Hello and welcome to this day, a history show from Radiotopia.

My name is Jody Avergan.

It is 50 Weeks at Shaped America.

This is part two of our look at the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.

We are there on April 4th, 1968, room 306 at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis.

This episode, we will talk about King's assassin, James R. Ray, and the reaction to King's death,

how his legacy became contested almost immediately, and of course, how his legacy has shifted

and shaped America over the decades since.

Here, as always, Nicole Hammer of Vanderbilt and Kelly Carter Jackson of Wesley.

Hello there.

Hello, Jody.

Hey there.

Maybe start with a little bit about James Earl Ray, the man who killed Martin Luther King, Jr.

That we'll talk a little bit about some of why that is a contentious statement for some.

But he was, I don't know, a small-time crook.

He kind of came from a really chaotic, transient family.

He grew up in rural Illinois and Missouri.

You know, his father was a Czech forger who was like always on the run from the cops and

Ray dropped out of school at 12, got dishonorably discharged from the army.

I think the important thing to understand about him is we talked about this last episode,

but like a lot of people, he undergoes a little bit of a political and racial radicalization

in the late 60s. And he gravitates towards

...