The Last Speech

The "I Have a Dream" speech that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered is considered his greatest moment, of course. But, to me, there was a much greater and much more painful speech, the one he gave on the last night of his life.

As it happens, I was there in Memphis in the days before he delivered these words. I was there both as a journalist and an activist.

His assassination the day following this speech was no surprise to me, though it was a shock. Many whites I interviewed in the week before his shooting told me they wanted to kill Dr. King.

That was then. Today, if you go to Memphis, you will find a different culture, one in which whites and blacks live together in a state of relative harmony hardly imaginable back in April 1968.

Then, we had to have "safe houses" to congregate. Now we have the memory of probably the greatest man of the 20th century, and his words in the final message he ever got to deliver to us, the survivors.

Listen carefully and if what he said that last night of his life doesn't make your skin crawl, well, I'm not sure anything ever will.

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