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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's Chuck.

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Speaker 2: And this is part two of our two parter. I'm

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Speaker 2: the assassination of Martin Luther King Junior.

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Speaker 1: That's right where we locked off with Part one was

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Speaker 1: the funeral of Martin Luther King Junior. And we're going

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Speaker 1: to pick up now with the investigation and the manhunt.

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Speaker 1: And while we're talking about that, we might as well

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Speaker 1: go ahead and say it's still perhaps the largest manhunt

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Speaker 1: and FBI history, depending on who you ask, cost a

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Speaker 1: couple of million bucks in those dollars, thirty five hundred investigators.

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Speaker 1: And it was all just a bit awkward because, as

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Speaker 1: we all know, or maybe some people don't know this,

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Speaker 1: but the FBI had been tracking Martin Luther King Junior

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Speaker 1: since nineteen fifty six, so for twelve years under a

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Speaker 1: program called racial Matters, Racial matters.

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Speaker 2: And then I don't think they meant like matters like

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Speaker 2: race matters.

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Speaker 3: No, I think they meant the other way, like the

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Speaker 3: matters of race.

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Speaker 2: Right.

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Speaker 1: And then in nineteen sixty three they started tapping his

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Speaker 1: bones under the Communist infiltration program and Jay Edgar Hoover

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Speaker 1: was still around at the time, because it seems like

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Speaker 1: he was there for three hundred years. Yeah, and he

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Speaker 1: didn't like Martin Luther King Junior. He called the most

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Speaker 1: notorious liar in the country publicly at a press conference

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Speaker 1: because King had been criticizing the FBI because they, you know,

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Speaker 1: weren't protecting the civil rights of black Americans, and so.

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Speaker 3: Hoover didn't like the guy.

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Speaker 1: Yet he was the guy kind of at the top

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Speaker 1: of this huge investigation.

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Speaker 2: I read Martin Luther King's cool response to Jaegar Hoover

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Speaker 2: calling the most notorious liar. Get bent, No, no, He

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Speaker 2: said that Jayegar Hoover must be under tremendous pressure to

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Speaker 2: have said such a thing. Was sympathetic.

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Speaker 3: Jeez, let's talk about the high road man.

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Speaker 2: Yeah for sure.

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Speaker 1: All right, So, the FBI gets a hold of that

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Speaker 1: thirty out six rifle that was determined to be the

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Speaker 1: murder weapon. They couldn't actually conclusively link that bullet to

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Speaker 1: the gun because the shell had been fragmented, but it

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Speaker 1: was the same caliber, and everybody was like, come on,

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Speaker 1: it's the gun. Can we all just agree to that?

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Speaker 2: How many rifles do you guys? Have just laying around

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Speaker 2: in Memphis that day.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, dumped minutes after by a guy who sped away

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Speaker 1: in a Mustang.

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Speaker 2: Right hundreds of just one hundred feet or so away

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Speaker 2: from the murder scene. So yeah, they couldn't conclusively link

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Speaker 2: that to the gun, but they were able to trace

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Speaker 2: the serial number, and they traced it back to a

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Speaker 2: sporting goods store in Birmingham, Alabama called Aeromarine Supply, and

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Speaker 2: they confirmed that it had been purchased just a few

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Speaker 2: days before MLK was assassinated.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, along with a scope and a gentleman who said

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Speaker 1: that he was going hunting on a hunting trip with

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Speaker 1: his brother.

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Speaker 2: Okay, because yeah, you have to you have to be

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Speaker 2: like that, that's believable, right, when you're buying a gun,

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Speaker 2: you gotta have a cover story.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and under an alias, under the name Harvey Lomyer.

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Speaker 2: Right. So, two weeks after the killing, they figured out

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Speaker 2: that the prints on the gun matched those of a

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Speaker 2: guy named James Earl Ray. And at the time, James

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Speaker 2: Orl Ray had been an escape convict from a state

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Speaker 2: prison in Missouri for basically a year, he'd been on

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Speaker 2: the run. So now we had a suspect and we

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Speaker 2: had photos, and they started circulating it around to people

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Speaker 2: who had putatively interacted with James Orlray, including the guy

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Speaker 2: at the aeromarine supply store who sold him the gun.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, so he was like, that's the guy.

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Speaker 1: There are witnesses we mentioned earlier in part one at

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Speaker 1: Bessie Brewer boarding house. They also looked at pictures and

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Speaker 1: they were like, yeah, that's the guy we saw running away.

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Speaker 1: And they went to the hotel clerk or the boarding

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Speaker 1: house clerk and they said, yeah, this guy signed in.

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Speaker 1: That's him for sure, under the name John Willard. So

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Speaker 1: he had multiple aliases, and they that portable radio that

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Speaker 1: they found in the bundle had a scratched out ID

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Speaker 1: number and they eventually figured out that that was his

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Speaker 1: his prison radio. It had his his inmate number on it.

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Speaker 1: So he escaped prison, was like, I'm taking my radio.

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Speaker 2: It seems pretty conclusive that James o'ray would have been

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Speaker 2: the shooter, right, Yeah, So they issued an indictment for

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Speaker 2: his arrest for the murder of Martin Luther King Junior

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Speaker 2: on May seventh, a couple months after or Noah month

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Speaker 2: after MLK was murdered, and an international manhunt began I

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Speaker 2: know the FBI was definitely concentrating on the United States,

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Speaker 2: but they didn't rule out the possibility that he had

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Speaker 2: started to go abroad, and so they he issued it

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Speaker 2: far and wide, a wanted poster with his data and

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Speaker 2: his photos on it.

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Speaker 3: So the FBI started tracking his movements.

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Speaker 1: He's got all these aliases in that year that he

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Speaker 1: was on the LAMB. After the shooting, he was into

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Speaker 1: politics for a little while, supporting Alabama Governor George Wallace

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Speaker 1: his presidential campaign. He was in la for a little while,

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Speaker 1: he took dance lessons, He went to Bartending School. He

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Speaker 1: lived in Mexico for like a month or so, trying

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Speaker 1: to become a pornography director under the name Eric Salvo Galt.

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Speaker 1: That didn't work out, so he left Mexico came back

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Speaker 1: to the States, and apparently in like the month or

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Speaker 1: so before the assassination, he had been stalking King and

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Speaker 1: had followed him from Atlanta to Memphis.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so it seemed like the month before he murdered

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Speaker 2: Martin Luther King Junior. He suddenly got that idea in

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Speaker 2: his head because none of his movement suggested that he

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Speaker 2: had even focused on Martin Luther King at all up

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Speaker 2: to that point. After the assassination, James ro'ray fled to Toronto.

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Speaker 2: It's eventually where he landed first. Sorry, I'm sorry Toronto.

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Speaker 2: I know that too, thanks Chuck. So at the time, apparently,

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Speaker 2: if you were an American criminal in Canada, they were very,

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Speaker 2: very trusting at the time. They basically said, if you

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Speaker 2: swear that you're a Canadian citizen, you give us your name,

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Speaker 2: we'll send you a passport. And that's what crooks would do.

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Speaker 2: They would go to Canada when they were on the run.

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Speaker 2: They would look up old newspapers at the library and

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Speaker 2: find birth announcements from about the same time that they

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Speaker 2: were born, finding people who were their age, and they

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Speaker 2: would get their name. They would get their mother's maiden

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Speaker 2: name sometimes And apparently you didn't even need that. You

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Speaker 2: just fill out this form, say your name, say yes,

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Speaker 2: I swear I'm a Canadian citizen, and mail off for

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Speaker 2: a passport which would be mailed back to you too sweet.

