Slaying Of Dr. King Still Weighs On Memphis He Was Killed 30 Years Ago. The City Struggles With The Legacy.

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — From the balcony outside Room 306 at the old Lorraine Motel, you can look across to the brick rooming house and imagine what the sniper must have thought: This is an easy shot.

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. died less than an hour after being struck. Memphis' injuries endure.

Today, 30 years after Dr. King's assassination, this city still aches from wounds of resentment and embarrassment that have scarred but not healed.

This hospitable Southern city, where the great icon of the civil rights movement led his final protest march down Beale Street and gave his last speech at Mason Temple Church, is trying to accept and understand its part in his death.

``People in the white community say, `Why did it have to happen here?' said the Rev. Samuel Billy Kyles, a Memphis preacher who was standing beside Dr. King on the balcony that evening. ``Not, `Why did it have to happen?' but, `Why did it have to happen here?' ''

``We have never faced up to what happened here,'' said Beverly Robertson, who runs the National Civil Rights Museum, which now occupies the hotel. ``Dr. King traveled all over the world, and he got killed here. The white community was like, `See, troublemaker? See what happens?' ''

Others disagree. Said Stephen Tompkins, a former Memphis journalist who documented how Army intelligence units spied on Dr. King up to the moment of his death: ``I never got a sense that people felt guilty. Memphians understand the importance of history and how their city has played a role in history, not just in the King assassination but back to the Civil War.''

In fact, signs of Dr. King are hard to find in Memphis. The Civil Rights Museum is well south of downtown, off the tourist track, and directions to other King sites are hard to obtain, even from those who should know.

``That's a good question,'' said Chip Washington, a Pilgrimage to Memphis spokesman who was unsure what places Dr. King admirers could visit. ``There's a Martin Luther King Jr. park here. I assume there's a street here.''

There is. Today and tomorrow, the Martin Luther King Jr. Expressway will help carry an estimated 5,000 tourists and civil-rights veterans across the Bluff City for 30th-anniversary observances. Thousands are expected downtown this morning to re-create Dr. King's last march, followed by the ringing of church bells at 6:01 p.m., Central time, the hour of his assassination.