Former Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center spokeswoman Clementine Brown still remembers standing at the Washington Monument, listening to Martin Luther King Jr. give his famous ‘I Have a Dream’ speech.
More than 50 years later, she came to HGARC to see, touch and feel the documents of King’s assassin, James Earl Ray.
‘I marched to Washington with Martin Luther King,’ Brown said. ‘I got on a bus at 10 p.m. and heard his ‘I Have a Dream’ speech the next day. I came to this exhibition to see documents about James Earl Ray. I wanted to reinforce the emotions I had been feeling during that time.
HGARC hosted an exhibition to display documents relating to the personal lives of murderers and assassins to a small group of attendees in Mugar Memorial Library on Wednesday.
Inside of the main research room, 11 attendees put on cotton gloves so the oils from their skin would not damage the documents. Wanted signs, letters and secret documents about criminals in history surrounded the tables.
Attorney Janice Bassil, who was slotted to speak at the exhibition, was unable to attend because she was defending a double homicide.
Personal documents belonging to Ray, John Wilkes Booth, who killed President Abraham Lincoln and Lee Harvey Oswald, who assassinated President John F. Kennedy, were available to read and touch.
Archivist J.C. Johnson pointed out the first draft of a letter by Oswald’s mother, Marguerite Oswald, in which she criticizes the Warren Commission report, which concluded that Oswald acted alone in killing Kennedy.
‘You will note that my son, Lee Harvey Oswald, never received his constitutional right of trial by jury,’ the letter read.
Johnson also pointed out original letters written by Ray to his brother requesting toiletries while he was spending time in prison.
College of Arts and Sciences sophomore Rebecca Silk said she found the documents pertaining to murderers, such as the Boston Strangler, the most interesting.
The Boston Strangler, a man named Albert DeSalvo, was accused of killing several women and confessed to the crimes under interrogation and hypnosis. A transcript of the hypnosis available read, ‘When she went in she turned her back to me and I put a knife in her throat.’
Boston University medical school junior Meredith McCaskill said she came because she is a forensics major.
‘Criminals and assassins are always in the case studies about different crimes,’ McCaskill said. ‘I thought this would fit in about what we’re studying.’
HGARC Senior Systems Administrator Andy Kurmakov expressed concern with the few people who attended despite the amount of advertising HGARC distributed.
Students need to learn to take advantage of the resources available to them, Kurmakov said.
‘We’re trying to enrich the lives of BU students,’ Kurmakov said. ‘We see ourselves as cultural presenters who want to expand student experience.’
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