"But we did conclude that Ray had actually killed Dr. King pursuant to his theory that he was going to be able to get hold of that money. He had learned of this offer through his ties in the Missouri State Penitentiary"
About this Quote
It lands with the chill of bureaucracy trying to narrate a national trauma back into the manageable. Louis Stokes, a politician and former chair of the House Select Committee on Assassinations, isn’t speaking to mourn or mythologize; he’s speaking to close a file. The key phrase is "did conclude" - a careful, institutional verb that signals process, deliberation, and the authority of a body that expects to be doubted. Stokes knows conspiracy is the default language around Martin Luther King Jr.'s death, so he leans on the posture of investigatory sobriety.
The specific intent is to pin motive on something brutally small: money. By framing James Earl Ray as acting "pursuant to his theory" of collecting an "offer", Stokes emphasizes not ideology but opportunism. That word "theory" quietly does double duty: it grants Ray a rationale while also implying the motive was speculative, even foolish. The assassination, in this telling, isn’t the work of grand political machinery; it’s a crime driven by a hustler’s fantasy.
The subtext is defensive. "Pursuant to" reads like courtroom language, designed to sound immune to emotion. And "through his ties in the Missouri State Penitentiary" situates the origin of the plot inside a familiar American incubator of schemes and half-truths. It’s a move that narrows the circle of culpability: not the state, not a vast cabal, but a man with prison connections chasing a payday.
Context matters: the late-1970s HSCA was operating in an era of collapsing trust post-Watergate, when official conclusions were presumed compromised. Stokes’s sentence tries to restore legitimacy by offering motive, pathway, and containment - a tidy narrative for an untidy, epochal killing.
The specific intent is to pin motive on something brutally small: money. By framing James Earl Ray as acting "pursuant to his theory" of collecting an "offer", Stokes emphasizes not ideology but opportunism. That word "theory" quietly does double duty: it grants Ray a rationale while also implying the motive was speculative, even foolish. The assassination, in this telling, isn’t the work of grand political machinery; it’s a crime driven by a hustler’s fantasy.
The subtext is defensive. "Pursuant to" reads like courtroom language, designed to sound immune to emotion. And "through his ties in the Missouri State Penitentiary" situates the origin of the plot inside a familiar American incubator of schemes and half-truths. It’s a move that narrows the circle of culpability: not the state, not a vast cabal, but a man with prison connections chasing a payday.
Context matters: the late-1970s HSCA was operating in an era of collapsing trust post-Watergate, when official conclusions were presumed compromised. Stokes’s sentence tries to restore legitimacy by offering motive, pathway, and containment - a tidy narrative for an untidy, epochal killing.
Quote Details
| Topic | Justice |
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