Martin Luther King Jr. was shot on the balcony outside Room 306 of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968.

Exact location

  • The assassination took place at the Lorraine Motel , located at 450 Mulberry Street in Memphis, Tennessee.
  • King was standing on the second‑floor balcony in front of Room 306 when a single rifle shot struck him.

Context of the shooting

  • King was in Memphis to support a strike by Black sanitation workers and was preparing to go out to dinner with colleagues when he stepped onto the balcony.
  • The shot was fired from a boarding house across the street, from a bathroom window at the rear of a rooming house on South Main Street.

Aftermath

  • He was rushed from the Lorraine Motel to St. Joseph’s Hospital in Memphis, where he was pronounced dead at age 39.
  • The Lorraine Motel site later became part of the National Civil Rights Museum, preserving the balcony area where he was shot.

TL;DR: Martin Luther King Jr. was shot on the second‑floor balcony outside Room 306 at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee.