Earl Caldwell was the lone reporter on the scene the moment Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated 50 years ago. Today, he looks back on the tragedy and the event that changed the United States forever.
“I still can’t turn it loose. Even now, 50 years later, I can still hear that mighty blast, a sound so loud it seemed that surely a bomb had exploded,” writes Caldwell.
“But it wasn’t a bomb. It was the triggering of an assassin’s bullet and I still have a clear picture of Martin Luther King Jr. laying there on the balcony at the Lorraine Motel, his head in the arms of the Rev. Ralph Abernathy, his loyal friend and longtime assistant,” he adds.
“As I watched Abernathy, I made notes on the sheath of paper I carried. In 1968, was a reporter for The New York Times. I could hear distant voices shouting desperate orders,” Cadlwell writes. “I did not see the bullet strike King. I was in my room on the ground floor of the motel. King’s room was in the middle of the long part of the L-shaped configuration.”
Read his full story here.
