“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!”
Rev Martin Luther King, the great leader of the civil rights movement in the 1960s, delivered this beautiful and inspiring speech – known as the Mountaintop Speech – on April 3, 1968.
King had been addressing workers at the Mason Temple in Memphis, Tennessee. He was there to lead the city's striking sanitation workers, who were seeking a living wage and workplace safety after two of them were crushed to death in a garbage truck compactor, leaving behind families with no survivor's benefits.
That was Martin Luther King’s final speech.
On the following day, Luther King was assassinated while he was in the balcony of a motel in Memphis.
His was the second major assassination that shocked the United States within a period of a few years. John F Kennedy was assassinated in 1963m just five years earlier. He also strove to eliminate discrimination and segregation. He also paid a price for his struggle for justice.
The motel where Luther King had been assasinated has since been changed into the National Civil Rights Museum. In 1992, I visited this museum which documents the history of the USA Civil Rights Movement. This visit was for me a deep spiritual experience. Each hall was a strident example of the pain and misery that so many suffered gratuitously at the hands of the cruel and the callous abusers who dehumanised themselves for money, power and their other whims.
At times the struggle seemed to be lost. The balance of power was totally in favour of the oppressor. However the strength of the human spirit animated by hope, courage and determination finally achieved victory.
In the aforementioned speech Luther King spoke of determination in the face of adversity of mammoth sizes.
“We mean business now, and we are determined to gain our rightful place in God's world.
And that's all this whole thing is about. We aren't engaged in any negative protest and in any negative arguments with anybody. We are saying that we are determined to be men. We are determined to be people. We are saying -- We are saying that we are God's children. And that we are God's children, we don't have to live like we are forced to live.”
This determination led to the victory that was prophesised by Martin Luther King in his reference to the Promised Land and his certitude that “we will get, as a people, to the Promised land.” But this victory came at a price – his assassination along that of others. But it was a price worth paying.
The room where Martin Luther King shed his blood has been preserved as the holiest of shrines. During my 1992 visit I stood for a long while in prayerful silence in that place where the blood of a martyr was shed. I had with me King’s book: Strength to Love. That book has accompanied me for many years, and still does. When faced by hate, King practices love in the certainty that Love even when crucified rises again triumphant.
I remembered more of statements he made on the eve of his assassination.
“I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough can you see the stars. And I see God working in this period of the twentieth century in a way that men, in some strange way, are responding.”
God was the source of strength of Martin Luther King. This God enabled him to see light when everyone saw darkness, to smell victory when everyone smelled defeat; and to cherish love when everyone preached hate.
Luther King was assassinated forth-five years ago, but his spirit keeps marching on.