Forty years ago yesterday, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. An unspeakably terrible loss for the United States, but his vision, wisdom, and influence live on today. King was remarkable for his ideas and vision but his ideas would never have had such an impact if he was not also an amazing and powerful public speaker. Indeed, he is surely one of the best speakers the United States has ever known. Just about everyone in the world is aware of King's "I Have a Dream" speech delivered in Washington D.C. on August 28, 1963. But you may not have ever heard the last speech King ever made. On April 3, 1968, Dr. King delivered an impassioned speech to striking sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee. The next day he was murdered as he stood on the balcony of his room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis.
Here below are just the last few moments of the last speech Dr. King ever made (here you can see the entire transcript.)
If you have the time, I urge you to listen to the entire speech. You can find part one here, and part two here. It starts slowly and builds and finally finishes big. Part two is especially moving. A very inspiring leader and speaker who knew the power of story and how to capture an audience and take them someplace, all the while painting pictures with his words in a way...well, in a way that we are still talking about forty years later.
Dr. King would be 79.
Great post! The power of telling a story is a great way to make something stick.
If you like MLK's speech you'll love Bobby Kennedy's speech the day of the assassination. Unfortunately I can't find the actual television footage but the link here has the audio set to pictures. It's worth a listen as well.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=0_Vll-t0H6A
Posted by: Charlie A. roy | April 06, 2008 at 02:37 AM
I've been to the mountain top is my favorite MLK speech. What makes it more amazing is that this is not a pre-written speech.
Posted by: Chris | April 06, 2008 at 07:43 AM
The irony of Dr King is that his fame depends in part on events decades earlier when the Union Army was PREMATURELY WITHDRAWN from their OCCUPATION of the former Confederate States of America, ending Reconstruction, leading to nearly a century of Jim Crow.
Hopefully those running for President are aware of the moral issues associated with PREMATURE WITHDRAWL from Iraq
More here ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconstruction
Posted by: rm3friskerFTN | April 06, 2008 at 01:59 PM
I listened to the speech again on the 4th. By the end, I couldn't help tearing up.
Posted by: Daniel Beck | April 08, 2008 at 04:48 AM
thank you for this. He was a remarkable man, whose power to move us to greater heights in our society remains undiminished.
Posted by: Terri in Tokyo | April 09, 2008 at 06:58 AM
Can someone tell me an author craft he used in it??
Posted by: Lauren | March 05, 2009 at 03:34 PM