Martin Luther Kings last speech.

[Loretta Ann]

Hi all,

I have seen references made to Martin Luther King, and this just arrived in my inbox. I share it with you here.

Have you ever read Martin Luther King's,
"I've Been to The Mountaintop" speech?

We've heard excerpts on news and radio shows, but have we ever
really heard or read the whole thing?

It's perhaps one of the most awesome speeches ever made.

Take 15 minutes and read the whole thing.

Perhaps you will get a glimpse of what it's like to go to the
mountaintop. Remember, he was assassinated the next day.


Delivered by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, April 3, 1968, Memphis, TN

Thank you very kindly, my friends. As I listened to Ralph
Abernathy in his eloquent and generous introduction and then
thought about myself, I wondered who he was talking about. It's
always good to have your closest friend and associate say
something good about you. And Ralph is the best friend that I
have in the world.

I'm delighted to see each of you here tonight in spite of a
storm warning. You reveal that you are determined to go on
anyhow. Something is happening in Memphis, something is
happening in our world.

As you know, if I were standing at the beginning of time, with
the possibility of general and panoramic view of the whole human
history up to now, and the Almighty
said to me, "Martin Luther
King, which age would you like to live in?" — I would take my
mental flight by Egypt through, or rather across the Red Sea,
through the wilderness on toward the promised land. And in spite
of its magnificence, I wouldn't stop there. I would move on by
Greece, and take my mind to Mount Olympus. And I would see
Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, Euripides and Aristophanes assembled
around the Parthenon as they discussed the great and eternal
issues of reality.

But I wouldn't stop there. I would go on, even to the great
heyday of the Roman Empire. And I would see developments around
there, through various emperors and leaders. But I wouldn't stop
there. I would even come up to the day of the Renaissance, and
get a quick picture of all that the Renaissance did for the
cultural and esthetic life of man. But I wouldn't stop there. I
would even go by the way that the man for whom I'm named had his
habitat. And I would watch Martin Luther as he tacked his
ninety-five theses on the door at the church in Wittenberg.

But I wouldn't stop there. I would come on up even to 1863, and
watch a vacillating president by the name of Abraham Lincoln
finally come to the conclusion that he had to sign the
Emancipation Proclamation. But I wouldn't stop there. I would
even come up to the early thirties, and see a man grappling with
the problems of the bankruptcy of his nation. And come with an
eloquent cry that we have nothing to fear but fear itself.

But I wouldn't stop there. Strangely enough, I would turn to the
Almighty, and say, "If you allow me to live just a few years in
the second half of the twentieth century, I will be happy." Now
that's a strange statement to make, because the world is all
messed up. The nation is sick. Trouble is in the land. Confusion
all around. That's a strange statement. But I know, somehow,
that only when it is dark enough, can you see the stars. And I
see God working in this period of the twentieth century in a
away that men, in some strange way, are responding — something
is happening in our world. The masses of people are rising up.
And wherever they are assembled today, whether they are in
Johannesburg, South Africa; Nairobi, Kenya; Accra, Ghana; New
York City; Atlanta, Georgia; Jackson, Mississippi; or Memphis,
Tennessee — the cry is always the same — "We want to be free."

And another reason that I'm happy to live in this period is that
we have been forced to a point where we're going to have to
grapple with the problems that men have been trying to grapple
with through history, but the demand didn't force them to do it.
Survival demands that we grapple with them. Men, for years now,
have been talking about war and peace. But now, no longer can
they just talk about it. It is no longer a choice between
violence and nonviolence in this world; it's nonviolence or
nonexistence.

That is where we are today. And also in the human rights
revolution, if something isn't done, and in a hurry, to bring
the colored peoples of the world out of their long years of
poverty, their long years of hurt and neglect, the whole world
is doomed. Now, I'm just happy that God has allowed me to live
in this period, to see what is unfolding. And I'm happy that
He's allowed me to be in Memphis.

