- Dexter
King and James Earl Ray meet
- Comments from Laurence Elder
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- What's next? Robert Kennedy, Jr.,
high-fiving Sirhan Sirhan? Fred Goldman going nine holes with
O.J.?
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- Excuse me if I sound rattled, but
Dexter King, a son of Martin Luther King, has just shaken the hand
of the man who killed his father.
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- Rarely have I had a reaction to a
photograph. But you saw it. Dexter King shaking the hand of James
Earl Ray, the convicted assassin of his father.
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- Rarely has a photograph been more
shocking. One thinks of the famous picture of the little
Vietnamese village girl fleeing a napalm attack. And recall the
photo of the little black child falling from the upper floor of a
tenement building. I remember his expression. But the photograph
showing Dexter King shaking the hand of James Earl Ray is in a
special category for which I've yet to have an expression.
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- What kind of anger, ignorance, victim
mentality could produce such a display of vulgarity?
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- James Earl Ray pled guilty to
assassinating Martin Luther King, Jr. His fingerprints were found
on the rifle found at the shooting scene. He checked into the room
from which the shot was fired. He purchased the rifle in
Birmingham and transported it to Memphis, Tennessee. He was an
avowed racist who thought perhaps other racists would somehow
reward him for carrying out the wishes of God.
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- The House Assassination Committee in
1978 concluded that, while a conspiracy cannot be ruled out, James
Earl Ray was the triggerman who killed Dr. King. The Committee
interviewed Ray, and they found him rambling, incoherent, and
untrustworthy.
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- To the extent that there was a
conspiracy, then James Earl Ray is most certainly a
participant.
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- No, this was not an act of
forgiveness. Forgiveness is when the guilty admits the wrongdoing,
and the victim or survivor forgives him. Forgiveness is not, "Did
you kill my father?" "No, I didn't." "I believe you, and my family
believes you." That is not forgiveness. That is an obscenity for
which I cannot find a word.
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- Let me offer a theory. As some "black
leaders" blame the CIA for the urban drug problem, as some "black
leaders" want to blame slavery for everything else, this is likely
a variant of the same virus.
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- Let's blame somebody! The CIA? The
FBI? The Hale-Bopp comet? Whatever it takes.
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- We are not responsible. We are not to
blame. If we are unhappy, if we have underachieved, if we have
failed to accomplish, it is because "they" have conspired against
us.
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- Where is the outrage? Where are the
editorials? Where are the "black leaders" to question Dexter's
sanity, if not motive?
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- I interviewed David Garrow, Professor
at Emory School of Law, and author of a Pulitzer prize-winning
biography of Dr. King. He said that the King family has a
"contractual relationship" with Oliver Stone, as does James Earl
Ray, according to Ray's own lawyer. And "New Republic" magazine
reports that the King family just signed a $10 million deal with
Time-Warner to market M.L.K. products, including CD-ROMs. (Are
Mother Teresa exercise videos far behind?)
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- Say it ain't so. Well,
conspiratorialists, care to speculate on that connection?
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