Assassinations of John and Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr

The assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, his brother Senator Robert F. Kennedy, and the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. These three assassinations shocked Americans and profoundly changed the nation’s politics and society in the 1960’s.

Origins and History

Although three of the first thirty-four U.S. presidents had been assassinated, many Americans in the early 1960’s believed that political assassinations such as those of Presidents Abraham Lincoln in 1865, James Garfield in 1881, and William McKinley in 1901 were part of distant history.

During the 1960 presidential election, few Americans expected that either candidate Senator John F. Kennedy from Massachusetts or Vice President Richard M. Nixon would significantly change American society. Kennedy won an extremely close election on November 8, 1960. When he was inaugurated on January 20, 1961, he was forty-three years old, making him the youngest person ever elected president. He was also the first Roman Catholic president.

Although Kennedy, his wife, Jacqueline, and their two young children, Caroline and John, Jr., were popular with the public, the new president quickly made enemies because of his efforts to end segregation. He ordered federal troops to enforce the integration of the Universities of Alabama and Mississippi despite strong opposition from the Ku Klux Klan and many white southerners, including Alabama governor George Wallace. Similarly, his brother Robert F. Kennedy, in his position as attorney general, made several enemies through his prosecution of violent southerners opposed to integration, Mafia gangsters, and corrupt union officials, including Jimmy Hoffa, the head of the Teamsters. The Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., was an eminent and eloquent civil rights leader. In his famous “I Have a Dream” speech, delivered to a crowd of at least 250,000 gathered around the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., on August 28, 1963, King presented his dream of a unified United States in which citizens would be judged by their character and accomplishments and not by the color of their skin. Later that day, President Kennedy received King at the White House and reaffirmed his commitment to end segregation in the United States. These three leaders, though admired by many, were despised by some of those who opposed their views.

Many Americans were appalled by violent incidents such as the beating of civil rights activists in Birmingham, Alabama, and the bombing of African American churches; however, most people did not believe that violence might take the lives of their most distinguished political and social leaders. During the fall of 1963, most Americans thought that things would work out for the best in the country.

John F. Kennedy

In an effort to improve his chances of carrying Texas in the 1964 presidential elections, President John F. Kennedy, along with his wife, Jacqueline, and Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, flew to Dallas, Texas. A victory in Texas, Johnson’s home state, was strategically important for the Democrats. The trip was one of the first public appearances in months for Jacqueline Kennedy, who had been in mourning after the death of her newborn son, Patrick, in August, 1963. On November 22, the Kennedys and Johnson and his wife, Lady Bird, rode in separate open limousines from Love Field toward downtown Dallas, where the president was to speak. At approximately 12:30 p.m. central standard time, the president was shot. He was dead on arrival when his limousine reached Parkland Memorial Hospital. Johnson took the oath of office that afternoon in Air Force One at Love Field.

That same afternoon, Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested for the murders of President Kennedy and Dallas police officer J. D. Tippit. Oswald was killed two days later by Jack Ruby as Oswald was being transferred to another jail. The weekend after the assassination was a period of public mourning. With disbelief and sorrow, people watched the transfer of President Kennedy’s body to the Capitol Building, where it lay in state, and his burial in Arlington National Cemetery on Monday, November 25, 1963. Although the Warren Commission, chaired by Chief JusticeEarl Warren, affirmed that Oswald alone had killed President Kennedy, many Americans rejected this theory.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

The Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., was probably the most eminent civil rights leader of the 1950’s and 1960’s. His father was a clergyman in Atlanta, Georgia, and King also became a clergyman after he received his doctorate from Boston University. King became involved in leading nonviolent resistance to segregation in the United States. For his peaceful efforts to end racism, King was rewarded with the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. He began to travel extensively to support minority groups across the United States.

In late March, 1968, he was asked to go to Memphis, Tennessee, where African American sanitation workers had gone on strike to protest the decision of the Memphis government to pay higher wages to white employees. After the murder of an African American teenager, rioting broke out in Memphis. King did his best to restore peace to the racially divided city, and he thought that his efforts had succeeded. On the evening of April 4, while he was speaking with his colleagues, Ralph Abernathy and Jesse Jackson, on the balcony of the Lorraine Hotel in Memphis, King was shot and died almost instantly. Many African Americans believed that this assassination was racially motivated, and rioting broke out in many cities. Calm returned when President Johnson declared April 7, 1968, to be a day of national mourning and ordered flags to be flown at half mast.