I can remember, I can remember when Negroes were just going
around as Ralph has said, so often, scratching where they didn't
itch, and laughing when they were not tickled. But that day is
all over. We mean business now, and we are determined to gain
our rightful place in God's world.

And that's all this whole thing is about. We aren't engaged in
any negative protest and in any negative arguments with anybody.
We are saying that we are determined to be men. We are
determined to be people. We are saying that we are God's
children. And that we don't have to live like we are forced to
live.

Now, what does all of this mean in this great period of history?
It means that we've got to stay together. We've got to stay
together and maintain unity. You know, whenever Pharaoh wanted
to prolong the period of slavery in Egypt, he had a favorite,
favorite formula for doing it. What was that? He kept the salves
fighting among themselves. But whenever the slaves get together,
something happens in Pharaoh's court, and he cannot hold the
slaves in slavery. When the slaves get together, that's the
beginning of getting out of slavery. Now let us maintain unity.

Secondly, let us keep the issues where they are. The issue is
injustice. The issue is the refusal of Memphis to be fair and
honest in its dealings with its public servants, who happen to
be sanitation workers. Now, we've got to keep attention on that.
That's always the problem with a little violence. You know what
happened the other day, and the press dealt only with the
window-breaking. I read the articles. They very seldom got
around to mentioning the fact that one thousand, three hundred
sanitation workers were on strike, and that Memphis is not being
fair to them, and that Mayor Loeb is in dire need of a doctor.
They didn't get around to that.

Now we're going to march again, and we've got to march again, in
order to put the issue where it is supposed to be. And force
everybody to see that there are thirteen hundred of God's
children here suffering, sometimes going hungry, going through
dark and dreary nights wondering how this thing is going to come
out. That's the issue. And we've got to say to the nation: we
know it's coming out. For when people get caught up with that
which is right and they are willing to sacrifice for it, there
is no stopping point short of victory.

We aren't going to let any mace stop us. We are masters in our
nonviolent movement in disarming police forces; they don't know
what to do, I've seen them so often. I remember in Birmingham,
Alabama, when we were in that majestic struggle there we would
move out of the 16th Street Baptist Church day after day; by the
hundreds we would move out. And Bull Connor would tell them to
send the dogs forth and they did come; but we just went before
the dogs singing, "Ain't gonna let nobody turn me round." Bull
Connor next would say, "Turn the fire hoses on." And as I said
to you the other night, Bull Connor didn't know history. He knew
a kind of physics that somehow didn't relate to the transphysics
that we knew about. And that was the fact that there was a
certain kind of fire that no water could put out. And we went
before the fire hoses; we had known water. If we were Baptist or
some other denomination, we had been immersed. If we were
Methodist, and some others, we had been sprinkled, but we knew
water.

That couldn't stop us. And we just went on before the dogs and
we would look at them; and we'd go on before the water hoses and
we would look at it, and we'd just go on singing "Over my head I
see freedom in the air." And then we would be thrown in the
paddy wagons, and sometimes we were stacked in there like
sardines in a can. And they would throw us in, and old Bull
would say, "Take them off," and they did; and we would just go
in the paddy wagon singing, "We Shall Overcome." And every now
and then we'd get in the jail, and we'd see the jailers looking
through the windows being moved by our prayers, and being moved
by our words and our songs. And there was a power there which
Bull Connor couldn't adjust to; and so we ended up transforming
Bull into a steer, and we won our struggle in Birmingham.

Now we've got to go on to Memphis just like that. I call upon
you to be with us Monday. Now about injunctions: We have an
injunction and we're going into court tomorrow morning to fight
this illegal, unconstitutional injunction. All we say to America
is, "Be true to what you said on paper." If I lived in China or
even Russia, or any totalitarian country, maybe I could
understand the denial of certain basic First Amendment
privileges, because they hadn't committed themselves to that
over there. But somewhere I read of the freedom of assembly.
Somewhere I read of the freedom of speech. Somewhere I read of
the freedom of the press. Somewhere I read that the greatness of
America is the right to protest for right. And so just as I say,
we aren't going to let any injunction turn us around. We are
going on.

