Hello and welcome to this day, a history show from Radiotopia. My name is Jody Avergan.

It is 50 Weeks that shaped America, our year-long America 250 series, Week 14. And for the first time in our

series, we head to the 1960s and a year that we've

talked about, maybe the most of any other over the course of this show's history, 1968.

Gosh, 1968. We have the Tet Offensive in Vietnam and the larger American public starting to

see what was really happening there and turn against the war. protests and violence around the world, not just in the U.S.

The Apollo 8 mission is in there.

Landmark civil rights legislation is passed in the second half of the year.

And of course, 1968 is a year of assassinations.

Martin Luther King in April, RFK in June.

And this week's focus is the assassination of MLK in the spring of

1968. We will head to Memphis and the site of the assassination, but also try and get a sense

of King's evolving politics in the months before he was killed. King was shot on April 4th,

on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel at 601 p.m.

Pronounced dead shortly after arriving at the hospital about an hour later.

The day before, he had landed in Memphis after his plane was delayed because of a bomb threat.

And on the tarmac, he gave an impromptu speech to the people who had gathered to greet him.

In that speech, he said, quote, like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned

about that now. I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you, but I want you to know that

tonight we as a people will get to the promised land. The next day, MLK would be dead.

So here to discuss the last days and weeks of MLK in two parts are, as always, Nicole Hammer of

Vanderbilt and Kelly Carter Jackson of Wellesley. Hello there. Hello, Jody. Hey there. I hate the

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