FirstLadyB| Multicultural Christian Entertainment Site
Today we pause to honor the life of Civil Rights leader and Pastor, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
On March 28, 1968, Dr. King leads a march supporting the sanitation workers in downtown Memphis, Tennessee. Violence erupts during the march, and Dr. King is rushed from the scene. Dr. King vows to return to Memphis lead a peaceful march.
Dr. King returns to Memphis on April 3rd. Despite feeling ill, he attends a rally at Mason Temple where he delivers his final sermon “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop.”
On the night of April 4, 1968, a news bulletin shook the USA to its core: Martin Luther King Jr., the most visible and important leader of the civil rights movement, was dead, killed by an assassin’s bullet in Memphis on the balcony of room 306 at the Lorraine Motel at 6:01 pm, and is pronounced dead at 7:05 pm at St. Joseph’s Hospital.
The news touched off race riots in Washington, D.C., Chicago and dozens of other cities.
Dr. King’s private funeral was held in Atlanta, Georgia, on April 9, 1968, five days after his assassination at the Ebenezer Baptist Church, where King and his father had served as pastors. King’s longtime friend Rev. Ralph Abernathy began the service, calling the event “one of the darkest hours of mankind.” At the request of Coretta Scott King, the last sermon King gave, a prescient reflection on his own funeral, was played on a tape recorder.
“Yes, if you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice,” King said. “Say that I was a drum major for peace. I was a drum major for righteousness.”