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Speaker 2: And now you had a fraudulent, but official and legitimate

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Speaker 2: passport that you could use to travel the world with

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Speaker 2: under a new alias.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and this time his alias was because you know,

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Speaker 1: it was a real dude. In fact, the guy was

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Speaker 1: a cop. Pretty ironic. But his name was Raymond George.

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Speaker 1: I guess sneid sn e y d.

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Speaker 2: I heard snaid from somebody. Want. I don't know if

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Speaker 2: that was definitive.

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Speaker 1: Okay, well it's good that we spelled it out because

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Speaker 1: that'll come into play in a minute here. But from

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Speaker 1: Toronto he went to London. He was actually in London

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Speaker 1: a couple of times. He passed through London on his

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Speaker 1: way to Lisbon after that first flight from Canada. And

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Speaker 1: he was going to Lisbon because he was hoping to

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Speaker 1: go to Africa before the murder, and then afterward, his

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Speaker 1: long term plan was to go to Rhodesia now Zimbabwe

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Speaker 1: because in nineteen sixty a five percent white minority there

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Speaker 1: had assumed independence from the UK and he was to

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Speaker 1: go to Rhodesia and I'm gonna integrate into this small

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Speaker 1: white minority and become a paid mercenary.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. So, I mean he went to Lisbon hoping to

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Speaker 2: secure passage to Africa, and while he was there, he's like,

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Speaker 2: I got a great idea, surely that people are on

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Speaker 2: my trail, that Feds are on my trail now, and

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Speaker 2: they might even know my alias, so I need a

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Speaker 2: new alias. I'm going to go to the Canadian consulate

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Speaker 2: here in Lisbon. I'm going to tell them that they

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Speaker 2: misspelled my name on my passport. So he went there

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Speaker 2: and he told the Canadian consulate there that his last

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Speaker 2: name actually is spelled with an A, not a D.

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Speaker 2: And they're like, okay, whatever, here's your new passport with

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Speaker 2: your last name spelled correctly. And he had a new alias,

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Speaker 2: Ramon George Snee Yeah, instead of Snade. So there's one

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Speaker 2: letter change. And apparently that's satisfied James Orlray that he

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Speaker 2: had a new alias.

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Speaker 3: Now, yeah, we'll get to who Ray was a little bit.

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Speaker 1: But the one takeaway from everything that I've read is

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Speaker 1: he was not a very smart person.

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Speaker 2: Not a criminal mastermind. He was no brain from Pinky

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Speaker 2: in the Brain No.

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Speaker 1: Also, because he did not throw that first passport away

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Speaker 1: and that was would be his undoing. He like, like

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Speaker 1: we said, he could not secure that passage to Africa,

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Speaker 1: so he went back to London to figure out what

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Speaker 1: his next move was. He called a This is a

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Speaker 1: sort of a weird part of the story. He called

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Speaker 1: a reporter named Ian Colvin at the Daily Mail's foreign desk,

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Speaker 1: and I don't know if this guy had written articles

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Speaker 1: about it mercenaries or something.

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Speaker 2: I don't know either, That's the only thing I can

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Speaker 2: figure out.

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Speaker 1: Because he called this random reporter and said, hey, you

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Speaker 1: got any contacts for these mercenaries. Colvian was like, no,

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Speaker 1: but if you're I guess, if you're looking to get

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Speaker 1: into that kind of thing, check into Brussels, because that's

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Speaker 1: where he might have better luck. It's a very strange

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Speaker 1: little side part of this story, for sure.

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Speaker 2: It really is. So James Earl Ray was like, thank you,

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Speaker 2: thank you much and starts booking a flight two Brussels

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Speaker 2: from London. And it was in London on his way

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Speaker 2: to Brussels that he finally got nabbed. But not because

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Speaker 2: somebody noticed his mugshot or wanted poster and saw that

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Speaker 2: he was him, but because he had those two Canadian

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Speaker 2: passports and he had him in the same wallet.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, two different names, yes.

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Speaker 2: And the passport checker noticed that he had two passports

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Speaker 2: and asked him about it. And I guess a cop

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Speaker 2: was standing nearby and stepped over and was like, hey,

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Speaker 2: why don't you join us in the back room. We've

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Speaker 2: got some questions for you, and that was it for

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Speaker 2: Ramon George Snade Snea. Yeah, he was quickly identified as

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Speaker 2: James Rolray. He had a thirty eight caliber pistol tucked

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Speaker 2: in the back of his pants going to board a plane.

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Speaker 3: You could do that back then any metals detectors.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, as long as you didn't shoot it off because

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Speaker 2: you were excited during takeoff in the plane that they

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Speaker 2: didn't really care.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, So he was confirmed as James Lray. He was

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Speaker 1: taken into custody and on July nineteenth was flown back

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Speaker 1: to the US to stand trial. And that seems like

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Speaker 1: a great place for our first break.

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Speaker 2: Okay, So James Arrol Ray's been taken into custody and

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Speaker 2: he's flown back to the United States on July nineteenth

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Speaker 2: to stand trial, and the whole world is watching. They

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Speaker 2: want to know why the man who assassinated Martin Luther

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Speaker 2: King Junior, did that, Why he murdered MLK, What was

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Speaker 2: the point, what was the reason. They also wanted to

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Speaker 2: know if he had been working with other people, because

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Speaker 2: from the outset people were the public was just openly

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Speaker 2: skeptical that there was some conspiracy that had resulted in

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Speaker 2: mlk's murder and the world got none of that because

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Speaker 2: James o'ray pled guilty instead of going to trial. And

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Speaker 2: there was a paper reporting on the case who was

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Speaker 2: at this hearing where he played guilty and said that

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Speaker 2: it brought a shockingly swift ending to the case and

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Speaker 2: everybody was like, what just happened? And that was essentially

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Speaker 2: that there was no trial ever and there were no

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Speaker 2: facts presented, so it was just like, yep, I did

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Speaker 2: it send me to jail? Yeah.

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Speaker 1: His attorney at the time, Percy Foreman, said, well, you know,

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Speaker 1: if you go to a jury trial, you're probably going

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Speaker 1: to get a death sentence because of you know, because

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Speaker 1: of the murder and its impact on the country. Basically

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Speaker 1: like you're not going to avoid the electric chair. So

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Speaker 1: if you plead guilty, you can get the maximum life sentence,

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Speaker 1: which is ninety nine years in prison in Tennessee. And

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Speaker 1: he said that's probably the right route to take, so

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Speaker 1: Ray took it. It was a two hour affair in court.

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Speaker 1: No one got the satisfaction of hearing any of the evidence.

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Speaker 1: It also meant he wouldn't be eligible for parole for

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Speaker 1: thirty years, whereas if he had gotten a life sentence

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Speaker 1: and not the ninety nine. He could have gotten out

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Speaker 1: in twelve and a half, but just three days after

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Speaker 1: he pleaded guilty, he recanted and tried for the rest

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Speaker 1: of his life to get a new trial, tried to escape.

