Your path leads to Mason Temple, the largest Black-owned church building in the United States at the time of its construction and the site of one of the most extraordinary speeches in American history. On the night of April 3, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stood at this pulpit and delivered what would be his final public address. A tornado warning had darkened the skies over Memphis and only a few thousand people had braved the storm to attend.
Dr. King had not planned to speak that night, but when he arrived and saw the faithful who had come, he took the microphone. What followed was a prophecy. He spoke of threats on his life, of the struggle ahead, of the mountaintop he had climbed and the promised land he had glimpsed.
'I may not get there with you,' he said. 'But I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the promised land.' He was assassinated the following afternoon. The thunder in the recording is real.
The tears in his voice are real. Let his words about the promised land linger in you.