MLK: The Assassination Tapes

(Smithsonian Channel, Sunday, Feb. 12, 9 p.m.)

By R. Thomas Umstead -- Multichannel News, 2/6/2012 12:01:00 AM

For U.S. history buffs and those who seeking a glimpse of a seminal moment in the civil-rights movement of the 1960s, Smithsonian Channel’s MLK: The Assassination Tapes virtually puts you in the middle of that turbulent period in time

The narration-free documentary weaves rare video, photographic and audio clips from Memphis-based radio and television news footage, gathered at the time by several Memphis University faculty members. Collectively, it tells the story of civil-rights leader the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s fateful trip to Memphis, Tenn., where he was shot to death on April 4, 1968, at the Lorraine Hotel.

In the weeks leading up to his murder, King arrived in Memphis to support the black sanitation workers’ strike in the city. The documentary continues the story through the massive march in Memphis a year later, commemorating the fatal, historic day.

Particularly fascinating are Memphis police radio reports in the minutes and hours after King’s death, including their pursuit of a suspect who eventually turned out to be King’s convicted killer, James Earl Ray.

Another powerful and poignant scene features a recorded conversation between President Lyndon B. Johnson and Atlanta Mayor Ivan Allen, in which LBJ asks Allen for suggestions to help quell uprisings happening around the country after King’s death.

Unlike other documentaries that supplement old footage with perspective comments from analysts, historians or those who survived through the times, MLK: The Assassination Tapes offers only the images, voices and photos of the time, allowing the viewer to draw their own conclusions and perceptions about the period, the movement and city that during the spring of 1968 became the hotspot of the civil-rights movement.