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Speaker 1: He did escape. In fact, if you listened to our

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Speaker 1: Barkley Marathon episode, he escaped success for three days in

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Speaker 1: nineteen seventy seven and was picked up in Brushy Mountain

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Speaker 1: where that race takes place. But he would eventually die

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Speaker 1: in prison in nineteen ninety eight at the age of seventy,

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Speaker 1: which would also been the year he was first eligible

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Speaker 1: for parole.

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Speaker 2: Yes, and you said earlier that we were going to

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Speaker 2: talk a little bit about James Rolray in his criminal career.

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Speaker 3: That's right.

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Speaker 2: So he was born in Illinois, but mostly grew up

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Speaker 2: in Missouri, and he was the oldest of nine kids,

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Speaker 2: and his family was impoverished. His father was a convict

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Speaker 2: himself who didn't work very often. His mother was, as

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Speaker 2: James Earlray put it, a woman of very limited intelligence,

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Speaker 2: barely able to communicate, and she also drank very heavily.

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Speaker 2: And there was a report card from grade school that

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Speaker 2: said his attitude towards regulations was that he violates all

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Speaker 2: of them. This was him as a kid, and he

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Speaker 2: didn't improve very much as an adult. He dropped out

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Speaker 2: of high school at sixteen, worked for a while, and

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Speaker 2: then he joined the arm.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, he joined the army. Yeah, he dropped out of

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Speaker 1: high school at sixteen. King was in college at fifteen.

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Speaker 1: To just contrast the two situations, and forty sixty he

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Speaker 1: joined the army after being laid off from his civilian

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Speaker 1: job in the army. He was charged with drunkenness with

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Speaker 1: breaking arrest. He served three months in the army clink

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Speaker 1: hard labor for that. He was discharged less than honorably

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Speaker 1: for quote ineptness and lack of adaptability to military service

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Speaker 1: in nineteen forty eight. So just a couple of years

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Speaker 1: in the army. And then was a drifter and a

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Speaker 1: petty criminal who was in and out of jail over

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Speaker 1: and over.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and he was serving a twenty year sentence for

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Speaker 2: robbery in Missouri. He started at nineteen sixty when he

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Speaker 2: broke out in nineteen sixty seven and began that year

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Speaker 2: on the lamb that culminated in the assassination of MLK.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know, it was really a twenty year

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Speaker 1: prison sentence for everything because it was a pretty small

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Speaker 1: like robbery at Kroger that wouldn't have gotten a twenty year.

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Speaker 1: But he had other armed robbery convictions, He had mail

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Speaker 1: fraud convictions and escape attempts, so it was like, hey,

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Speaker 1: we're just going to try and put you away for

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Speaker 1: a while. And if you're curious how he escaped, he

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Speaker 1: hid in a bread delivery truck that was leaving the prison.

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Speaker 2: I heard that too. Yeah, you would have found me

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Speaker 2: eating loaves of bread too, with.

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Speaker 3: Your little portable radio prison radio.

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Speaker 2: Just snaffing my fingers with a mouthful of bread. So

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Speaker 2: his criminal history, just because your lifetime criminal doesn't mean

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Speaker 2: you're good at it. Yeah, And James Earl Ray is

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Speaker 2: an excellent example of that time. Magazine described him back

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Speaker 2: in nineteen seventy seven as a bungling, petty gunman and

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Speaker 2: burglar whose life of crime has mostly been one fizzle

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Speaker 2: after another. And they weren't lying because some of his

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Speaker 2: greatest hits that they went on to site was that

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Speaker 2: at one crime scene he dropped identification, He dropped his ID. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: one hold up in a neighborhood he got lost drive

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Speaker 2: as he was making his getaway, ended up back driving

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Speaker 2: back into the neighborhood where he just robbed somebody and

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Speaker 2: was caught by the police who'd arrived on the scene

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Speaker 2: by then.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, who are apparently surprised. I imagine they were like,

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Speaker 1: oh wait a minute.

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Speaker 3: Is that him coming back?

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Speaker 2: Get a load of this guy.

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Speaker 1: Another time he came back to re rob a place

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Speaker 1: he had already robbed, re entered the window to get

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Speaker 1: more stuff.

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Speaker 2: That is a no, no, that is crime. One oh one.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, like, get out of there. I'm not a criminal,

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Speaker 1: but I would get out of there.

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Speaker 2: So even when he was in London too, when he

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Speaker 2: was on the run after assassinating MLK, he carried out

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Speaker 2: not one, but two bungle robberies.

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Speaker 3: It's crazy.

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Speaker 2: One was a bank and he managed to only get

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Speaker 2: one hundred pounds from a bank.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: The other was a jewelry store. He got nothing because

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Speaker 2: the owner knocked the gun out of his hand and

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Speaker 2: pressed the alarm. So James Lreay ran away.

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Speaker 1: And these are Londoners, they're not used to knocking guns

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Speaker 1: out of hands, and this guy still managed to do it.

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Speaker 3: That's right, you know.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, he just was not a very good criminal, even

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Speaker 2: though he tried it over and over again, and he

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Speaker 2: was successful. I mean, like he did successfully rob people

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Speaker 2: and break into places and all that. But if you

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Speaker 2: put it all together, he didn't have like a violent

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Speaker 2: criminal rap sheet. He was just kind of this petty criminal.

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Speaker 2: That's how he supported himself in life as a criminal

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Speaker 2: who went from that to murdering one of the most

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Speaker 2: important Americans in history in one single action, seemingly overnight.

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Speaker 2: And a lot of people say that just doesn't add up.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know, we don't lend our show than

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Speaker 1: ourselves to conspira. We're not conspiracy minded generally, but you

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Speaker 1: don't have to be to look at this and say

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Speaker 1: he probably didn't act alone. It just doesn't add up,

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Speaker 1: Like you said, So, there have been congressional committees over

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Speaker 1: the years. They have been family members of Martin Luther

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Speaker 1: King Junior that said, yeah, this was this was part

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Speaker 1: of a conspiracy. There's never been any solid agreement on

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Speaker 1: what kind of conspiracy and who else was behind it.

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Speaker 1: And we're not going to get into the nitty gritty

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Speaker 1: of all the there's a lot of there's a lot

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Speaker 1: of discounted stuff and stuff that rabbit holes.

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Speaker 3: He shouldn't even go down.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, So we're not going to get into those, but

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Speaker 1: we are going to talk about the legit idea of

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Speaker 1: a conspiracy and who could have been involved, like for real?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, because again, how did this petty criminal plan an

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Speaker 2: assassination that he successfully carried out and then also panic

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Speaker 2: in a panic like dropped us the murder weapon and

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Speaker 2: ran off in a place where it be found within

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Speaker 2: a minute or two. Where did he get the funding

359
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Speaker 2: that he would need to support himself for a year

360
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Speaker 2: on the lamb and then to travel abroad to flee

361
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Speaker 2: after the assassination. These are just a few of the

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Speaker 2: questions people have come up with, and the obvious solution

363
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Speaker 2: is that he had help in some way, shape or form.

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Speaker 2: But another really big question that I think that a

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Speaker 2: lot of people overlook is why, like why did he

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Speaker 2: murder Martin Luther King Junior. He wasn't known as a fanatic.

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Speaker 2: He was a racist, and like we said, he supported

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Speaker 2: George Wallace for his segregationists presidential bid, but he wasn't

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Speaker 2: He wasn't like a fanatic, and also like he didn't

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Speaker 2: have any particularly deep emotions one way or another for MLK.

