“The US Government Killed Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.”

By James F. Tracy

Today marks the fiftieth anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the most significant Black man in United States history. Western news media are quick to hollowly mourn his death. These are the same mainstream voices that, in concert with the Lyndon B. Johnson administration, almost uniformly condemned King when he came out against America’s criminal war in Southeast Asia during his April 4, 1967 Riverside Church speech. Abundant evidence now suggests that one year later the US government orchestrated his assassination. Unsurprisingly, major media continue to cling to the debunked government conspiracy theory that James Early Ray was the sole assassin of Dr. King. As is often the case, the truth is far deeper than such make-believe journalism is willing to fathom.

Along these lines, the United States is especially fond of dedicating monuments, boulevards, even airports to the elected leaders and public officials its lettered agencies have murdered. Dr. Pepper’s research and legal efforts that resulted in the 1999 King v. Jowers verdict elaborated on in the video below left no doubt that the US government was directly involved in the April 4, 1968 assassination of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. As Coretta Scott King remarked, “The jury was clearly convinced by the extensive evidence that was presented during the trial that … the conspiracy of the Mafia, local, state and federal government agencies, were deeply involved in the assassination of my husband.”

At the time and to this day the indisputable facts brought to light in the case were blacked out entirely by US corporate media. Nor are they a topic of discussion in American college classrooms (let alone grade school), furthering the country’s gross inability to reflect on and come to terms with its complex history. We further wonder when the likes of “Black Lives Matter” will be putting in a kick on how the public has been propagandized on how the most significant black figure of the past half century was killed. 

In this January 17, 2012 lecture attorney WIlliam F. Pepper Esq.  details the responsibility of the US government for the assassination of Martin Luther King after more than 30 years’ investigation. As he explains here, he won a jury verdict against the US government for that assassination in a civil suit he brought for Coretta Scott King, widow of MLK Jr. Although there were two snipers and their spotters in place, employed by the US, a third shooter in bushes, a hired off-duty Memphis policeman fired the fatal shot. Introduction by Episcopal Priest Rev. Frank Morales. Camera: Joe Friendly.

William Francis Pepper is the author of Orders to Kill: The Truth Behind the Murder of Martin Luther King (1995), An Act of State: The Execution of Martin Luther King (2003), and The Plot to Kill King: The Truth Behind the Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. (2017). Dr. Pepper is a barrister in the United Kingdom and admitted to the bar in numerous jurisdictions in the United States of America. His primary work is international commercial law. He has represented governments in the Middle East, Africa, South America, and Asia. Today, Pepper represents Sirhan Sirhan, the gunman convicted in the assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy in June 1968.

Bill Pepper was a friend of Martin Luther King in the last year of his life. Some years after King’s death, Bill Pepper went on to represent James Earl Ray in his guilty plea, and subsequent conviction. Pepper believes that Ray was framed by the federal government and that King was killed by a conspiracy that involved the FBI, the CIA, the military, the Memphis police and organized crime figures from New Orleans and Memphis. He later represented James Earl Ray in a televised mock trial in an attempt to get Ray the trial that he never had.

He then represented the King family in a wrongful death civil trial, King family vs. Loyd Jowers and “other unknown co-conspirators.” During a trial that lasted four weeks Bill produced over seventy witnesses. Jowers, testifying by deposition, stated that James Earl Ray was a scapegoat, and not involved in the assassination. Jowers testified that Memphis police officer Earl Clark fired the fatal shots. On December 8, 1999, the Memphis jury found Jowers responsible and found that the assassination plot included also “governmental agencies.” The jury took less than an hour to find in favor of the King family for the requested sum of $1.00

William Pepper is heavily involved in Human Rights Law, for a time convening the International Human Rights Seminar at Oxford University, during which time individuals such as Hugo Chavez, the President of Venezuela, accepted invitations to address the seminar. He lives in the US currently -not primarily- but travels frequently to England.