MLK The Assassination Tapes
By KATHRYN SHATTUCK
When Memphis’s mostly black sanitation force went on strike in February 1968, faculty members at Memphis State University began collecting television, radio and published accounts of what they believed was a seminal moment in the civil rights movement. The accumulation of material continued as the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. arrived in the city to speak at a rally for the workers on March 18 and then returned for a march that month that, to his dismay, turned violent. On April 3 Dr. King gave his “Mountaintop” speech — his last — at the Mason Temple in Memphis, saying: “I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight that we, as a people, will get to the promised land.” The next day, after his associates had negotiated an agreement to lift a judge’s temporary restraining order and allow for another, peaceful, demonstration, Dr. King prepared to meet colleagues for dinner. He was shot as he stood on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel.
“MLK: THE ASSASSINATION TAPES,” Sunday at 9 p.m. on the Smithsonian Channel, draws from news footage housed at what is now the University of Memphis, much of it not widely viewed, that chronicles the weeks leading up to Dr. King’s visits as well as the aftermath of his murder. The hourlong documentary captures the hunt for Dr. King’s assassin, the pleas for peace from President Lyndon B. Johnson, and the march in Memphis in support of striking workers by Dr. King’s widow, Coretta Scott King, and their children just days after his death.
By BRIAN LOWRY
For the most part, I don’t spend much time on either the Smithsonian or National Geographic Channels, both of which approximate niches already occupied by larger, better-known basic cable competitors.
Still, this seemed like as good a time as any to drop in on offerings from each of them — one sober, the other silly.
Smithsonian has made “MLK: The Assassination Tapes,” premiering Feb. 12, a centerpiece of its programming for Black History Month, and the hour-long special is a first rate effort. Using local and national news footage — some of which hasn’t been seen since Martin Luther King Jr. was killed in 1968 — writer/producer/director Tom Jennings and producer/co-editor Ron Frank have put together a taut tick-tock of King’s final days, his murder, its immediate aftermath, and the subsequent manhunt for the guy convicted of shooting him, James Earl Ray.
Frankly, it’s the sort of spare yet compelling historical documentary TV could use more of, especially with History increasingly bowing out of the history business. (If Smithsonian followed History’s model, they’d change the channel’s name to Smith and start focusing on ice fishing, or trucking, or whatever.)