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Speaker 2: He just was his murderer. And it just does not

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Speaker 2: make a lot of sense.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, So after he retracted that confession, just days after

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Speaker 1: his conviction, he started saying, I was set up, and

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Speaker 1: I was set.

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Speaker 3: Up by a guy named Raoul.

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Speaker 1: So supposedly he had a lot of interactions with this

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Speaker 1: Rol guy, but he went from describing him as a

379
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Speaker 1: Latino with blonde hair to a French Canadian with red hair.

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Speaker 1: Nobody ever witnessed him with anyone that looked like either

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Speaker 1: one of those people. A lot of people think there

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Speaker 1: is no Raoul at all, but he still could have

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Speaker 1: had help, you know, from someone else.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. So you mentioned congressional committees that concluded that there

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Speaker 2: was some sort of conspiracy. One of them was House

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Speaker 2: Select Committee on Assassinations in nineteen seventy eight. They said

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Speaker 2: that there was a likelihood of conspiracy in the assassination

388
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Speaker 2: of doctor King, but they didn't think it like Raoul

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Speaker 2: was involved or anything like that. It was much more

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Speaker 2: pedestrian and mundane, and in my opinion then much more

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Speaker 2: likely as far as the conspiracy theories go. But they

392
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Speaker 2: put it on two prominent but shady Saint Louis's I'm

393
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Speaker 2: pretty sure that's what you call people from Saint Louis.

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Speaker 2: One was a former stockbroker who became a motel owner.

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Speaker 2: His name was John R. Kaufman. The other was a

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Speaker 2: patent lawyer in town named John H. Sutherland, and both

397
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Speaker 2: of them were dead by the time the committee hearings

398
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Speaker 2: were held in nineteen seventy eight, but they supposedly put

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Speaker 2: a bounty on mlk's head, and James E. O'ray, whose

400
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Speaker 2: brother was a tavern owner in Saint Louis at the time,

401
00:22:30,160 --> 00:22:32,719
Speaker 2: heard about this bounty and decided that he would go

402
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Speaker 2: ahead and murder MLK and collect on the bounty. And

403
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Speaker 2: I also saw that he probably believed that as a

404
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Speaker 2: white man, he would never be convicted of murdering a

405
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Speaker 2: black man in the South, and even if he did,

406
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Speaker 2: George Wallace was definitely going to win the nineteen sixty

407
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Speaker 2: eight election, and George Wallace would pardon him. So if

408
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Speaker 2: you put all that together, it really seems like a

409
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Speaker 2: pretty legitimate explanation for the whole thing.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, as far as Martin Luther King Junior's widow, Coretta.

411
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Speaker 3: Scott King, she was she always thought the FBI might

412
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Speaker 3: have had something to do with it.

413
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Speaker 1: She knew that they had been surveilled and their phones

414
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Speaker 1: had been tapped. She thought they, you know, were a

415
00:23:14,880 --> 00:23:21,119
Speaker 1: possible you know, bad actors. They even you know, this

416
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Speaker 1: is sort of startling, and in fact it startled the

417
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Speaker 1: country in the late nineties, but they came around to

418
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Speaker 1: believing James Ray. Dexter Scott King, one of his sons,

419
00:23:30,160 --> 00:23:33,119
Speaker 1: visited James Ray in prison. They pushed for him to

420
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Speaker 1: get an appeal. He apparently asked him point blank, like

421
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Speaker 1: did you kill my father? And James or Ray said no,

422
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Speaker 1: I didn't know, And then apparently he also said, but

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Speaker 1: like I like I say, sometimes these questions are difficult

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Speaker 1: to answer. Sometimes you have to make your own evaluation

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Speaker 1: and maybe come to the conclusion. I think that could

426
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Speaker 1: be done today, but not thirty years ago, which is

427
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Speaker 1: none of that makes any sense.

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Speaker 2: No, because it isn't difficult to say you either did

429
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Speaker 2: or you did not commit murder.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, but as shocking as this meeting was, they got

431
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Speaker 1: on board and said, I don't think you did this.

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Speaker 1: I think you were patsy. I think you were set up.

433
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Speaker 1: And a lot of Americans were confused and a lot

434
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Speaker 1: were offended. Politzer Prize winning biographer of Martin Luther King junior.

435
00:24:19,840 --> 00:24:23,520
Speaker 1: David Garo said that Dexter King's support was of Ray

436
00:24:23,640 --> 00:24:24,919
Speaker 1: was egregious and embarrassing.

437
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Speaker 2: Yeah, I say we take a break and we come

438
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Speaker 2: back and kind of get stick with the late nineties

439
00:24:32,119 --> 00:24:34,280
Speaker 2: because they were kind of the nineties were a big

440
00:24:34,320 --> 00:24:39,520
Speaker 2: decade for conspiracy theories in the MLK assassination. How about that, Yeah.

441
00:24:39,359 --> 00:24:39,800
Speaker 3: Let's do it.

442
00:25:11,240 --> 00:25:14,040
Speaker 1: So there's an attorney named William Pepper who was a

443
00:25:14,160 --> 00:25:19,560
Speaker 1: very conspiracy theory minded attorney. He became James Olray's attorney eventually.

444
00:25:20,440 --> 00:25:23,240
Speaker 1: And he's not someone that a lot of people thought

445
00:25:23,280 --> 00:25:26,520
Speaker 1: a lot of In his career, he'd been described as

446
00:25:26,520 --> 00:25:30,040
Speaker 1: disgraceful by some the most gullible person I've ever met

447
00:25:30,080 --> 00:25:35,159
Speaker 1: by someone else. He was readily and willing to just

448
00:25:35,960 --> 00:25:39,600
Speaker 1: malign innocent people to get his theories out there. And

449
00:25:39,680 --> 00:25:41,600
Speaker 1: I remember this happening. I didn't watch it, but on

450
00:25:41,640 --> 00:25:45,119
Speaker 1: the twenty fifth anniversary of King's murder, so I guess

451
00:25:45,200 --> 00:25:51,520
Speaker 1: somewhere in the mid nineties he sold HBO on producing

452
00:25:51,880 --> 00:25:55,840
Speaker 1: and broadcasting a mock trial TV special of James Olray

453
00:25:56,200 --> 00:25:58,399
Speaker 1: in which Ray was acquitted by the mock jury.

454
00:25:59,119 --> 00:26:02,879
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so that was you know, Oh, that's crazy.

455
00:26:02,880 --> 00:26:05,600
Speaker 2: But it's a mock trial on HBO, and it's a

456
00:26:05,640 --> 00:26:08,800
Speaker 2: mock jury. It doesn't mean anything. It just basically promoted

457
00:26:08,800 --> 00:26:14,320
Speaker 2: William Pepper and his theories. But after that special was aired,

458
00:26:15,200 --> 00:26:18,800
Speaker 2: conspiracy theories about the MLK assassination got a real boost

459
00:26:18,920 --> 00:26:21,960
Speaker 2: because a guy named Lloyd Jowers came forward. He said

460
00:26:22,000 --> 00:26:24,760
Speaker 2: he was inspired to come forward by the series and

461
00:26:24,840 --> 00:26:28,960
Speaker 2: has come clean essentially after all of these years. And

462
00:26:29,040 --> 00:26:32,480
Speaker 2: he owned a tavern in Memphis called Jim's Grill, which

463
00:26:32,640 --> 00:26:35,800
Speaker 2: just happened to be located beneath Bessie Brewer's boarding house

464
00:26:36,160 --> 00:26:40,040
Speaker 2: where the fatal shot that killed MLK was fired from.

