Highly acclaimed filmmaker, Joe Berlinger, is set to direct and produce a feature documentary and film entitled Slay The Dreamer, that focuses on the friend and advisor to Martin Luther King, Rev. James Lawson. The two projects focus on Lawson’s life as a civil rights leader who played a huge role in the Sanitation Workers’ Strike in Memphis where he asked King to speak to the workers before he was killed.
Slay the Dreamer tells the true story of Lawson’s efforts to reopen the investigation of King’s murder. Lawson spent years after the event looking into the gaps in the official story about who pulled the trigger. James Earl Ray was eventually convicted, and Lawson tracked down Grace Walden, the only eyewitness to the shooting.
She had turned down a reward and refused to sign an affidavit pointing to Ray. She was then held in a mental institution under a false name for years, while the official files on the matter remain sealed even today.
Berlinger completed two previous projects narrative and documentary on serial killer Ted Bundy released by Netflix – Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes on January 24 and just two days later, the narrative drama Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile which premiered in Sundance with Zac Efron, Lily Collins and John Malkovich starring.
“This is an extremely painful chapter of American history that for many remains unresolved,” the filmmaker said. “In this era of accountability and racial division, I am extremely humbled at the prospect of working with Reverend Lawson to shine a light on what really happened that fateful day 51 years ago.”
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