MLK Speaks About The Promised Land
“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.”–Martin Luther King’s last speech in Memphis on April 3, 1968 at The Bishop Charles Mason Temple.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his final public speech on this date in 1968. He and other members of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference were in Memphis to support sanitation workers who were striking for a living wage and safer working conditions. The speech is popularly known as the “I’ve been to the mountaintop” speech.
Although King had come to Memphis specifically to support the strike, he was not scheduled to speak at the Bishop Charles Mason Temple that evening. The Reverend Ralph Abernathy, King’s close friend and colleague with the SCLC, was the featured speaker. But there were so many calls asking for King to address the striking workers that Abernathy rang King’s hotel room and asked him to come down.
The weather was stormy, with violent thunderstorms and tornadoes in the area, and many people could not attend the event because of the storm. An exhausted and under the weather King showed up anyway to deliver the speech despite a sore throat. He spoke without notes.
He said: “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.”
He talked a lot about death in that speech, bringing up a time 10 years earlier when he was stabbed in the chest while at a book signing. He’d received many death threats, especially after he spoke out against the war in Vietnam. His flight from Atlanta to Memphis was delayed for an hour because there had made a bomb threat against his plane.
In his speech, he said: “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.”
And he ended his speech: “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.”
King nearly collapsed as he finished his speech, and had to be helped back to his seat, tears streaming down his face.
He was assassinated the next day. He was 39 years old.
Joanna. joannaseibert.com