Action News 5 - Memphis, TennesseeSmithsonian Channel screening MLK documentary in Memphis

Smithsonian Channel screening MLK documentary in Memphis

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MEMPHIS, TN -

(WMC-TV) - The Smithsonian Channel is in the Bluff City for the unprecedented screening of MLK: The Assassination Tapes - a documentary that chronicles two months of Memphis history that changed America as we know it.

Open to the public at 6 p.m. tomorrow night at the Civil Rights Museum - the film unseals unseen footage and outtakes from the days leading up to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination.

"It's as if you're sitting in your living room in Memphis in 1968, flipping channels and watching the events unfold, seamlessly," said Tom Jennings, the executive producer of the Smithsonian Channel's one-hour documentary.

There is up to 40 hours of raw audio and video - much of the footage came from WMC-TV archives and was collected by a visionary group of then Memphis State University professors.

The raw film was originally filmed in 4:3 frame, The Assassination Tapes producers restored film to the full 16:9 frame so audience members could see more of what happened.

Jennings said the footage of the day after Dr. King was assassinated was chilling - about 100 Memphis ministers stormed Memphis City hall and Coretta Scott King marched in her husband's place.

"All you could hear was the sound of their feet hitting the pavement. No one said a thing," he said.

The documentary airs Sunday at 8 p.m. on the Smithsonian Channel.

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