Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated 50 years ago today on April 4, 1968, while standing outside his room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee.

Mississippi newspapers had been covering King for more than a decade as he led the civil rights movement, mostly through wire coverage or on the editorial page. His death and the reaction that followed was covered in several of Mississippi’s daily newspapers and some weeklies.

Here’s a look at some of the front pages and editorials published in the days following King’s assassination.

(Source: Mississippi Department of Archives and History via Newspapers.com)