English: Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in Memphis on the evening of April 4, 1968. During King's visit to Memphis, the Lewis funeral home had provided him with a chauffeured limousine. The driver, Solomon Jones, an employee of the Lewis Funeral Home, was one of the last people to speak to King before he was shot, and also attempted to chase the shooter, to no avail.

After the shooting, King was taken by ambulance to the emergency ward at St. Joseph's Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, where he was pronounced dead at 7:05 p.m. Within an hour, his body was transported to the office of the Chief Medical Examiner at John Gaston Hospital, where Dr. Jerry Francisco performed an autopsy.

King's closest aids contacted Robert Lewis Jr. to retrieve the body and prepare it for viewing. The autopsy was completed at around 11:00 p.m., and at 11:15 p.m. King's body arrived at the R.S. Lewis & Sons Funeral Home. The assassins' bullet, as well as the subsequent autopsy, had caused significant damage to King's neck and face, and both Robert Jr. and Clarence labored through the night embalming, grooming and preparing King's body, while listening to crackling recordings of King's speeches. Ralph Abernathy commented "the body appeared unblemished. The morticians had done their job well."

Coretta Scott King arrived in Memphis the following morning on a plane personally arranged by Robert F. Kennedy. A viewing and memorial service took place on April 5th in the home's chapel, which filled with hundreds of mourners. Ralph Abernathy offered a prayer, while tears streamed down Andrew Young's face. King's casket was then flown to Atlanta for two more funeral services, which the R.S. Lewis & Sons Funeral Home co-directed.