Sunday, May 8, 2011

Roads to Memphis

In April 1968, two men from two different worlds with entirely different backgrounds and entirely different missions unfortunately and tragically crossed paths at a Memphis motel, forever changing America's landscape. Roads to Memphis tells the story of Martin Luther King and James Earl Ray in the months leading up to Ray's assassination of King. While King was touring the country fighting racial injustice, Ray was a stick up artist locked up in a Missouri Penitentiary. After making a daring escape, he began to here of King's deeds and started to think that he could make a name for himself by killing him. As it was easy to track his whereabouts back then, Ray began to stalk King across the country. When MLK took up the cause of striking garbage workers in Memphis, Tennessee, the two's fates would forever be sealed. This latest installment is a painstakingly detailed and wonderfully recreated telling of these events. I thought it had the feel of a great crime program as we learn of James Earl Ray's actions leading up to and following the assassination. Martin Luther King's assassination was a tragic inflammatory event, and Roads to Memphis gives you a window into not only the mindsets of two radically different individuals but also of a country entirely.