In His Own Words | April 3, 1968 | I’ve Been to the Mountaintop

In Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s final speech, he discusses the Memphis sanitation workers’ strike. In support of the sanitation workers, he urges the audience to participate in nonviolent direct action as well as use their buying power strategically by supporting Black businesses and business that had fair practices. Famously, he ponders his own mortality in this speech given the day before he was assassinated.

Click here to see all videos in the In His Own Words series, part of our 2022 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration.

In His Own Words | March 12, 1966 | Address to the Chicago Freedom Festival

The Chicago Freedom Movement, supported by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the Chicago-based Coordinating Council of Community Organizations sought, a variety of civil rights gains in Chicago. King delivered a speech at the Chicago Freedom Festival, a concert that raised over $100,000 to support the movement, to an interracial crowd of around 12,000. In the speech, he focused on issues impacting Chicago sums and encouraged the audience to participate in nonviolent protest in the spring.

In His Own Words | April 16, 1963 | Letter from a Birmingham Jail

In Letter from a Birmingham Jail, King addresses criticism, point-by-point, that he received from local religious leaders about the tactics that King, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and Birmingham’s local civil rights movement used, putting pressure on Birmingham merchants during a busy shopping season, in order to move toward desegregation.

Click here to see all videos in the In His Own Words series, part of our 2022 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration.

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