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Martin Luther King Jr.’s Final Speech

By: Daina Ramey Berry

Updated: December 13, 2021 | Original: March 27, 2018

It was a stormy night and the weather was bad, but the turnout was not. People had gathered to hear Martin Luther King Jr. , who was back in Memphis to offer inspiration for an ongoing struggle that had celebrated recent victories. King knew that storms pass and that joy comes in the morning, for he had witnessed the pain of water cannons and police dogs; he remembered the Birmingham bombing and the bombing of his own home; but he also saw legislative gains and political successes. He came on the evening of April 3rd, 1968 to share his wisdom, encouragement and support, even though a huge storm was threatening to prevent him from speaking that night.

It wasn’t just the storm threatening. The city was on edge, and racial tensions and unrest were growing. Using the slogan “I AM A MAN,” 1,300 African-American male employees of the Memphis Department of Public Works had gone on strike to demand better working conditions, higher wages and recognition of their union. King knew firsthand that economic injustice was equally as damaging as racial injustice, which was the impetus behind his Poor People’s Campaign. Following the death of two workers, he had already visited Memphis twice in the last month, the first time to give a speech to between 15,000 and 25,000 people. Robert Walker and Echol Cole had been crushed to death by the garbage truck they worked on when they took shelter inside the compactor to escape severe weather. The city had rules on where workers could go to protect themselves and the compactor barrel was the only place they were allowed to take cover. Tragically, it was also the place that compressed them to their death.

Memphis was a community in mourning, but it was also a city weary of authority and fed up with elected officials. There was palpable disappointment among the workers and their allies when storms had forced King to postpone a scheduled march on his first visit. But he was back again on the 28th to lead it.  With the support of the workers, religious clergy and students of all ages, activists took to the streets.  Their peaceful march ended early due to violence and the presence of thousands of National Guard troops. King’s team took him to Atlanta for protection. However, his commitment to the sanitation workers did not falter. He returned a third time a few days later and despite the storm, he gave his “Mountaintop Speech” to the crowd.  The next day he was assassinated at the Lorraine Motel.

More than 4,000 people around the world have scaled Mt. Everest , the highest peak in the world. Climbers have to train and take their bodies to extreme limits in order to see a view from a mountaintop that sits 29,029 feet above sea level. Their single goal is to make it to the top of the mountain. Inevitably, they understand that with this journey comes struggle, pain, sacrifice and sometimes death. They are not alone in their desire to reach the highest point on earth. Some made it and many others died along the way. For those fortunate to make it, the last mile of the hike is the most brutal. The air is so thin that oxygen tanks are required. Fighting fatigue, potential disorientation, frostbite and altitude sickness, climbers continue to climb. They do it year after year with the aid of Tibetan Sherpa guides.

King, too, had a spiritual guide who took him to the mountaintop. In his speech, he reflected on history and used the powerful metaphor of a mountaintop to give people hope. From his perspective, his people and the workers he came to address, were climbing a mountain.

Although his guide did not take him to Mt. Everest, King saw the mountaintop as a place to witness the greatness of human capacity. He had been through valleys and storms, but his guide led him along the way. God was with him and from the mountaintop showed him the Promised Land. He witnessed victories like the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 . He saw the desegregation of schools and the realities of his dream starting to materialize. 

Reflecting on his life that stormy night in Memphis, King considered a panoramic view of the past. If God asked him what period in history he would like to live in, King thought about visiting Egypt and witnessing his people cross the Red Sea. He imagined going to Greece and visiting Mt. Olympus where he could see the great philosophers such as “Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, Euripides and Aristophanes assembled around the Parthenon.”  

But, he said, he would not stop there. He would also visit the Roman Empire, the Renaissance period and seek out Martin Luther as he “tacked his ninety-five theses on the door at the church of Wittenberg.” Again, King would not stop there, he would move on to the United States in the year 1863 when Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation . Finally, he asked God to allow him to see some of the second half of the 20th century. It was to be his final sermon. The next day, he was shot dead.

In King’s lifetime, he saw his people, the descendants of the enslaved, fight to exercise their citizenship during an important historical era.  African Americans spent nearly 300 years in chains working for a country that did not recognize their personhood. They labored in fields, factories, homes, universities, cities and just about every place you can imagine. They did so without wages and were considered chattel, a movable form of property used to benefit the growth and development of a young nation. But when freedom came in 1865, and the monetary value placed upon their bodies did not transfer into wages, 4 million African Americans continued their fight for justice and equality. In my research, I have found that African Americans always valued themselves clinging to the strength of their souls, hoping for a better tomorrow. Echoes of their “soul values” are present today in movements like Black lives, yet the struggle continues. Yes, we have witnessed the first African-American family in the White House and we celebrated the accomplishment of the Obama election, but we still have more work to do. Just as King and his peers fought to end discrimination and disenfranchisement in the 20th century, we are still trying to create a more perfect society in the 21st century. We are still a divided nation.

King’s idea of the mountaintop encourages us to continue believing that we can achieve anything through persistence, perseverance and prayer. Just like those who climb Mt. Everest traveling from base camp to base camp, through storms with dangerous winds, snow, sleet and rain; the higher they climb, the thinner the air becomes as they pass those who did not make it. Witnessing such atrocities sometimes fuels their desire to reach the top because they believe that the viewpoint from the peak is worth the journey, even if only for a moment.