465
00:26:41,040 --> 00:26:44,600
Speaker 2: And Lloyd Jowers said that he was part of a big,

466
00:26:45,240 --> 00:26:51,360
Speaker 2: giant conspiracy to murder MLK that included the Memphis Police,

467
00:26:51,960 --> 00:26:57,879
Speaker 2: the FBI, the mafia, himself, and some other just you know,

468
00:26:58,040 --> 00:27:02,240
Speaker 2: tangential players who were all coming together to kill King

469
00:27:02,840 --> 00:27:06,160
Speaker 2: in order to collect on a bunch of money. Lloyd

470
00:27:06,240 --> 00:27:09,439
Speaker 2: Jowers said that he was him, just him alone, was

471
00:27:09,520 --> 00:27:13,800
Speaker 2: offered one hundred thousand dollars to basically project to manage

472
00:27:13,600 --> 00:27:15,040
Speaker 2: the contract killing.

473
00:27:15,680 --> 00:27:20,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, I feel like if you're floating a conspiracy about

474
00:27:20,200 --> 00:27:23,359
Speaker 1: an assassination, if you just throw out like local cops

475
00:27:23,359 --> 00:27:26,120
Speaker 1: in mafia, then you're probably halfway there.

476
00:27:26,400 --> 00:27:29,840
Speaker 2: Yeah for you, Yeah, oh definitely, that'll get everybody's attention.

477
00:27:30,680 --> 00:27:34,520
Speaker 1: So Martin Luther King Junior's family sued him for wrongful

478
00:27:34,560 --> 00:27:37,600
Speaker 1: death in civil court. Again, this is not a criminal

479
00:27:37,600 --> 00:27:40,040
Speaker 1: trial or anything. They didn't want money. They wanted a

480
00:27:40,119 --> 00:27:42,840
Speaker 1: hundred bucks. They basically wanted to get all these claims

481
00:27:42,880 --> 00:27:45,240
Speaker 1: heard in court and have it you know published, you know,

482
00:27:45,440 --> 00:27:49,959
Speaker 1: out in public. And they this is sort of shocking

483
00:27:49,960 --> 00:27:53,960
Speaker 1: as well. The family was represented by that attorney, William Pepper,

484
00:27:54,240 --> 00:27:58,240
Speaker 1: who had represented James Haray. The jury did decide that

485
00:27:58,359 --> 00:28:02,480
Speaker 1: Jowers and others, including government agencies, had been responsible for

486
00:28:02,560 --> 00:28:04,720
Speaker 1: King's debts, So they actually won that civil trial.

487
00:28:05,560 --> 00:28:08,639
Speaker 2: They did, and I've read two things. I read that

488
00:28:08,720 --> 00:28:12,200
Speaker 2: Dexter King basically said like, we did this so that,

489
00:28:12,560 --> 00:28:15,840
Speaker 2: you know, to prove that the investigation needed to be reopened.

490
00:28:16,480 --> 00:28:19,320
Speaker 2: And then he also said, regardless of whether it gets

491
00:28:19,320 --> 00:28:22,240
Speaker 2: reopened or not, this is like the period on the

492
00:28:22,320 --> 00:28:26,119
Speaker 2: sentence for us, Like this just basically supports everything we've

493
00:28:26,200 --> 00:28:31,920
Speaker 2: always said. Right. The Justice Department, their Civil Rights Division,

494
00:28:32,359 --> 00:28:36,560
Speaker 2: had simultaneously launched an investigation in de Lloyd Jowers claims.

495
00:28:36,600 --> 00:28:41,280
Speaker 2: I guess they seemed legitimate enough. But also this investigation

496
00:28:41,520 --> 00:28:45,000
Speaker 2: entailed claims made by a former FBI agent named Donald Wilson,

497
00:28:45,840 --> 00:28:49,080
Speaker 2: and Wilson said that he had been I guess he

498
00:28:49,160 --> 00:28:51,360
Speaker 2: had been one of the people who had searched through

499
00:28:51,760 --> 00:28:55,800
Speaker 2: the mustang that James Rolraay got away in, and that

500
00:28:55,960 --> 00:28:59,800
Speaker 2: he had found some papers in this mustang that had

501
00:28:59,840 --> 00:29:06,200
Speaker 2: in foe about the jfk assassination. Okay, I think Donald

502
00:29:06,240 --> 00:29:09,240
Speaker 2: Wilson's like, how can I get people to listen JFK.

503
00:29:10,320 --> 00:29:13,040
Speaker 2: He also said that the name Raoul was mentioned in

504
00:29:13,120 --> 00:29:16,600
Speaker 2: it as well, in these papers, and so the Justice

505
00:29:16,600 --> 00:29:19,520
Speaker 2: Department starts looking into it, and they concluded in a

506
00:29:19,560 --> 00:29:22,960
Speaker 2: report in two thousand that this is all just kind

507
00:29:22,960 --> 00:29:23,560
Speaker 2: of bs.

508
00:29:23,600 --> 00:29:28,400
Speaker 1: To paraphrase, Yeah, basically he's out for a book deal,

509
00:29:28,520 --> 00:29:33,040
Speaker 1: is what they concluded. Percy Foreman, the original attorney for

510
00:29:33,160 --> 00:29:36,520
Speaker 1: James Olray, as far as he was concerned, he thought

511
00:29:36,760 --> 00:29:43,320
Speaker 1: Ray acted alone. His biographer, William Bradford Hughey, also said, Yeah,

512
00:29:43,320 --> 00:29:45,040
Speaker 1: I think he acted alone, and he was trying to

513
00:29:45,160 --> 00:29:49,480
Speaker 1: just become a bigger criminal and like impress larger criminals

514
00:29:49,680 --> 00:29:51,320
Speaker 1: that he was a valuable guy to work with.

515
00:29:52,200 --> 00:29:57,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, there was an investigative reporter too who investigated James R. Lray,

516
00:29:57,240 --> 00:30:00,520
Speaker 2: as investigative reporters do. His name was George Mill him.

517
00:30:01,200 --> 00:30:04,480
Speaker 2: He interviewed a bunch of Ray's fellow prisoners from the

518
00:30:04,520 --> 00:30:08,280
Speaker 2: Missouri prison that he broke out of in nineteen sixty seven,

519
00:30:08,440 --> 00:30:10,720
Speaker 2: and they were like, yeah, he was a huge drug

520
00:30:10,760 --> 00:30:13,720
Speaker 2: dealer in prison, like he was rolling in it. One

521
00:30:13,760 --> 00:30:16,600
Speaker 2: of them claimed that he was able to smuggle out

522
00:30:16,640 --> 00:30:20,520
Speaker 2: sixty five hundred dollars from the prison. Yeah, and in

523
00:30:20,560 --> 00:30:23,360
Speaker 2: today's money, that's about sixty thousand dollars.

524
00:30:23,640 --> 00:30:23,960
Speaker 3: Yeah.

