New Photos Bare Aftermath of King's Death

Thousands attend dedication of Martin Luther King Jr Monument

(NEWSER) - Forty-three years after Martin Luther King Jr. was killed by an assassin's bullets, the nation's first black president today led an all-star tribute to the civil rights activist who "stirred our conscience" and made our Union "more perfect." "I know we will overcome," proclaimed President Obama at the dedication of the Martin Luther King Jr. National Monument. The giant granite statue stands just to the southeast of where King delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech, notes the AP . More»

That influential summer inspired him to become a minister

(NEWSER) - A young Martin Luther King Jr. might have gone on to any number of careers, but for one inspiring summer in Connecticut. He was there as a teenager, earning money for college by working on a tobacco farm, and he was shocked by the lack of segregation he found. “After we passed Washington there was no discrimination at all,” he wrote to his father in 1944. “The white people here are very nice. We go to any place we want to and sit any where we want to." In a letter written days later to his mother, he noted, "I never thought that a person of my race could eat anywhere but we ate in one of the finest restaurants in Hartford." More»

Famed civil rights photographer a spy

(NEWSER) - Ernest Withers, the famed “original civil rights photographer” and close confidant of Martin Luther King, was secretly a paid FBI informant, cluing the government in on all the Civil Rights Movement’s activities, according to a two-year investigation from the Memphis Commercial Appeal . Withers tailed King for the feds the very day before his assassination, telling the FBI about a meeting he had with suspected black militants. More»

His riveting images sparked national outrage

(NEWSER) - The photographer credited with helping make the civil rights struggle a national issue has died. Charles Moore, 79, a news photographer for the Montgomery Advertiser and Life between 1958 to 1965, often placed himself in harm's way to capture shocking images of police attacking protesters. He began covering the movement as the sole photographer when Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested in 1958. More»

(NEWSER) - Mesmerizing photos of Marilyn Monroe before she hit the big time have surfaced in the archives of LIfe magazine. The 1950 shots in Griffin Park in Los Angeles reveal a peaches-and-cream 24-year-old Monroe before the ultra-glam shots that would become a staple of her career. "I was amazed looking at her face," said an editor at Life.com. "Although she looks very innocent, there is something very sexy." Monroe would be dead 12 years later from an overdose. More»