Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.” But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. In his speech, King seemed to foreshadow his own untimely passing, or at least to strike a particularly reflective note, ending with these now-historic words: “I’ve seen the promised land. On the night of April 3, King gave a speech at the Mason Temple Church in Memphis.

In the spring of 1968, while preparing for a planned march to Washington to lobby Congress on behalf of the poor, King and other SCLC members were called to Memphis, Tennessee, to support a sanitation workers’ strike. Ordained as a minister soon after King's death, Jackson went on to form Operation PUSH (People United to Save Humanity) and to run twice for U.S. These young radicals stuck closer to the ideals of the Black nationalist leader Malcolm X ( himself assassinated in 1965), who had condemned King’s advocacy of nonviolence as “criminal” in the face of the continuing repression suffered by African Americans.Īs a result of this opposition, King sought to widen his appeal beyond his own race, speaking out publicly against the Vietnam War and working to form a coalition of poor Americans-Black and white alike-to address such issues as poverty and unemployment.ĭid you know? Among the witnesses at King's assassination was Jesse Jackson, one of his closest aides.

King faced mounting criticism from young African American activists who favored a more confrontational approach to seeking change.

Kings of a dead world