Samuel L Jackson shares how Martin Luther King Jr's death turned him to activism

Sharing a personal account on the 50th anniversary of Dr Martin Luther King Jr's assassination, Hollywood veteran Samuel L Jackson today revealed how the murder of the civil rights champion led him to embrace political activism.

In a guest column for The Hollywood Reporter, the 69-year-old actor recalled the time he was a sophomore at Morehouse College in Atlanta when he received the news of King's death.

King was assassinated by James Earl Ray on April 4, 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee when he was planning a national occupation of Washington, DC, called the 'Poor People's Campaign', which led to riots in many cities of America.

Jackson said he was watching "John Goldfarb, Please Come Home" at campus movie night, when "The cashier said, 'Dr King got shot.' I said, 'Is he dead?' And he said, 'No, not yet'."
"We weren't thinking of it in any historical context, but we were glad there was something we could do other than burn, loot and destroy our own neighbourhood. That we could do something that's going to make these people's lives better. Especially knowing that King was killed for something as simple as, in that moment, a garbagemen's strike."
"I remember Mahalia Jackson singing. I'd been listening to her all my life, so it was great to hear her sing 'Precious Lord, Take My Hand' live. I remember seeing people like Harry Belafonte and Sidney Poitier. People that I thought I'd never see, let alone have a relationship with later on in life."