1976
Louis served on the Select Committee on Assassinations of the U.S. House
of Representatives
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In the middle of the turbulent decade of the 1960s in a span of less
than five years, American society was deeply shaken by the assassinations
of four prominent political leaders. President John F. Kennedy was killed
on November 22, 1963; Malcolm X was murdered on February 21, 1965; on
April 4, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot dead in Memphis,
Tennessee; and two months later, on June 6, Senator Robert F. Kennedy
was murdered while campaigning for the Presidency in Los Angeles.
One of Congressman Louis Stokes’ most important assignments was to serve as chair of the House Select Committee on Assassinations. That committee was charged with re-investigating the deaths of President John F. Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The Committee began meeting in 1976, issuing its final reports in 1979.
The committee on the King assassination concluded that there was a possibility of conspiracy in the murder, but that James Earl Ray had been the sole gunman.
The report on the Kennedy assassination determined that there was a probability of a second gunman and that the murder may have been the result of a conspiracy.
For resources on the Kennedy Assassination from the National Archives visit www.archives.gov/research/jfk/select-committee-report/