Just published photos show MLK killing aftermath

Life magazine photographer Henry Groskinsky was on assignment in Selma when he heard the bulletin on the radio: The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. had been assassinated in Memphis.

“Me and the reporter (Mike Silva) jumped in the car and drove straight there,” recalled the now-retired Groskinsky, 75, in a phone interview from his Boca Raton home late Thursday night.

On that April 4, 1968 evening, Groskinsky ended up in King’s hotel room, where the civil rights leader’s associates including Andrew Young and the Rev. Ralph Abernathy were solemnly huddled. Surprisingly, there were few members of the press around the Lorraine Motel.

“I felt like I was intruding,” he said. “It was like a wake.”

He captured a series of numbing images that, until Thursday — when they were posted at Life magazine’s Web site, life.com — had never been seen by the public. They are stark and powerful. One shows a motel worker sweeping King’s blood from the balcony.

So why weren’t they published?

“Once they got the famous photo” of King’s associates pointing in the direction of the assassin, “that was it,” Groskinsky said, referring to the widely circulated Associated Press photo.

He and Silva talked on the phone two days ago, trying to piece together the events of that tragic day.

“Neither one of us could remember anything after we left the room, where we stayed, what we did,” Groskinsky said.

The next day, they went back to the magazine’s New York offices.

“I turned in my film and went on to the next assignment,” Groskinsky said. “It was very disappointing they didn’t publish them, but in those days, we had no say.”

In the Web site caption to one of the photos, Groskinsky said, “I was very discreet. I shot just enough to document what was going on. I didn’t want to make a nuisance of myself….There I am with a flash camera. So I took a couple of pictures and just kind of backed off.”

King was in Memphis to support black sanitary workers who had been on strike. The day before he was killed, he had delivered his “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” address.

“I have seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. And I’m happy, tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.”

King was standing on the balcony at about 6 p.m. the next day when James Earl Ray fatally shot him with a high-powered rifle.

— The Associated Press contributed to this article.