Museum expansion includes perch of King's killer

MEMPHIS, Tenn. -- It's a question often asked by visitors to the museum on the site of Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination: Where did the shot come from?

With the opening Saturday of the National Civil Rights Museum's $11 million expansion, the official answer is explained in startling clarity. The main part of the museum is built around the former Lorraine Motel where King was shot while standing on a second-floor balcony on April 4, 1968.

Since the museum opened in 1991, visitors have been able to look into King's room and peer out on the balcony where he fell mortally wounded.

Now, they get a look, too, from the killer's perspective.

The expansion, begun in 1999, took in two buildings across a small side street from the Lorraine.

One of them was the cheap rooming house from which authorities say confessed killer James Earl Ray fired the rifle shot that killed King, who was in Memphis to help striking sanitation workers.

"So many people ask where the shot came from. I think it's going to give them a sense of how close that shot was," said museum director Beverly Robertson.

Before the expansion, the museum told the history of America's struggle for civil rights from slavery to King's assassination.

Now that story is carried into the present with new exhibits on the continuing search for equal rights and the many advances made since King's death.

"It allows us to connect the movement with young people based on where they are now," Robertson said.

"Maybe it's not where it should be but it's certainly not where it used to be."

The expansion, financed by private donations, has added 12,800 square feet to the museum's original 27,000 square feet of exhibit space.

One of the new exhibits focuses on lingering questions about King's death and Ray's many unsuccessful attempts to take back his guilty plea.

Ray, a career criminal and prison escapee, pleaded guilty to the murder in 1969 after he was captured in England and brought back to Memphis. With his confession, Ray avoided the possibility of a death sentence. He drew 99 years in prison and died there of liver disease in 1998.

Authorities testified at the hearing where Ray entered his plea that the fatal shot came from the window of a second-floor bathroom of the rooming house.

The museum expansion includes the room Ray rented under an assumed name the morning of the murder as well as the communal bathroom just down the hall.

The rooming house window is only 215 feet from the Lorraine, and the scope on Ray's .30-06 hunting rifle would have made his target appear significantly closer.

Robertson said she expects the exhibit to leave visitors with feelings similar to those she had at the site of President John F. Kennedy's assassination in Dallas.

"When I stood in the book depository, I don't think I felt upset. But it was almost surreal," she said.

Over the years, many people have questioned whether Ray committed the murder by himself. The King family believes Ray was a patsy for conspirators who may have included government agents.

The museum avoids an official stand, allowing the evidence against Ray to stand on its own.

Through multimedia displays, the exhibit covers reports from a U.S. House committee in 1978 and a Justice Department review in 2000. It also includes a 1998 report by the state prosecutor's office in Memphis and the 1999 conclusions of an investigation by the King family.

The federal and state investigations found Ray was guilty but may have had help in planning the murder or fleeing from justice. But no evidence was found of a widespread conspiracy.

The King family, however, remains convinced of a major conspiracy and cover-up. The family won a wrongful death suit in Memphis in 1999 against a former restaurant owner, Lloyd Jowers, who claimed he played a part in the murder.

State prosecutors could find no evidence to support that claim so no criminal charges were filed.

Police and the FBI gathered a large amount of physical evidence, and some of it will be on public display for the first time.

"You'll see the web of evidence the state created," Robertson said. "But visitors can decide for themselves what they think."

The display includes the rifle found outside the boarding house with Ray's fingerprints on it and personal items he left behind in his room. Also included is the bathroom window sill with marks authorities say were made by the rifle's recoil.

The Lorraine, a downtown hotel popular with black travelers in the days of segregation, was a crumbling mess when a group of citizens formed the Martin Luther King Memorial Foundation and bought it for $144,000 at a foreclosure auction in 1982.

It took nine years to get the museum built, primarily with $9 million from the state and local governments. Now, it is one of the city's best-known landmarks, drawing 150,000 visitors a year.

While the museum gives details of King's murder for the first time, the expansion's purpose was much broader.

"People tend to ask us what happened after Dr. King was killed. Did the dream die with Dr. King? And how has the movement affected the world?" Robertson said. "It gives people a sense that you can kill the dreamer but not the dream."