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King's Final Speech and Death
The violence in Memphis took a heavy toll on Martin Luther King Jr. But he flew to the city April 3 and gave an impromptu sermon that night at a packed Mason Temple.
Addressing a crowd that included hundreds of striking sanitation workers, King recalled an attempt on his life 10 years earlier in Harlem and recent threats he had received in Memphis.
"It really doesn't matter with me now," King preached to the electrified crowd, "because I've been to the mountaintop... And I've looked over, and I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land."
On April 4, just after 6pm, King and his aides stood on the second-floor balcony of the Lorraine Motel preparing to leave for a home-cooked meal at a local minister's house. A sniper's bullet struck King. He was pronounced dead at the hospital an hour later.
After a two-month manhunt, avowed racist James Earl Ray was arrested in London for King's assassination. |