We need all of you. And you know what's beautiful tome, is to
see all of these ministers of the Gospel. It's a marvelous
picture. Who is it that is supposed to articulate the longings
and aspirations of the people more than the preacher? Somehow
the preacher must be an Amos, and say, "Let justice roll down
like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream." Somehow,
the preacher must say with Jesus, "The spirit of the Lord is
upon me, because he hath anointed me to deal with the problems
of the poor."

And I want to commend the preachers, under the leadership of
these noble men: James Lawson, one who has been in this struggle
for many years; he's been to jail for struggling; but he's still
going on, fighting for the rights of his people. Rev. Ralph
Jackson, Billy Kiles; I could just go right on down the list,
but time will not permit. But I want to thank them all. And I
want you to thank them, because so often, preachers aren't
concerned about anything but themselves. And I'm always happy to
see a relevant ministry.

It's all right to talk about "long white robes over yonder," in
all of its symbolism. But ultimately people want some suits and
dresses and shoes to wear down here. It's all right to talk
about "streets flowing with milk and honey," but God has
commanded us to be concerned about the slums down here, and his
children who can't eat three square meals a day. It's all right
to talk about the new Jerusalem, but one day, God's preachers
must talk about the New York, the new Atlanta, the new
Philadelphia, the new Los Angeles, the new Memphis, Tennessee.
This is what we have to do.

Now the other thing we'll have to do is this: Always anchor our
external direct action with the power of economic withdrawal.
Now, we are poor people, individually, we are poor when you
compare us with white society in America. We are poor. Never
stop and forget that collectively, that means all of us
together, collectively we are richer than all the nations in the
world, with the exception of nine. Did you ever think about
that? After you leave the United States, Soviet Russia, Great
Britain, West Germany, France, and I could name the others, the
Negro collectively is richer than most nations of the world. We
have an annual income of more than thirty billion dollars a
year, which is more than all of the exports of the United
States, and more than the national budget of Canada. Did you
know that? That's power right there, if we know how to pool it.

We don't have to argue with anybody. We don't have to curse and
go around acting bad with our words. We don't need any bricks
and bottles, we don't need any Molotov cocktails, we just need
to go around to these stores, and to these massive industries in
our country, and say, "God sent us by here, to say to you that
you're not treating his children right. And we've come by here
to ask you to make the first item on your agenda fair treatment,
where God's children are concerned. Now, if you are not prepared
to do that, we do have an agenda that we must follow. And our
agenda calls for withdrawing economic support from you."

And so, as a result of this, we are asking you tonight, to go
out and tell your neighbors not to buy Coca-Cola in Memphis. Go
by and tell them not to buy Sealtest milk. Tell them not to buy—
what is the other bread?—Wonder Bread. And what is the other
bread company, Jesse? Tell them not to buy Hart's bread. As
Jesse Jackson has said, up to now, only the garbage men have
been feeling pain; now we must kind of redistribute the pain. We
are choosing these companies because they haven't been fair in
their hiring policies; and we are choosing them because they can
begin the process of saying, they are going to support the needs
and the rights of these men who are on strike. And then they can
move on downtown and tell Mayor Loeb to do what is right.

But not only that, we've got to strengthen black institutions. I
call upon you to take your money out of the banks downtown and
deposit your money in Tri-State Bank—we want a "bank-in"
movement in Memphis. So go by the savings and loan association.
I'm not asking you something we don't do ourselves at SCLC.
Judge Hooks and others will tell you that we have an account
here in the savings and loan association from the Southern
Christian Leadership Conference. We're just telling you to
follow what we're doing. Put your money there. You have six or
seven black insurance companies in Memphis. Take out your
insurance there. We want to have an "insurance-in."

