Jeremy HildrethOn 3 April 1964, Martin Luther King gave the famous ‘mountaintop speech’: “Well, I don’t know what will happen now,” he said. “We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn’t matter with me now, because I’ve been to the mountaintop….And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land!”
Less than 24 hours later, he was shot dead on the balcony outside room 307 of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee.
And you can visit the exact spot where the assassination happened becaue the Lorraine Motel is now the National Civil Rights Museum, and the last exhibit you walk through at the museum is MLK’s room — which you more or less stand in as it was at 6:01pm on 4 April 1964, the moment of the murder. You can then cross the street and stand next to the actual flophouse bathroom — similarly un-refurbished — where James Earl Ray fired the lethal shot.
It’s very moving. And it got me thinking about a number of subjects, one of the more mundane of which is the simple power of ‘the place where it actually happened.’ Anytime a place has got that, I think, it’s got something. Because there’s just nothing like being…right…there.
View from the assassin's window
Visiting the Lorraine Motel a few years back was also a very moving experience for me. I agree there’s nothing like visiting historical sites and feeling their vibe firsthand. It can be someplace monumental, like the scene of MLK’s assassination, or a location with a softer sense of meaning, like the cramped Sun Studio just a few miles from the motel, where Elvis, Howlin’ Wolf, U2 and other musical giants committed their magic to tape. It’s nice to read about these destinations, but so much more enriching to actually see them and touch them. Great blog by the way. All the best.