CRONKITE: “Good evening. Dr. Martin Luther King, the apostle of nonviolence and the civil rights movement, has been shot to death in Memphis, Tennessee. Police have issued an all-points bulletin for a well-dressed young white man seen running from the scene. Officers also reportedly chased and fired on a radio equipped car containing two white men. Dr. King was standing on the balcony of a second-floor hotel room tonight when according to a companion a shot was fired from across the street. In the friend’s words the bullet exploded in his face. Police who have been keeping a close watch over the Nobel Peace Prize winner because of Memphis turbulent racial situation were on the scene almost immediately. They rushed the 39-year-old Negro leader to a hospital where he died of a bullet wound in the neck. Police said they found a high-powered hunting rifle about a block from the hotel, but it was not immediately identified as the murder weapon.”