525
00:30:24,000 --> 00:30:27,720
Speaker 2: So that alone, if true, satisfies that really big question

526
00:30:27,800 --> 00:30:31,280
Speaker 2: about how could he's this petty criminal support himself for

527
00:30:31,320 --> 00:30:34,160
Speaker 2: a year on the lamb. Sixty k can go a

528
00:30:34,200 --> 00:30:38,520
Speaker 2: long way, especially if you're committing other crimes. But yeah,

529
00:30:38,560 --> 00:30:39,880
Speaker 2: it sounds like he blew a lot of it on

530
00:30:39,920 --> 00:30:43,240
Speaker 2: bartending school and dance lessons. Still, you could live for

531
00:30:43,320 --> 00:30:45,600
Speaker 2: a year on sixty k, no problem.

532
00:30:46,040 --> 00:30:47,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, And he had to buy some of that camera

533
00:30:47,600 --> 00:30:49,840
Speaker 1: equipment because he tried to be a porn director in Mexico.

534
00:30:50,000 --> 00:30:51,000
Speaker 2: That's right, you know.

535
00:30:52,240 --> 00:30:53,640
Speaker 1: So I guess we're at the point now where we

536
00:30:53,680 --> 00:30:55,400
Speaker 1: can kind of talk a little bit about, you know,

537
00:30:55,920 --> 00:30:59,200
Speaker 1: had the sliding doors gone another way and had that

538
00:30:59,320 --> 00:31:03,520
Speaker 1: march gone for on April fourth, and maybe James Orray

539
00:31:03,560 --> 00:31:06,720
Speaker 1: doesn't get that shot, what would have happened had King

540
00:31:06,760 --> 00:31:10,320
Speaker 1: been around. I guess we'll talk at first about what

541
00:31:10,440 --> 00:31:14,000
Speaker 1: happened since that that did occur, was that he was

542
00:31:14,080 --> 00:31:18,640
Speaker 1: an instant martyr, you know, for all practical purposes, he was.

543
00:31:18,680 --> 00:31:21,880
Speaker 1: He was sainted in that moment. It was just so sudden,

544
00:31:21,920 --> 00:31:25,840
Speaker 1: it was so violent. And the polling, you know, we

545
00:31:25,880 --> 00:31:28,800
Speaker 1: talked about polling in episode one about how white Americans

546
00:31:28,800 --> 00:31:33,960
Speaker 1: felt about him. In nineteen sixty six, people polled, thirty

547
00:31:34,000 --> 00:31:37,160
Speaker 1: six percent of all Americans had a favorable opinion of King,

548
00:31:37,840 --> 00:31:40,560
Speaker 1: twenty seven percent of white America, and in twenty eleven

549
00:31:41,440 --> 00:31:43,880
Speaker 1: that number had gone to ninety three percent of white

550
00:31:43,880 --> 00:31:46,720
Speaker 1: Americans had a favorable view of King, and eighty one

551
00:31:46,760 --> 00:31:50,240
Speaker 1: percent of all American adults said he had a positive

552
00:31:50,280 --> 00:31:53,120
Speaker 1: impact on the US. So that's from sixty six to

553
00:31:53,120 --> 00:31:55,960
Speaker 1: twenty eleven. But that was also happening at the time,

554
00:31:56,080 --> 00:31:58,800
Speaker 1: Like in the days and months before and after, there

555
00:31:58,840 --> 00:32:00,200
Speaker 1: was a stark difference, right.

556
00:32:00,240 --> 00:32:03,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, there was an almost immediate change and opinion of

557
00:32:03,080 --> 00:32:07,520
Speaker 2: him after he died. It was like the band Cinderella said,

558
00:32:07,560 --> 00:32:09,360
Speaker 2: you don't know what you got till it's gone.

559
00:32:09,680 --> 00:32:10,240
Speaker 3: That's right.

560
00:32:11,680 --> 00:32:16,600
Speaker 2: There was this just complete happenstance study that had been

561
00:32:16,640 --> 00:32:20,440
Speaker 2: carried out in February March of nineteen sixty eight, where

562
00:32:20,480 --> 00:32:25,240
Speaker 2: they sent ten thousand surveys to college and university trustees

563
00:32:26,200 --> 00:32:29,160
Speaker 2: I guess to take a pulse on the university and

564
00:32:29,200 --> 00:32:35,080
Speaker 2: college trustee subculture that asked, among other things, how they

565
00:32:35,120 --> 00:32:38,360
Speaker 2: felt about Martin Luther King, how they felt about his views,

566
00:32:38,360 --> 00:32:41,640
Speaker 2: how much they aligned with their own views. And after

567
00:32:42,000 --> 00:32:45,640
Speaker 2: MLK was assassinated, they went through and they separated the

568
00:32:45,680 --> 00:32:49,120
Speaker 2: surveys that they'd received before his death and after his death,

569
00:32:49,560 --> 00:32:52,440
Speaker 2: and there was a stark difference. Before he was assassinated,

570
00:32:52,520 --> 00:32:55,800
Speaker 2: thirty six percent of the respondent said that they held

571
00:32:55,880 --> 00:32:59,200
Speaker 2: similar views to King. After the assassination, that rose to

572
00:32:59,240 --> 00:33:03,880
Speaker 2: fifty percent. This is within a couple of weeks. Before

573
00:33:03,880 --> 00:33:07,360
Speaker 2: the assassination, thirty percent, more than thirty percent said that

574
00:33:07,440 --> 00:33:11,800
Speaker 2: King's views were very unlike theirs. Afterward it dropped down

575
00:33:11,840 --> 00:33:16,800
Speaker 2: to nineteen percent. So it was happening in real time,

576
00:33:16,880 --> 00:33:21,240
Speaker 2: and we know that thanks to that poll, and it's

577
00:33:21,280 --> 00:33:25,720
Speaker 2: really hard to overstate the effect, the immediate effect that

578
00:33:25,840 --> 00:33:29,520
Speaker 2: his assassination had on the conscience of the United States.

579
00:33:29,560 --> 00:33:32,920
Speaker 2: I think it really made a lot of probably everyday

580
00:33:33,320 --> 00:33:38,680
Speaker 2: racist Americans really rethink themselves. You know that at the time,

581
00:33:38,720 --> 00:33:41,680
Speaker 2: you could dislike Martin Luther King Junior. He was alive,

582
00:33:41,760 --> 00:33:45,000
Speaker 2: he was railing against Vietnam and going on about poor

583
00:33:45,040 --> 00:33:49,400
Speaker 2: people and everything. But now he's gone murdered, and just

584
00:33:49,800 --> 00:33:54,360
Speaker 2: something like that can really shock people into focusing more

585
00:33:54,400 --> 00:33:58,480
Speaker 2: on themselves and on their viewpoints than otherwise you would.

586
00:33:59,040 --> 00:33:59,720
Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure.

587
00:34:00,720 --> 00:34:03,320
Speaker 1: I mean one thing that definitely came out of this

588
00:34:03,560 --> 00:34:06,880
Speaker 1: was Lyndon Johnson kind of used this to get the

589
00:34:06,960 --> 00:34:09,600
Speaker 1: Fair Housing Act of nineteen sixty eight passed. It had

590
00:34:09,600 --> 00:34:12,839
Speaker 1: failed in sixty six and sixty seven, so it wasn't

591
00:34:12,880 --> 00:34:15,200
Speaker 1: a bill that looked like it had an immediate future.

592
00:34:15,360 --> 00:34:17,440
Speaker 1: So he kind of did the same thing with the

593
00:34:17,480 --> 00:34:21,680
Speaker 1: Civil Rights Act to sixty four right after JFK was assassinated, So,

594
00:34:21,960 --> 00:34:24,320
Speaker 1: you know, very politically savvy kind of get these things

595
00:34:24,400 --> 00:34:27,440
Speaker 1: passed through when the nation would have been more on

596
00:34:27,480 --> 00:34:29,200
Speaker 1: board with that and politicians would.

