected Chronology.”
21.John Nicol, “Canadian Connection to the Martin Luther King Assassination,” CBC News, April 3, 1968, http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/canadian-
connection-in-the-martin-luther-king-assassination-1.696100.
22.“James Earl Ray: Selected Chronology.”
23.FBI, “Airtel from SAC, Newark to Director (Attn: FBI Identification Division)” (June 11, 1968), FBI Central Headquarters File, section 59, available online at Mary Ferrell Foundation, accessed September 15, 2010, www.mary
ferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=99876&relPageId=38. The authors obtained a copy with fewer redactions than the online version from the FBI MURKIN collection at the National Archives II, College Park. The releases include the names of the informants, which we have kept secret, as we do not know if they are alive or dead. Also, the MURKIN file number is hard to read, so we excluded it.
24.“James Earl Ray: Selected Chronology.”
25.Wesley Swift, “Ye That Have Killed For Gold” (sermon), June 8, 1969, Dr. Wesley Swift Library, transcript, drwesleyswift.christsassembly.com/68-06-08.htm.html.
26.Huie, He Slew the Dreamer, 140–46.
27.U.S. House Select Committee on Assassinations, Investigation of the Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.: Hearings Before the Select Comm. on Assassinations, 95th Cong., 2nd Session, vol. 8, 67, available online at the Mary Ferrell Foundation, maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=95660&relPageId=71&search=%22fu_manchu%22. James Earl Ray wrote this to John Ray on July 15, 1968, under the alias “Lord Rolf Sneyd.” Someone crossed out the paragraph that made reference to Fu Manchu and the Tongue. The FBI had to decipher the letter to make out the reference. John Ray claimed, under oath before the HSCA, that he did not know who these individuals were and he did not know who crossed out the paragraph.
28.Manuel Chait, “Brother Says Ray Told of Conspiracy,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, March 13, 1969, jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg%20Subject%20Index%20Files/R%20Disk/Ray%20John/Item%2008.pdf.
29.FBI, “From: SAC Miami to SAC: Jackson Re: Kathleen Madlyn Ainsworth, et al.” (September 17, 1968), Jackson Field Office 157-51-62.
30.Nelson, Terror in the Night, 61.
31.Ibid., 192, 247.
32.Ibid., 217–39.
33.Ibid.
34.Ibid., 255.
35.FBI, “Summary Report of SA Samuel Jennings, White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan” (February 24, 1969), FBI Jackson Field Office File 157-63, bureau file 157-1552.
36.FBI, “Re: Alleged Offer of $100,000 by the WKKKKOM to Anyone Who Kills Martin Luther King, Jr . . .” (July 24, 1967), Jackson Field Office File 157-7990, 41. Leroy B. McManaman, Appellant, v. United States of America. 327 F.2d 21 (10th Cir. 1964).
37.FBI, “Airtel from St. Louis to Director” (August 12, 1968), FBI Central Headquarters File, section 69.
38.Higgins, “Hair-Raising Experience,” 14–19. The article mentions Ayers’s stay at a mental hospital. Ayers’s brother says that this may have been connected to an impulsive, violent temper. “‘Crashed’ King Rites; Tries to ‘See’ LBJ; Quickly Arrested,” Jet XXXIV (no. 7), May 23, 1968, 8-9.
39.Donald Nissen, interview with authors, November 2009.
40.Higgins, “Hair-Raising Experience.”
41.onedrive.live.com/?cid=8A36D65B295B5998&id=8A36D65B295B5998%
2123542&parId=8A36D65B295B5998%2123436&o=OneUp.
42.FBI, “Airtel from SAC Kansas City to Director re: Memphis Airtel to Kansas City 8-23-68” (September 10, 1968), MURKIN 44-38861-5161.
43.Ibid.
Chapter 13: misdirection
1.Ray, Who Killed Martin Luther King Jr.?, 127–30.
2.McMichael, Klandestine, 9.
3.Ibid., 232.
4.Waldron and Hartmann, Legacy of Secrecy, 497–501.
5.FBI, “Report of Leonard C. Peterson re: Ferris Wood Sullinger” (April 26, 1965), Miami Field Office File 157-1118.
6.Huie, He Slew the Dreamer.
7.Ibid., 110.
8.Ibid., 3.
9.House Select Committee on Assassinations, Summary of Findings and Recommendations, 1979, at 308, available online at the National Archives, accessed December 11, 2010, www.archives.gov/research/jfk/select-committee-report
/part-2a.html#fingerprints.
10.FBI, “Airtel from Memphis to Director,” section 72 (October 25, 1968), King Assasination FBI Central Headquarters File, MURKIN 44-38861-5328, available online at Mary Ferrell Foundation, accessed September 15, 2010, www
.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/show-Doc.do?mode=searchResult&
absPageId=1132538.