Now these are some practical things we can do. We begin the
process of building a greater economic base. And at the same
time, we are putting pressure where it really hurts. I ask you
to follow through here.

Now, let me say as I move to my conclusion that we've got to
give ourselves to this struggle until the end. Nothing would be
more tragic than to stop at this point, in Memphis. We've got to
see it through. And when we have our march, you need to be
there. Be concerned about your brother. You may not be on
strike. But either we go up together, or we go down together.

Let us develop a kind of dangerous unselfishness. One day a man
came to Jesus; and he wanted to raise some questions about some
vital matters in life. At points, he wanted to trick Jesus, and
show him that he knew a little more than Jesus knew, and through
this, throw him off base. Now that question could have easily
ended up in a philosophical and theological debate. But Jesus
immediately pulled that question from mid-air, and placed it on
a dangerous curve between Jerusalem and Jericho. And he talked
about a certain man, who fell among thieves. You remember that a
Levite and a priest passed by on the other side. They didn't
stop to help him. And finally a man of another race came by. He
got down from his beast, decided not to be compassionate by
proxy. But with him, administering first aid, and helped the man
in need. Jesus ended up saying, this was the good man, this was
the great man, because he had the capacity to project the "I"
into the "thou," and to be concerned about his brother. Now you
know, we use our imagination a great deal to try to determine
why the priest and the Levite didn't stop. At times we say they
were busy going to church meetings—an ecclesiastical gathering—
and they had to get on down to Jerusalem so they wouldn't be
late for their meeting. At other times we would speculate that
there was a religious law that "One who was engaged in religious
ceremonials was not to touch a human body twenty-four hours
before the ceremony." And every now and then we begin to wonder
whether maybe they were not going down to Jerusalem, or down to
Jericho, rather to organize a "Jericho Road Improvement
Association." That's a possibility. Maybe they felt that it was
better to deal with the problem from the causal root, rather
than to get bogged down with an individual effort.

But I'm going to tell you what my imagination tells me. It's
possible that these men were afraid. You see, the Jericho road
is a dangerous road. I remember when Mrs. King and I were first
in Jerusalem. We rented a car and drove from Jerusalem down to
Jericho. And as soon as we got on that road, I said to my wife,
"I can see why Jesus used this as a setting for his parable."
It's a winding, meandering road. It's really conducive for
ambushing. You start out in Jerusalem, which is about 1200
miles, or rather 1200 feet above sea level. And by the time you
get down to Jericho, fifteen or twenty minutes later, you're
about 2200 feet below sea level. That's a dangerous road. In the
days of Jesus it came to be known as the "Bloody Pass." And you
know, it's possible that the priest and the Levite looked over
that man on the ground and wondered if the robbers were still
around. Or it's possible that they felt that the man on the
ground was merely faking. And he was acting like he had been
robbed and hurt, in order to seize them over there, lure them
there for quick and easy seizure. And so the first question that
the Levite asked was, "If I stop to help this man, what will
happen to me?" But then the Good Samaritan came by. And he
reversed the question: "If I do not stop to help this man, what
will happen to him?"

That's the question before you tonight. Not, "If I stop to help
the sanitation workers, what will happen to all of the hours
that I usually spend in my office every day and every week as a
pastor?" The question is not, "If I stop to help this man in
need, what will happen to me?" "If I do not stop to help the
sanitation workers, what will happen to them?" That's the
question.

Let us rise up tonight with a greater readiness. Let us stand
with a greater determination. And let us move on in these
powerful days, these days of challenge to make America what it
ought to be. We have an opportunity to make America a better
nation. And I want to thank God, once more, for allowing me to
be here with you.

You know, several years ago, I was in New York City autographing
the first book that I had written. And while sitting there
autographing books, a demented black woman came up. The only
question I heard from her was, "Are you Martin Luther King?"

