Capture of James Earl Ray

Date: June 13, 1977 • Location: Washington, United States

Convicted Martin Luther King Jr. assassin James Earl Ray is recaptured after escaping from prison three days before.

Martin Luther King Jr. was an American civil rights activist and Baptist minister who was a prominent leader of the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968. He advanced civil rights in the United States through the use of nonviolence and sometimes civil disobedience against Jim Crow laws and other forms of legalized discrimination, which most commonly affected African Americans.