New Yorkers honor the 50th anniversary of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "mountaintop speech" as it was replayed in Washington Square Park on Tuesday. King delivered the speech on April 3, 1968 in Memphis where he had gone to support to that city's striking sanitation workers.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s voice echoed throughout Washington Square Park Tuesday evening, delivering his “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” sermon.
Mayor Bill de Blasio and first lady Chirlane McCray hosted the event, in which King’s image was projected on both sides of the arch, to honor the speech’s 50th anniversary.
It was delivered April 3, 1968, the day before Dr. King was assassinated at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis.
“Fifty years ago today, he wrote a speech which defined his life’s journey,” de Blasio said in his introductory remarks.
King had traveled to Memphis to support African-American sanitation workers in their fight for higher wages.
The speech focuses on themes of economic justice and ends with a famous meditation on his own mortality.
King was in the middle of planning the Poor People’s March, a political campaign against economic disparity that ended with a march on Washington, D.C., later that year.