7 The 100 Most Influential World Leaders of All Time 7Challenges of the Final Years
In March 1965 King was criticized for yielding to state
troopers at a Selma, Ala., march that was aimed at the
need for a federal voting-rights law that would provide
legal support for the enfranchisement of African
Americans in the South. He was also criticized for failing
in the effort to change Chicago’s housing segregation
policies. King was now being challenged and even pub-
licly derided by young black-power enthusiasts. While
King stood for patience, middle-class respectability, and
a measured approach to social change, more revolution-
ary leaders like Malcolm X stood for confrontation and
immediate change.
The strain and changing dynamics of the civil rights
movement had taken a toll on King, especially in the final
months of his life. In the opinion of many of his followers
and biographers, King seemed to sense his end was near.
As King prophetically told a crowd at the Mason Temple
Church in Memphis on April 3, the night before he died,
“I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you.
But I want you to know tonight that we, as a people, will
get to the promised land.” The next day, while standing
on the second-story balcony of the Lorraine Motel in
Memphis, King was killed by a sniper’s bullet. The killing
sparked riots and disturbances in over 100 cities across
the country.
On March 10, 1969, the accused white assassin, James
Earl Ray, pleaded guilty to the murder and was sentenced
to 99 years in prison. Ray later recanted his confession. In
a surprising turn of events, members of the King family
eventually came to Ray’s defense, believing his pleas of
innocence. Although the U.S. government conducted
several investigations into the murder of King and each