And I was looking down writing, and I said yes. And the next
minute I felt something beating on my chest. Before I knew it I
had been stabbed by this demented woman. I was rushed to Harlem
Hospital. It was a dark Saturday afternoon. And that blade had
gone through, and the X-rays revealed that the tip of the blade
was on the edge of my aorta, the main artery. And once that's
punctured, you drown in your own blood—that's the end of you.

It came out in the New York Times the next morning, that if I
had sneezed, I would have died. Well, about four days later,
they allowed me, after the operation, after my chest had been
opened, and the blade had been taken out, to move around in the
wheel chair in the hospital. They allowed me to read some of the
mail that came in, and from all over the states, and the world,
kind letters came in. I read a few, but one of them I will never
forget. I had received one from the President and the Vice-
President. I've forgotten what those telegrams said. I'd
received a visit and a letter from the Governor of New York, but
I've forgotten what the letter said. But there was another
letter that came from a little girl, a young girl who was a
student at the White Plains High School. And I looked at that
letter, and I'll never forget it. It said simply, "Dear Dr.
King: I am a ninth-grade student at the White Plains High
School." She said, "While it should not matter, I would like to
mention that I am a white girl. I read in the paper of your
misfortune, and of your suffering. And I read that if you had
sneezed, you would have died. And I'm simply writing you to say
that I'm so happy that you didn't sneeze."

And I want to say tonight, I want to say that I am happy that I
didn't sneeze. Because if I had sneezed, I wouldn't have been
around here in 1960, when students all over the South started
sitting-in at lunch counters. And I knew that as they were
sitting in, they were really standing up for the best in the
American dream. And taking the whole nation back to those great
wells of democracy which were dug deep by the Founding Fathers
in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. If I
had sneezed, I wouldn't have been around in 1962, when Negroes
in Albany, Georgia, decided to straighten their backs up. And
whenever men and women straighten their backs up, they are going
somewhere, because a man can't ride your back unless it is bent.
If I had sneezed, I wouldn't have been here in 1963, when the
black people of Birmingham, Alabama, aroused the conscience of
this nation, and brought into being the Civil Rights Bill. If I
had sneezed, I wouldn't have had a chance later that year, in
August, to try to tell America about a dream that I had had. If
I had sneezed, I wouldn't have been down in Selma, Alabama, been
in Memphis to see the community rally around those brothers and
sisters who are suffering. I'm so happy that I didn't sneeze.

And they were telling me, now it doesn't matter now. It really
doesn't matter what happens now. I left Atlanta this morning,
and as we got started on the plane, there were six of us, the
pilot said over the public address system, "We are sorry for the
delay, but we have Dr. Martin Luther King on the plane. And to
be sure that all of the bags were checked, and to be sure that
nothing would be wrong with the plane, we had to check out
everything carefully. And we've had the plane protected and
guarded all night."

And then I got to Memphis. And some began to say the threats, or
talk about the threats that were out. What would happen to me
from some of our sick white brothers?

Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some
difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now. Because
I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I
would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm
not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And
He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. 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. And I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried
about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the
glory of the coming of the Lord.

[Beauty]

Hi Darlene,

That was wonderful. Thank you so much for posting it.

There was a rather interesting thing that happened the night he gave that speech. He didn't want to give it. He finally decided to give it when the people in the church wouldn't leave.

It's so ironic that his final speech was one of his best and it was one that originally he didn't want to give.

It's a wonderful speech and he was a great American.

Beauty

[Loretta Ann]

It's so ironic that his final speech was one of his best and it was one that originally he didn't want to give.

Thank you Beauty, but perhaps it is not to difficult to understand that his last speech was his best seeing as he had reached the top of his mountain. Awesome indeed.

Not only his best but probably none other like it. I was moved from reading it.

Love Darlene.

[TamaraSegunda]

It's been many years, and I've seen and read that speech many times, but the final paragraph still sends a chill down my spine and brings tears to my eyes. Thank you, Darlene, so much for posting it.
.......Tamara Segunda

[Anita]

Thank you, Darlene. That speech moved me very much, and I don't recall ever knowing that it was his last.