Two months later, James Earl Ray was arrested in London for the murder of King. In 1969, upon the advice of his lawyer, Ray pled guilty to King’s murder and was sentenced to life in prison. Just three days later, he tried to revoke his plea and spent the next twenty-nine years trying to prove his innocence and obtain a trial. Many people, including King’s own children, believed that Ray had not acted alone, that others were involved in King’s assassination. Still seeking a trial, Ray died of liver and kidney disease in April, 1998.

In 1986, President Ronald Reagan declared King’s birthday, January 15, a national holiday.

Robert F. Kennedy

Robert F. “Bobby” Kennedy directed his brother’s 1960 presidential campaign and later served as his attorney general. In 1964, Kennedy decided to run against the Republican incumbent, Kenneth Keating, for a Senate seat from New York State. He defeated Keating in November, 1964. Kennedy came to oppose U.S. involvement in Vietnam. In early 1968, both he and Senator Eugene McCarthy from Minnesota ran against President Johnson for the Democratic presidential nomination. When Johnson stated on March 31, 1968, that he would not run for reelection, Kennedy became the front-runner.

The decisive primary election took place in California on June 4. With very strong support from Latino and African American communities, Kennedy won this primary, and his nomination at the Chicago Democratic National Convention in August, 1968, seemed all but certain. After Kennedy had given a victory speech in the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, he set off for a press conference. While passing through a kitchen on his way to the exit, he was shot several times at close range by Sirhan Sirhan, a Palestinian opposed to Kennedy’s strong support for Israel. Kennedy died early in the morning of June 6.

In 1969, Sirhan was convicted of first-degree murder and was sentenced to death. He avoided execution when the U.S. Supreme Court in 1972 ruled that capital punishment laws were unconstitutional. Sirhan’s death sentence was commuted to life in prison. Kennedy was buried in Arlington National Cemetery next to his brother, John.

Impact

These three assassinations had significant effects on American society. After John F. Kennedy’s death, President Johnson successfully implemented many of Kennedy’s domestic policies, including the passage of civil rights legislation, but he also expanded U.S. involvement in Vietnam. King’s assassination had an adverse effect on race relations in the United States because many African Americans came to believe that King’s policy of nonviolence simply did not work and turned to more militant means of achieving civil rights, alienating many white civil rights activists. The death of Robert F. Kennedy prevented Democrats from remaining united and made it easier for the Republican candidate, Nixon, to win the 1968 presidential election.

The assassinations of three very distinguished political leaders within five years made people understand the reality of violence in U.S. society and also made it too dangerous for leading political figures to have much direct contact with the public. These deaths, coupled with unsuccessful attempts on the lives of Presidents Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan, have made citizens take very seriously the choice of vice president because they realize that the assassination of the president of the United States is a real possibility.

Subsequent Events

Numerous Americans firmly believe that conspiracies were involved in the assassinations of President Kennedy and King. The report of the Warren Commission, which affirmed that Oswald had single-handedly killed President Kennedy, has been viewed by many people as highly questionable. In 1976, the U.S. House of Representatives appointed a select committee on assassinations. In its final report, submitted to the House of Representatives on March 29, 1979, this committee concluded that President Kennedy had probably been killed as the result of a conspiracy. Similar arguments were presented in Oliver Stone’s popular 1991 film JFK. The sloppiness of the autopsy performed on President Kennedy and the many inconsistencies in the Warren Commission’s report have made conspiracies theories seem very plausible.

A similar belief in conspiracies exists concerning the assassination of King. Many people feel that it is inconceivable that a minor criminal such as Ray could have had enough money to travel to England and avoid capture for two months after King’s murder. Many people believe that others were involved both before and after the assassination. For years after initially pleading guilty, Ray repeatedly claimed to be innocent and sought a trial. In 1997, ballistic tests performed on the rifle that was supposed to have been used to kill King suggested that the fatal shot may not have come from this rifle.

While he was imprisoned in California, Sirhan spoke of his desire to kill Senator Edward “Ted” Kennedy. Once this information was revealed to the public, it became clear that the California Board of Prison Terms would never release Sirhan on parole. His appeals for parole were repeatedly turned down in the 1980’s and 1990’s.

Additional Information

For more information on these three assassinations, consult Three Assassinations: The Deaths of John and Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King (1971), edited by Janet M. Knight; King Remembered (1986), by Flip Schulke and Penelope Ortner McPhee; Shadow Play: The Murder of Robert F. Kennedy, the Trial of Sirhan Sirhan, and the Failure of American Justice (1997), by Lester and Irene David, William Klaber, and Philip H. Melanson; and President Kennedy: A Profile of Power (1993), by Richard Reeves.