597
00:34:28,960 --> 00:34:30,200
Speaker 3: Have been more on board.

598
00:34:32,680 --> 00:34:34,560
Speaker 1: Maybe wouldn't have been able to get it passed through

599
00:34:34,560 --> 00:34:37,480
Speaker 1: in sixty eight, and then he had already announced that

600
00:34:37,520 --> 00:34:42,560
Speaker 1: he wasn't running for reelection before the assassination. So given

601
00:34:42,600 --> 00:34:46,160
Speaker 1: what happened with Nixon and then Reagan coming in, if

602
00:34:46,239 --> 00:34:48,680
Speaker 1: King had lived, it's doubtful that he would have had

603
00:34:48,680 --> 00:34:51,040
Speaker 1: the kind of relationship that he had with Johnson with

604
00:34:51,120 --> 00:34:52,080
Speaker 1: those two guys.

605
00:34:52,320 --> 00:34:55,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, but remember also that he and Johnson had already

606
00:34:55,719 --> 00:34:59,400
Speaker 2: had a rift because of mlk's more open vocal stance

607
00:34:59,440 --> 00:35:03,360
Speaker 2: against Vietnam. Yeah, and you know, he would have definitely

608
00:35:03,440 --> 00:35:07,120
Speaker 2: kept railing against Vietnam, so that rift would have widened

609
00:35:07,160 --> 00:35:12,800
Speaker 2: even further. And also general Americans opinions of him probably

610
00:35:12,800 --> 00:35:16,200
Speaker 2: would have declined even further because remember after that nineteen

611
00:35:16,239 --> 00:35:21,040
Speaker 2: sixty seven Vietnam speech, his popularity, especially among white Americans,

612
00:35:21,080 --> 00:35:24,400
Speaker 2: just plummeted, in part because he called the US government

613
00:35:24,440 --> 00:35:27,680
Speaker 2: the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today. That's

614
00:35:27,680 --> 00:35:31,000
Speaker 2: a pretty direct shot against, you know, the government. And

615
00:35:31,040 --> 00:35:34,120
Speaker 2: if you are all about the government and this, you know,

616
00:35:34,440 --> 00:35:37,279
Speaker 2: black civil rights leader saying stuff like that, you're going

617
00:35:37,360 --> 00:35:39,960
Speaker 2: to take your angst out on the black civil rights

618
00:35:40,040 --> 00:35:43,080
Speaker 2: leader who's saying it. Rather than stopping and questioning whether

619
00:35:43,120 --> 00:35:43,560
Speaker 2: he's right.

620
00:35:44,160 --> 00:35:46,799
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. A lot of people point out that,

621
00:35:46,960 --> 00:35:51,000
Speaker 1: like the he would have continued to work for civil

622
00:35:51,080 --> 00:35:54,880
Speaker 1: rights for black Americans Americans, but also may have started

623
00:35:55,719 --> 00:35:59,880
Speaker 1: championing the cause of the LGBTQ rights as a community.

624
00:36:00,719 --> 00:36:01,080
Speaker 3: Correta.

625
00:36:01,080 --> 00:36:04,040
Speaker 1: Scott King vocally supported this stuff, you know, after his passing,

626
00:36:04,760 --> 00:36:08,040
Speaker 1: and Martin Luther King Junior worked very closely with a

627
00:36:08,120 --> 00:36:14,480
Speaker 1: gentleman named Bayard Rustin, and openly gay civil rights advocate

628
00:36:14,520 --> 00:36:18,160
Speaker 1: who could have kept himself in the closet, but very

629
00:36:18,239 --> 00:36:20,719
Speaker 1: much was out. And so people think that, yeah, King

630
00:36:20,719 --> 00:36:23,080
Speaker 1: probably would have taken up that cause as well.

631
00:36:23,200 --> 00:36:26,400
Speaker 2: Later on, Yeah, we did an episode from twenty fifteen

632
00:36:26,440 --> 00:36:28,880
Speaker 2: on the March on Washington. We talked about Bayard Rustin

633
00:36:28,960 --> 00:36:29,279
Speaker 2: a lot.

634
00:36:29,640 --> 00:36:30,400
Speaker 3: Yeah.

635
00:36:30,440 --> 00:36:34,320
Speaker 2: He's also often compared to Nelson Mandela. Had MLK lived,

636
00:36:34,320 --> 00:36:38,120
Speaker 2: they people say, like he might have followed some sort

637
00:36:38,160 --> 00:36:42,920
Speaker 2: of trajectory similar to Nelson Mandela's, but Mandela became President

638
00:36:42,920 --> 00:36:45,920
Speaker 2: of South Africa. Would MLK have ever run for president?

639
00:36:46,480 --> 00:36:50,040
Speaker 2: From what I saw, most historians say probably not. That

640
00:36:50,160 --> 00:36:53,040
Speaker 2: was never an aspiration of his h and in fact,

641
00:36:53,080 --> 00:36:55,000
Speaker 2: he actually turned down and offered to run on a

642
00:36:55,040 --> 00:36:58,440
Speaker 2: third party ticket, the People's Party ticket for the nineteen

643
00:36:58,520 --> 00:37:03,520
Speaker 2: sixty eight election, with pediatrician the author of the very

644
00:37:03,560 --> 00:37:08,240
Speaker 2: famous baby book, doctor Benjamin Spock, who had turned anti

645
00:37:08,280 --> 00:37:11,760
Speaker 2: war activist as his vice president, So he probably would

646
00:37:11,760 --> 00:37:14,399
Speaker 2: not have ever run for president, but he still would

647
00:37:14,440 --> 00:37:18,160
Speaker 2: have remained a very potent, powerful voice for civil rights

648
00:37:18,200 --> 00:37:23,120
Speaker 2: for everybody. But had he not been assassinated, I don't

649
00:37:23,120 --> 00:37:26,400
Speaker 2: think his legacy would be anything like it is today.

650
00:37:27,080 --> 00:37:27,400
Speaker 3: Yeah.

651
00:37:27,800 --> 00:37:30,080
Speaker 1: How great though, would it have been to be able

652
00:37:30,080 --> 00:37:34,800
Speaker 1: to source a King Spock sixty eight T shirt or

653
00:37:34,800 --> 00:37:35,480
Speaker 1: bumper sticker?

654
00:37:36,120 --> 00:37:40,759
Speaker 2: I guess somebody like dummied that up or else. Oh? Really,

655
00:37:40,840 --> 00:37:43,480
Speaker 2: it got far enough that somebody made buttons, because I

656
00:37:43,480 --> 00:37:47,759
Speaker 2: saw some image of that on the internet. Yeah, I

657
00:37:47,760 --> 00:37:49,680
Speaker 2: don't know if it was made up or not. You

658
00:37:49,719 --> 00:37:51,239
Speaker 2: can't tell these days, you know.

659
00:37:51,520 --> 00:37:51,960
Speaker 3: You can't.

660
00:37:52,840 --> 00:37:56,200
Speaker 1: And then this all culminated finally with Martin Luther King

661
00:37:56,760 --> 00:38:00,760
Speaker 1: Junior the national holiday. The campaign for that federal holiday

662
00:38:00,800 --> 00:38:03,759
Speaker 1: began just a few days after he was killed in

663
00:38:03,880 --> 00:38:10,960
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty eight, and it would be installed in nineteen

664
00:38:11,000 --> 00:38:11,439
Speaker 1: eighty three.

