Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. at the Lorraine Motel

Martin Luther King Jr. was fatally shot on April 4, 1968, while standing on the second-floor balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis. The shot was fired by James Earl Ray; King was pronounced dead later that day at St. Joseph's Hospital. The Lorraine Motel is now the site of the National Civil Rights Museum, which preserves the location of the assassination.