On April 4 1968, Martin Luther King was in Memphis supporting a workers' strike. By nightfall, army snipers were in position, military officers were on a nearby roof with cameras, and Lloyd Jowers had been paid to remove the gun after the fatal shot was fired. When the dust had settled, King had been hit and a clean-up operation was set in motion-James Earl Ray was framed, the crime scene was destroyed, and witnesses were killed. William Pepper, attorney and friend of King, has conducted a thirty-year investigation into his assassination.
In 1999, Loyd Jowers and other co-conspirators were brought to trial in a civil action suit on behalf of the King family. Seventy witnesses set out the details of a conspiracy that involved J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI, Richard Helms and the CIA, the military, Memphis police, and organized crime. The jury took an hour to find for the King family. In An Act of State, you finally have the truth before you - how the US government shut down a movement for social change by stopping its leader dead in his tracks.
“Pepper has gathered an impressive array of testimony and evidence that, even to determined skeptics, throws a major doubt over the state’s case against James Earl Ray.” – Kirkus “Passionate, disturbing, and well-researched.” – Booklist “Within the first chapter, An Act of State presents enough circumstantial evidence to raise questions about Ray’s involvement as the sole assassin.” – Washington Post “No one has done more than Dr William F. Pepper to keep alive the quest for truth concerning the violent death of Martin Luther King.” – Ramsey Clark, US Attorney General, 1967-69