665
00:38:11,520 --> 00:38:12,440
Speaker 3: It took a little while.

666
00:38:13,400 --> 00:38:18,520
Speaker 1: Representative John Conyer's, a Democrat from Michigan reintroduced that legislation

667
00:38:18,640 --> 00:38:22,760
Speaker 1: every single year with the backing of the Congressional Black Caucus,

668
00:38:23,080 --> 00:38:25,480
Speaker 1: which he helped found, and it was denied every single

669
00:38:25,520 --> 00:38:29,360
Speaker 1: year until fifteen years later when President Ronald Reagan signed

670
00:38:29,360 --> 00:38:32,880
Speaker 1: that bill making the third Monday in January federal holiday.

671
00:38:33,600 --> 00:38:36,720
Speaker 1: And then it was first observed in nineteen eighty six

672
00:38:37,520 --> 00:38:40,600
Speaker 1: by everybody, very famously except for Arizona.

673
00:38:41,400 --> 00:38:42,400
Speaker 3: They were the last holdout.

674
00:38:42,440 --> 00:38:46,719
Speaker 1: I remember this happening very well, mainly because of the

675
00:38:46,760 --> 00:38:49,000
Speaker 1: great great song by the time I get to Arizona

676
00:38:49,120 --> 00:38:51,640
Speaker 1: by Public Enemy that came out. So we got that

677
00:38:51,719 --> 00:38:54,160
Speaker 1: out of it, which is pretty great. But the NFL

678
00:38:54,239 --> 00:38:56,319
Speaker 1: was like, you know what, you're not getting the super

679
00:38:56,320 --> 00:38:59,759
Speaker 1: Bowl in nineteen ninety three, and then after that they said,

680
00:39:00,160 --> 00:39:01,160
Speaker 1: we'll get on board.

681
00:39:02,840 --> 00:39:04,000
Speaker 3: So we can have a super.

682
00:39:03,719 --> 00:39:06,440
Speaker 2: Bowl whatever it takes, by any months necessary.

683
00:39:06,600 --> 00:39:07,800
Speaker 3: Arizona get it together.

684
00:39:08,960 --> 00:39:11,399
Speaker 2: They did. That was way back in nineteen ninety three.

685
00:39:11,480 --> 00:39:14,680
Speaker 2: Those policymakers are all dead and gone by now.

686
00:39:14,960 --> 00:39:16,840
Speaker 3: I know. I lived in Arizona. I love that place.

687
00:39:17,360 --> 00:39:20,560
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that's right, Uma, right yeah. Do you ever

688
00:39:20,600 --> 00:39:22,799
Speaker 2: take the three ten uh?

689
00:39:24,120 --> 00:39:25,160
Speaker 3: No? No trains?

690
00:39:25,920 --> 00:39:28,080
Speaker 2: Okay, Well, since I made Chuck laugh. I think that

691
00:39:28,120 --> 00:39:31,000
Speaker 2: we should end on a high note here and say

692
00:39:31,040 --> 00:39:32,600
Speaker 2: that it's time for listener mail.

693
00:39:35,719 --> 00:39:38,120
Speaker 3: That's right, by pointing out a Josh mass error.

694
00:39:38,840 --> 00:39:41,319
Speaker 2: Oh great, so sorry, let's do it.

695
00:39:41,760 --> 00:39:44,280
Speaker 1: Hey, guys, always laugh when hearing when you quickly correct

696
00:39:44,280 --> 00:39:46,840
Speaker 1: yourselves before the email start. I didn't hear that one

697
00:39:46,880 --> 00:39:48,520
Speaker 1: today though, and I'm sure you'll get more than just

698
00:39:48,640 --> 00:39:49,240
Speaker 1: this email.

699
00:39:49,840 --> 00:39:51,640
Speaker 3: Actually, Andrew, we didn't. You were the only one that

700
00:39:51,680 --> 00:39:51,960
Speaker 3: caught this.

701
00:39:52,160 --> 00:39:53,840
Speaker 2: Oh nice, Andrew.

702
00:39:54,239 --> 00:39:58,799
Speaker 1: This was in the uh what would this have been? GPS?

703
00:39:58,840 --> 00:40:01,600
Speaker 1: I guess okay, By the way, I never posted that

704
00:40:01,600 --> 00:40:05,960
Speaker 1: that uh what do you call it? When things intersect?

705
00:40:06,000 --> 00:40:08,000
Speaker 1: The vin diagram that I sent you that said bingo,

706
00:40:08,040 --> 00:40:08,680
Speaker 1: I need to put.

707
00:40:08,520 --> 00:40:11,399
Speaker 3: That on our Insta. Please do I'll do it, hey, guys.

708
00:40:11,440 --> 00:40:16,680
Speaker 1: When Josh was describing the two D trilateration circles and

709
00:40:16,800 --> 00:40:19,040
Speaker 1: distance from Denver, he said, to draw a circle around

710
00:40:19,080 --> 00:40:22,200
Speaker 1: the named city with a diameter of distance described. But

711
00:40:22,239 --> 00:40:25,600
Speaker 1: that would be a circle too small. You need a

712
00:40:25,640 --> 00:40:29,000
Speaker 1: circle with a radius for that distance, or a diameter

713
00:40:29,160 --> 00:40:31,920
Speaker 1: of twice that radius. Your compass would be said, to

714
00:40:31,960 --> 00:40:34,120
Speaker 1: the width of the distance you are from the city,

715
00:40:34,600 --> 00:40:36,360
Speaker 1: and you draw that circle, which would give you a

716
00:40:36,360 --> 00:40:39,520
Speaker 1: circle around a city where every point on that circle

717
00:40:40,440 --> 00:40:45,799
Speaker 1: is that described distance from city center point. This is

718
00:40:46,080 --> 00:40:50,560
Speaker 1: from an electrical engineer in Knoxville, Tennessee, Andrew White, who said,

719
00:40:50,560 --> 00:40:51,960
Speaker 1: it makes me happy to listen and learn from you

720
00:40:52,000 --> 00:40:54,839
Speaker 1: all each day. So I trust you, Andrew, because you're

721
00:40:54,840 --> 00:40:55,760
Speaker 1: an electrical engineer.

722
00:40:55,920 --> 00:41:02,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, Andrew White, the fastest compass in Tennessee. Thanks a lot, Andrew,

723
00:41:02,239 --> 00:41:05,360
Speaker 2: I totally get that. That was very well explained, better

724
00:41:05,400 --> 00:41:08,600
Speaker 2: than I explained it, for sure. And if you want

725
00:41:08,600 --> 00:41:11,520
Speaker 2: to be like Andrew and correct my math. There's not

726
00:41:11,560 --> 00:41:13,560
Speaker 2: really much sport in it, but you can still do

727
00:41:13,640 --> 00:41:16,759
Speaker 2: it anyway by sending us an email to Stuff Podcasts

728
00:41:16,880 --> 00:41:22,719
Speaker 2: at iHeartRadio dot com.

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00:41:22,920 --> 00:41:25,200
Speaker 3: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.

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00:41:25,719 --> 00:41:28,920
Speaker 1: For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

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00:41:29,120 --> 00:41:32,000
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,