I've Been To The Mountaintop

“I’ve been to the Mountaintop,” declared Martin Luther King, Jr. in his final speech the night before his assassination.  He was tired, having flown from Atlanta to Memphis to lend his support to the sanitation workers’ strike, now in its 52nd day.  Memphis sanitation workers had walked off the job to protest the unsafe conditions, unjust treatment and unfair wages they faced every day.  Dr. King supported them, saying “all labor has dignity.”

The strike was provoked by the gruesome deaths of Echol Cole and Robert Walker who were crushed in the compactor of their garbage truck on February 1, 1968.  Now the garbage piled up on the city streets of Memphis while black and city leaders negotiated terms to end the strike.  City leaders were determined to deny the sanitation workers a living wage while black leaders wanted not only that but the recognition of their right to equality and dignity. 

On April 3, 1968, Dr. King left his room at the Lorraine Motel to attend a rally at Mason Temple, the original headquarters of the Church of God in Christ.  Fierce wind and driving rain rattled the windows as the crowd awaited King’s arrival.  When he took to the podium, he stirred the crowd with his vision of having been to the mountaintop, looked over and seen the Promised Land.  It was one of his most memorable speeches and it was also his last.  

The next evening King was in a jovial mood as he left his motel room in the company of his brother A. D. King, Rev. Andrew Young and Reverend Samuel Kyles bound for dinner at Kyles’ home.  Across the Mulberry Street, James Earl Ray lay in wait for a clear shot, the shot that ended Dr. King’s life.

Tim and I visited the Lorraine Motel, now the site of the National Civil Rights Museum while we were in Memphis.  I was only fourteen years old when King was assassinated and totally oblivious of the events leading up to that fateful night so the story of the sanitation workers’ deaths with the subsequent strike was new to me.  However, that is only a tiny fraction of the stirring stories the National Civil Rights Museum shares.  

Rosa Parks, 

the Freedom Rides, and 

Greensboro sit-ins plus several other important civil rights events are creatively exhibited at the museum.  

Growing up in a small town in Kansas did not afford me much interaction with blacks, but viewing the exhibits here created an empathy within me for the hardships they face.  This museum is well-worth a visit.