James Earl Ray (March 10, 1928 – April 23, 1998) was an American criminal convicted of the assassination of civil rights and anti-war activist Martin Luther King, Jr.
Ray was convicted on March 10, 1969, after entering a guilty plea to forgo a jury trial. Had he been found guilty by jury trial, he would have been eligible for the death penalty. He was sentenced to 99 years in prison. He later recanted his confession and tried unsuccessfully to gain a new trial. He died in prison of hepatitis C.
Read more about James Earl Ray: Early Life, Initial Convictions and First Escape From Prison, Activity in 1967, Activity in Early 1968, Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., Second Escape From Prison, Conspiracy Allegations, Death
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“I have never been disappointed when I asked in a humble and sincere way for God’s help. I pray often. I think I pray more often since January 12th.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“Fowls in the frith,
Fishes in the flood,
And I must wax wod:
Much sorrow I walk with
For best of bone and blood.”
—Unknown. Fowls in the Frith. . .
Oxford Book of Short Poems, The. P. J. Kavanagh and James Michie, eds. Oxford University Press.
“The heart never grows better by age; I fear rather worse; always harder. A young liar will be an old one, and a young knave will only be a greater knave as he grows older.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)
“How false is the conception, how frantic the pursuit, of that treacherous phantom which men call Liberty: most treacherous, indeed, of all phantoms; for the feeblest ray of reason might surely show us, that not only its attainment, but its being, was impossible. There is no such thing in the universe. There can never be. The stars have it not; the earth has it not; the sea has it not; and we men have the mockery and semblance of it only for our heaviest punishment.”
—John Ruskin (1819–1900)