American Experience - Season 22

A central figure in the narrative of how the west was won, Wyatt Earp and his story became an American legend. Part of the Wild West collection.

What drove a company of American soldiers — ordinary young men from around the country — to commit the worst atrocity in American military history? Were they "just following orders" as some later declared? Or, did they break under the pressure of a vicious war in which the line between enemy soldier and civilian had been intentionally blurred? American Experience focuses on the 1968 My Lai massacre, its subsequent cover-up, and the heroic efforts of the soldiers who broke ranks to try to halt the atrocities and then bring them to light.

On April 3, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King spoke to the crowd at the Mason Temple in Memphis, Tennessee, giving one of the most powerful and memorable speeches of his life. In it, he addressed the growing threats against his life, proclaiming, "It doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind."

The following day, escaped convict James Earl Ray shot and killed King while he lingered on a motel balcony. Roads to Memphis is the fateful narrative of this killer and his prey, set against the seething, turbulent forces in American society. The assassination shocked the country, setting off deadly riots from coast to coast and triggering the largest, costliest, and most ambitious manhunt in American history.

Roads to Memphis is told through eyewitness testimony from King's inner circle and the officials involved in Ray's capture and prosecution following an intense two-month international manhunt.