King worked for both racial and economic equality, and died while in the middle of a fight for public employees' right to collectively bargain.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tb9m81OwYH0
On April 4, 1968, 43 years ago today, Civil Rights Movement leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was tragically assassinated while standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. He was 39 years old.
Far from the sanitized version of his life currently taught to America's school children, King was genuine, full-scale agitator—leading marches, supporting strikes and nonviolently demanding racial and economic equality for all Americans. He'd headed to Memphis to help the city's sanitation workers fight for the right to collectively bargain. On April 3, the day before his assassination, King delivered his last public speech, "I've Been to the Mountaintop", in support of those striking workers, saying,
All we say to America is, "Be true to what you said on paper." If I lived in China or even Russia, or any totalitarian country, maybe I could understand the denial of certain basic First Amendment privileges, because they hadn't committed themselves to that over there. But somewhere I read of the freedom of assembly. Somewhere I read of the freedom of speech. Somewhere I read of the freedom of the press. Somewhere I read that the greatness of America is the right to protest for right.\n
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