Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Martin Luther King Jr., an American clergyman and civil rights leader, was shot at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968. King was rushed to St. Joseph's Hospital, and was pronounced dead at 7:05 p.m. CST. He was a prominent leader of the Civil Rights Movement and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who was known for his use of nonviolence and civil disobedience. James Earl Ray, a fugitive from the Missouri State Penitentiary, was arrested on June 8, 1968, in London at Heathrow Airport, extradited to the United States, and charged
Martin Luther King Jr. Outpatient Center was broken on the hospital in April 1968. It was originally named the Los Angeles County Southeast General Hospital but was soon renamed Martin Luther King Jr. General Hospital, days after the namesake's assassination. After a dedication in February, it opened on March 27, 1972 as a full-service medical center. The facility changed its name again, to Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center, when it became the teaching hospital of the adjacent Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science. In 1981 the hospital expanded into psychiatric care by opening the Augustus F. Hawkins Mental Health Center. In 1998 it