Martin Luther King Jr.’s Open Casket and the 13-Hour Night

At 7:05 p.m. on April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. was pronounced dead at St. Joseph Hospital in Memphis. Hours earlier, funeral director Robert Stevenson Lewis Jr. had offered King his finest Cadillac. Now Lewis drove a white 1966 Superior Royale funeral coach into the Memphis hospital system to take custody of his body. This film follows the records into the rooms cameras never saw: the medical examiner’s office at John Gaston Hospital, the overnight preparation at 374 Vance Avenue, the recordings playing in the workroom, the half-hour Memphis viewing, and the aircraft loading ramp that carried King toward Atlanta. The public saw the result. The file traces what the documents can still show. Where were you when you heard that Martin Luther King Jr. had died? What state, and how old were you? Do you think the first Memphis viewing changed the funeral that followed? Tell us in the comments. Chapters 0:00 Intro 1:00 Room 306 2:53 374 Vance Avenue 4:44 Thirteen Hours 6:41 The Open Lid 8:30 Half an Hour 10:07 The Loading Ramp 11:26 Twenty-One Bell Street 13:19 Sisters Chapel 15:20 Two Mules 18:18 Five Nineteen 19:51 The Second Crypt 21:34 CLOSE Sources U.S. House Select Committee on Assassinations, medical summary, National Archives, 1979 R.S. Lewis & Sons, “Our History,” funeral-home archive Ernie Suggs, “Memphis funeral home thrust into service to prepare King’s body,” AJC/WSB, 2018 UPI, contemporary report on King’s Memphis viewing and flight, April 5, 1968 Digital Library of Georgia, Obsequies, Martin Luther King Jr., 1968 Memphis World, funeral coverage, April 13, 1968 National Archives, “The Week of April 4, 1968,” 2018 Archival photographs and film are in the public domain or used for commentary and historical documentation. Photo credits (Wikimedia Commons): https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... (CC BY 3.0, Thomson M); https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... (CC BY-SA 3.0, Adam Jones, Ph.D.); https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... (CC BY 4.0, Magnolia677); https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... (CC BY-SA 3.0, User:Sjkorea81) #MartinLutherKingJr #FuneralHistory #TheFuneralFiles