From my mountaintop, I see a generation of children who want the equality King dreamed of and a world where justice stamps out hatred, bigotry and poverty. On my mountaintop, I cannot help but acknowledge the storms we’ve made it through and give thanks for the lessons learned along the way. From King, I recognize that in order to enjoy the view from the top, we cannot bypass the struggle it took to get there. King had been to the mountaintop and he was hopeful for a better tomorrow.

There is a statue of King on the southwest side of the National Mall in Washington, D.C.  Here he towers over us, carved out of a rock, protruding from a mountain, gazing up at the almighty where he now lays to rest. How fitting that in the last few sentences on the eve of his death, King shared his mountaintop moment with us. He said that God allowed him “to go up to the mountain,” and he “looked over” and was blessed to have “seen the Promised Land.” Although he had been through storms and he knew that he “may not get there” with us, he wanted us to know that we “will get to the promised land.” He was happy, not worried, and did not fear “any man” because “Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.”

Daina Ramey Berry is the Michael Douglas Dean of Humanities and Fine Arts at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She is a scholar of the enslaved and the award-winning author/editor of books on slavery including The Price for Their Pound of Flesh, the Value of the Enslaved, from Womb to Grave, in the Building of a Nation . Follow her on twitter @DainaRameyBerry.

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"I've Been to the Mountaintop"

April 3, 1968

“We’ve got some difficult days ahead,” Martin Luther King, Jr., told an overflowing crowd in Memphis, Tennessee, on 3 April 1968, where the city’s sanitation workers were striking. “But it really doesn’t matter with me now, because I’ve been to the mountaintop … 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” (King, “ I’ve Been ,” 222–223). Less than 24 hours after these prophetic words, King was assassinated by James Earl Ray.

King had come to Memphis two times before to give aid to the  Memphis Sanitation Workers’ Strike . On 18 March, he spoke at a rally before 15,000 people and vowed to return the following week to lead a march. James  Lawson   and King led a march on 28 March, which erupted in violence and was immediately called off. Against the advice of his colleagues in the  Southern Christian Leadership Conference , King returned to Memphis on 3 April 1968, seeking to restore  nonviolence   back to the movement in Memphis.

 After arriving in Memphis, King was exhausted and had developed a sore throat and a slight fever. He asked Ralph  Abernathy   to take his place at that night’s scheduled mass meeting at Bishop Charles Mason Temple. As Abernathy took the podium he could sense the disappointment of the crowd, which had turned out in the hundreds to hear King speak. Abernathy called King at the hotel and convinced him to brave the bad weather and come down to the temple. When King arrived, the crowd gave him a standing ovation. After Abernathy introduced King, the 39-year-old leader took the podium and began to speak to the audience extemporaneously. “Something is happening in Memphis,” King said. “Something is happening in our world” (King, “I’ve Been,” 207). Surveying great times in history, including Egypt, the Roman Empire, the Renaissance, and the Civil War, King said he would “be happy” if God allowed him “to live just a few years in the second half of the twentieth century” (King, “I’ve Been,” 209).

As King recalled the events in  Birmingham   in 1963, he painted a bleak picture of the times, yet said this was the best time in which to live. As King concluded his speech, he began to reminiscence about his near fatal stabbing in September 1958. He exclaimed that he would have missed the emergence of the student  sit-ins  in 1960, the  Freedom Rides  in 1961, the  Albany Movement  in 1962, the  March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom  in 1963, and the  Selma to Montgomery March  in 1965.

In a prophetic finale to his speech, King revealed that he was not afraid to die: “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 so 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” (King, “I’ve Been,” 222–223). Witnesses, including Abernathy, Andrew  Young , and James Jordan said King had tears in his eyes as he took his seat. “This time it just seemed like he was just saying, ‘Goodbye, I hate to leave,’” Jordan supposed (Honey, 424). On 4 April, while King waited for a limousine to take him to dinner at Reverend Billy Kyles’ home, he was fatally shot on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel.

Abernathy,  And the Walls Came Tumbling Down , 1989.

Honey,  Going Down Jericho Road , 2007.

King, “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop,” Address Delivered at Bishop Charles Mason Temple, in  A Call to Conscience , ed. Carson and Shepard, 2001.

Young,  An Easy Burden , 1996.

Martin Luther King's final speech: 'I've been to the mountaintop' -- The full text

King talked about dying in a speech the day before his slaying April 4, 1968.

MEMPHIS, Tenn., April 3, 1968— -- Thank you very kindly, my friends. As I listened to Ralph Abernathy and 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 to say something good about you. And Ralph Abernathy 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. And you know, if I were standing at the beginning of time, with the possibility of taking a kind of general and panoramic view of the whole of 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 and I would watch God's children in their magnificent trek from the dark dungeons of 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. And I would watch them 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 aesthetic life of man. But I wouldn't stop there.

I would even go by the way that the man for whom I am named had his habitat. And I would watch Martin Luther as he tacked his ninety-five theses on the door at the church of 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.

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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 20th 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 way 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."

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