When I first received this CMM101 assignment, I was a apprehensive. I had absolutely no idea what subject I could possibly know enough about to either write an article about or contribute to an existing one. Fortunately, an assignment from another class would push me in the right direction. Not too long ago, I had to write a cause and effect essay for my English 101 class. We could either pick from a list of provided topics or submit one of our own for approval. I wasn't crazy about any of the provided topics so I decided I would write about the effects of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination. I'm still not sure what made me think of that topic, but it proved to be interesting in my opinion. As part of my research for this essay, I checked out and read Hellhound on His Trail: The Stalking of Martin Luther King Jr. and the International Hunt for His Assassin by Hampton Sides. It follows Ray's movements before and after the assassination. I also browsed the Wikipedia article for Ray. From the start, Ray's article seemed very small to me. This surprised me since he is so notorious. I immediately decided this would be the article I would try to add to. Not only did the book peek my interest, but it also became a great source for me to use in this endeavor.
My next step was to decide what I would ad to the article. The "Early Life" immediately jumped out at me. This is what it contained prior to my addition:
James Earl Ray came from a poor family in Alton, Illinois, and left school at age fifteen. He joined the US Army at the close of World War II and served in Germany. He was convicted of his first crime, a burglary in California, in 1949.
As you can see, there just wasn't a lot here. It jumped straight from his prison escape to his arrest for the assassination of Dr. King. I wanted to know what he did in between those two events, and I figured others would be interested in this as well. Once I finished Hellhound on His Trail: The Stalking of Martin Luther King Jr. and the International Hunt for His Assassin, I had plenty of newly acquired knowledge on this subject. Finally, I was ready to start typing.
In 1952 he served two years for armed robbery of a taxi driver in Illinois. In 1955, he was convicted of mail fraud. After an armed robbery in Missouri in 1959, Ray was sentenced to twenty years in prison for repeated offenses. He escaped from prison in 1967 by hiding in a truck transporting bread from the prison bakery.
Or at least that's what I thought. Unfortunately, it wouldn't be that easy. The Ray article is in a semi-protected status. This basically means that in order to edit it, you have to be a registered user of Wikipedia and be in a confirmed status. This is done for articles that have experienced a high level of tampering in an effort to maintain the article's integrity. You can gain confirmed status two ways: once you've been registered for four days and have edited ten posts, you are confirmed automatically; the other option is to request confirmation from a Wikipedia administer. I chose the latter route since I didn't foresee myself making ten different edits in the near future. I put the request in and was confirmed later that same day.
This time, I really was ready to go. My main contribution was the following to the "Early Life" section:
Following his escape, Ray stayed on the move, going first to St. Louis and then on to Chicago, Toronto, Montreal, and Birmingham. When he got to Alabama, Ray stayed long enough to buy a 1966 Ford Mustang and get an Alabama driver’s license. He then drove to Mexico, stopping in Acapulco before settling down in Puerto Vallarta on October 19, 1967.[3] While in Mexico, Ray, using the alias Eric Starvo Galt, attempted to establish himself as a porn director. Using mail-ordered equipment, he filmed and photographed local prostitutes.[4] Frustrated with his results and jilted by the prostitute he had formed a relationship with, Ray left Mexico around November 16, 1967.[5]
Ray arrived in Los Angeles on November 19. While in L.A., Ray attended a local bar tending school and took dance lessons.[6] His chief interest, however, would be the George Wallace presidential campaign. Ray harbored a strong prejudice towards African Americans and was quickly drawn to Wallace’s segregationist platform. He would spend much of his time in Los Angeles volunteering at the Wallace campaign headquarters in North Hollywood.[7] He also developed an interest in Rhodesia, where Ian Smith’s white supremacist regime was in power. He even wrote to the American-Southern Africa Council on December 28, 1967. In this letter, Ray stated, 'My reason for writing is that I am considering immigrating to Rhodesia.'[8] The idea of living in Rhodesia stayed with Ray, and it would be his intended destination when he went on the run after Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination. One of his last acts in Los Angeles would be on March 5, 1968, when he had a rhinoplasty performed by Dr. Russell Hadley.[9] On March 18, 1968 Ray began a cross-country drive to Atlanta, Georgia.[10]
Arriving in Atlanta on March 24, Ray checked into a rooming house.[11] He eventually bought a map of the city. FBI Agents would later find this map when they searched the room he was staying at in Atlanta. On the map, the locations of the church and residence of Martin Luther King Jr. were circled.[12] Ray was soon on the road again and drove his Mustang to Birmingham, Alabama. There, on March 30, 1968, he bought a Remington Gamemaster 760 .30-06-caliber rifle and a box of 20 bullets from the Aeromarine Supply Company. He also bought a Redfield 2x7 scope, which he had mounted to the rifle. He told the store clerks that he was going on a hunting trip with his brother. Ray had continued using the Galt alias after Mexico, but when he made this purchase, he gave his name as Harvey Lowmeyer.[13]
After buying the rifle and accessories, Ray drove back to Atlanta. An avid newspaper reader, Ray passed his time reading the Atlanta Constitution. The paper reported King’s planned return trip to Memphis, Tennessee, which was scheduled for April 1, 1968. On April 2, 1968, Ray packed a bag and drove to Memphis.[14]Once I finished writing this, I went back and added links to to things people might want to find out more about. You can see these in my article above. My next step was adding in citations. These boxes are also present in the article above. Finally, I added the "Notes" section to the article and made the "References" section more uniformed in style. Both of these sections are viewable on the Wikipedia page.
After I got the hang of the code you have to use for Wikipedia, the work went pretty smoothly, and the assignment wasn't as hard as I first thought it might be.
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