The Stalking of Martin Luther King Jr.

The assassination forty-two years ago of Martin Luther King, marked the second in a trip-tic of political assassinations and tragedies that bookended the '60s and brought into bold relief a strain of racism, hatred and extremism that unfortunately seems all to alive today. All three assassinations, JFK, MLK and RFK have been cloaked in conspiracy theory. The assassination of King, by James Earl Ray and the international manhunt that apprehend him, makes it perhaps the most clearcut of all. It is against this backdrop that historian Hampton Sides, in his new book Hellhound on His Trail: The Stalking of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the International Hunt for His Assassin,tells the story of the stalking of King and the search for his assassin. My conversation with Hampton Sides: