Mason Temple in Memphis

Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered his famous "Mountaintop" speech in this church in Memphis, Tennessee, the night before his assassination--April 3, 1968. In the "Mountaintop" speech, King told a group of striking sanitation workers in Memphis: “We’ve got to give ourselves to this struggle until the end. Nothing would be more tragic than to stop at this point in Memphis. We’ve got to see it through” (King, “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop,” 217). King believed the struggle in Memphis exposed the need for economic equality and social justice that he hoped his Poor People’s Campaign would highlight nationally.