11.Susan Blakeney, email message to authors, March 12, 2010.
12.Jerry Ray letter to authors, April 2010. In his letter, Jerry Ray says that James became aware of Quinn via a fellow prisoner in Tennessee, after James Earl Ray’s arrest. It is odd that Quinn, who seems to have had a low profile outside White Knights circles, was the attorney someone else referred to James Earl Ray, if indeed James told the truth on the matter. While some of Ray’s earliest attorneys (Arthur Hanes and J. B. Stoner) were, like Quinn, Klan-connected, they had much more obvious national reputations and profiles.
13.Peter Holley, “The ‘Terrifying’ Confederate Statue Some Tennesseans Want to Hide,” Washington Post, June 25, 2015, www.washingtonpost.com/news
/morning-mix/wp/2015/06/25/is-this-the-weirdest-confederate-statue-in-
dixie.
14.Ray, Who Killed Martin Luther King Jr.?, 156.
15.Richard A. Price and J. David Woodward, The Burden of Busing: The Politics of Desegregation in Nashville, Tennessee (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1995), 56.
16.Waldron and Hartmann, Legacy of Secrecy, 690.
17.House Select Committee on Assassinations, Summary of Findings and Recommendations, 1979, at 377–82, available online at the National Archives, accessed December 11, 2010, www.archives.gov/research/jfk/select-committee-report
/part-2c.html.
18.Marc Perrusquia, “Was James Earl Ray Paid to Kill MLK? Note Raises Question Anew,” Punxsutawney Hometown 127 (May 2011), issuu.com/home
townmagazine/docs/may2011/26.
19.House Select Committee on Assassinations, Press Release, November 30 and December 1, 1978, at 18, MLK Exhibit F-594, available online at the Mary
Ferrell Foundation, maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=145137&search=%22
jerry_ray%22+AND+stoner#relPageId=18&tab=page. This is a letter from Jerry Ray in support of J. B. Stoner’s Senate campaign.
20.Harold Weisberg, letter to Phil Melanson (August 10, 1984), available at the Harold Weisberg Archive at Hood College, accessed May 29, 2017, jfk.hood
.edu/Collection/Weisberg%20Subject%20Index%20Files/M%20Disk
/Melanson%20Philip/Item%2036.pdf.
21.Peter Dale Scott, “Memo re: Milteer Int Review and HUAC Hearings On Ku Klux Klan (1966)” (July 9, 1974), available online at the Harold Weisberg Archive at Hood College, jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg%20Subject%20Index%20Files/S%20Disk/Scott%20Peter%20Dale/Item%2022.pdf.
/> 22.U.S. House Select Committee on Assassinations, Investigation of the Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.: Hearings Before the Select Comm. on Assassinations, 95th Cong., 2nd Session, vol. iii, at 178 (August 18, 1978), available online at the Mary Ferrell Foundation, maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=95655&search=hobo
_AND+raoul#relPageId=182&tab=page.
23.See the photo on page 235 for the comparison and judge for yourself.
24.Harold Weisberg, letter to Bud Fensterwald (August 14, 1969), available online at the Harold Weisberg Archive at Hood College, accessed May 24, 2017,
jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg%20Subject%20Index%20Files/R%20Disk/Ray%20James%20Earl%20King%20Martin%20Luther%20Jr%20Suit%203-11-70/Item%2014.pdf.
25.Harold Weisberg, “Monograph: COINTELPRO LANE, or, CONGRESS INVESTIGATES ASSASSINATIONS,” available online at Harold Weisberg Archive at Hood College, accessed May 24, 2017, jfk.hood.edu/Collection
/Weisberg%20Subject%20Index%20Files/W%20Disk/Weisberg%20Harold
/Cointelpro%20Lane%20Monograph/Item%2001.pdf.
26.Jefferson Cohen, “Ray Looks Guilty as Alibis Dissolve. But Was He Alone?” In These Times, September 5, 1978, available online at the Harold Weisberg Archive at Hood College, jfk.hood.edu/Collection/White%20Materials/White%20
Assassination%20Clippings%20Folders/House%20Select%20Committee%20On
%20Assassinations%20Cips%20And%20Inventory/HSCA-MLK/HSCA-
MLK%2011.pdf.
27.Bruce Smith, “$11 Million Awarded in King Libel Suit,” ABCNews, October 5, 1995, abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=95490.
28.William F. Pepper, “An Act of State: The Execution of Martin Luther King, Jr.” (talk), February 4, 2003, Modern Times Bookstore, San Francisco, California, transcript, www.ratical.org/ratville/JFK/WFP020403.html.
29.Coretta Scott King et al., Plaintiffs, vs. Loyd Jowers, et al., Defendants, Case No. 97242, Shelby County, Tennessee District Court for the 13th District at Memphis, December 8, 1999, available online at the King Center, www
Killing King Page 30
