Killing the Dream by Gerald L. Posner
Thirty years after his death on a Memphis motel balcony, this work re-examines the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. Using interviews and previously undisclosed evidence, the author uncovers the errors of previous investigations and resolves speculation about whether the FBI, CIA or the Mafia was involved in the murder of one of the twentieth century's most luminous icons. From King's rousing mountaintop speech the night before he was killed, to the shock in the courtroom when Ray suddenly pled guilty and the truth seemed lost forever, Posner re-creates the memorable dramas of the case, and produces a fascinating portrait of this career criminal from one of the most forsaken parts of poor, white America. Ray's recent death in prison prompted speculation that he had taken his secrets to the grave, but Killing the Dream ends those fears, laying to rest over three decades of conjecture and distortion about what really happened on that April morning in 1968.