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courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division |
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APRIL 4 |
| 1968 While in Memphis, Tennessee, helping out with a garbage-workers' strike, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is shot and killed outside his motel room by James Earl Ray. In October of 1980, 12 years after his death, the Martin Luther King, Jr., National Historic Site would be established in Atlanta, Georgia, as a unit of the National Park Service to honor the life of Dr. King and his leadership in the American Civil Rights Movement. In 1986, Congress would proclaim a national holiday in King's honor to be observed on the third Monday in January each year. In 1996, Congress would also establish the Selma-to-Montgomery National Historic Trail under the National Trails System Act. |
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