PBS has really been killing it with these 'American Experience' episodes. First their Jimmy Carter one, now this one about Martin Luther King Jr and James Earl Ray.
PBS AKA: Pure Badass Shit
So this film focuses specifically on MLK and his killer, James Earl Ray. It talks about what brought them both to Nashville on that fateful day in 1968, what kind of men they were, and what they believed in.
What I learned: A whole bunch about Ray. I never knew that much about him, so I had just lumped him in with the other killers of his day; Oswald, Ruby, Sirhan, and the like. It turns out he was much different. First off, he was old. Like 40. Not super old, but too old to suddenly jump into the assassin business. Also the dude had a seriously messed childhood full of severe poverty and abuse that probably led him down a road of crime and violence.
He also didn't kill King for moral reasons. He was racist, and he did kill him because he thought it'd help presidential candidate (and big ol' racist) George Wallace win the election. But the main reason was for the bounty that had been put on King's head, dead or alive. (side note- do they still put out bounties? I thought that died out along with spurs and saloons). Ray wanted the money, and all the fame that'd come with collecting it.
Plus, he was surprisingly handsome. Is that a weird thing to say? Maybe it's just cause everyone was more dapper back then.
Not bad (for a racist)
What I liked: Great amount of interviews with journalists and colleagues of King. Dan Rather had a lot of really moving things to say; I love that dude.
Also some cool insight into the search for Ray went. So they found the gun right away, and got perfect prints off it. But back then they didn't have any kind of database to compare it to. So police sat with magnifying glasses and compared the prints to a PILE of finger prints they had on file from anyone with a criminal record. They had 50,000 files! Can you believe that? That's like finding out Disney had to draw each frame hand by hand. Miraculously after 700 files they found a match with James Earl Ray.
What I didn't like: Man, obviously we all know how this story ends. King was in Nashville to help with a sanitation worker's strike. King had spent the last years focusing on combating poverty and defending workers' rights, and his "Poor Man's March" was just a little ways off before he died. I get teary eyed thinking about all the good that he could have done had he lived.
The film also purposed an interesting theory; that the culture of violence that led Ray to murder King was sown in the rhetoric of the government at the time. Men like Wallace, who openly supported segregation, and J Edgar Hoover, who vehemently hated MLK, spoke often about the problem of race in America. Their tone could easily have influenced an unbalanced man like Ray to think killing King was not only okay, but necessary in keeping America safe. It pains me to see public figures, political and pundits alike, not taking responsibility for the power of their words.
A great, sad film about a strong man and a troubled man, and how their lives crossed.
It can be found online at PBS.com and netflix.
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