But literary failings and inherent conflicts of interest aside, the totality of Pepper's evidence, which includes testimony from more than 20 witnesses, many of whom were at the scene, is overwhelming. One cannot read "An Act of State" and not come away agreeing with the 1999 jury that America's greatest civil rights hero was murdered by a cabal of government agents and lowlife criminals who had begun to fear King as a very real threat to the future of the republic.
By 1968, Pepper writes, King had moved from demanding civil rights for blacks to demanding an end to the war in Vietnam and, even more dangerously, an end to economic injustice here in the States. This made his murder inevitable.
"[S]o, for Martin King, opposition to the war against the people of a poor, non-white ancient culture was in harmony with, and a natural extension of, the civil rights struggle against oppression and the denial of basic freedoms and essential services at home. By mid-1967, he began to formulate a strategy to address the widening gap between the rich and the poor. The project gradually took the form not of a march by itself by the extensive Poor People's Campaign and the mobilization culminating in an encampment in the shadow of the Washington Memorial. The projection was for the establishment of a tent city of some 500,000 of the nation's poorest and most alienated citizens, who would regularly lobby their elective officials for a range of socio-economic legislation. They would remain as long as it took to get action from the Congress.
By 1968, Pepper writes, King had moved from demanding civil rights for blacks to demanding an end to the war in Vietnam and, even more dangerously, an end to economic injustice here in the States. This made his murder inevitable.
"[S]o, for Martin King, opposition to the war against the people of a poor, non-white ancient culture was in harmony with, and a natural extension of, the civil rights struggle against oppression and the denial of basic freedoms and essential services at home. By mid-1967, he began to formulate a strategy to address the widening gap between the rich and the poor. The project gradually took the form not of a march by itself by the extensive Poor People's Campaign and the mobilization culminating in an encampment in the shadow of the Washington Memorial. The projection was for the establishment of a tent city of some 500,000 of the nation's poorest and most alienated citizens, who would regularly lobby their elective officials for a range of socio-economic legislation. They would remain as long as it took to get action from the Congress.