News Brooklyn Heights

In Brooklyn, Martin Luther King Jr. spoke of the American dream

Died 50 years ago today, his words remain relevant

January 15, 2024 Francesca Norsen Tate

The Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II, second from left, and the Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis, left, co-chairs of the Poor People's Campaign, speak at the National Civil Rights Museum on Tuesday in Memphis, Tennessee. The organization is the rekindling the campaign to help poor people that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was working on when he was killed April 4, 1968, in Memphis. AP Photo/Mark Humphrey

The Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II, second from left, and the Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis, left, co-chairs of the Poor People's Campaign, speak at the National Civil Rights Museum on Tuesday in Memphis, Tennessee. The organization is the rekindling the campaign to help poor people that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was working on when he was killed April 4, 1968, in Memphis. AP Photo/Mark Humphrey

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This article was originally published on April 3, 2018.

Exactly 50 years ago today, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was shot and killed on the balcony of room 306 at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee.

His death came one day after his final sermon, “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop,” delivered at Mason Temple, in which he describes a premonition of what was to befall him.

“Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place,” King said. “But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. 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!”

In August 1963, five years before his death, King famously told the nation about a dream he had. Many aren’t aware, however, that King had mused upon many of these same thoughts in a speech delivered at Plymouth Church in Brooklyn Heights in February of that same year.

The Rev. Dr. Harry Kruener, Plymouth’s widely-respected senior minister during that period, had extended an invitation to Dr. King the previous autumn.

Plymouth (called Plymouth Church of the Pilgrims at that time) had been designated a National Historic Landmark as a foremost center of anti-slavery sentiment before the outbreak of the Civil War, under the leadership of the world-famous Rev. Henry Ward Beecher.

The historian David McCullough, according to The New York Times, once described Plymouth Church under Beecher as Brooklyn’s “foremost institution, bar none, the thing that Brooklyn was famous for from one end of the land to another.”

As a leading stop on the Underground Railroad, it was fitting that King took up Kruener’s offer to visit Plymouth.

In his Brooklyn sermon, King discussed the American dream and the dream of world peace.

“America is essentially a dream—yet unfulfilled,” he said. “The substance of the dream is expressed in these sublime words: ‘We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness….’

“Now, there are several things that must be done in order to make this dream a reality,” he told the congregation. “In order to make the American dream real, we must be concerned about the world dream of peace and brotherhood. The world in which we live today is geographically one. Now we are challenged to make it one in terms of brotherhood and therefore every person of good will must have a world perspective.”

Later in his sermon, Dr. King emphasized a notion that still, unfortunately, percolates at the fringes of American society today.

“The other thing that is so basic and necessary in order to make this dream a reality, is to get rid of the notion once and for all, that there are superior and inferior races. This idea still lingers around in spite of the evidence of great thinkers and the sciences.”

King spoke of his efforts to carry out the “non-violent direct action movement” in the south.

“It is possible to stand up against the injust system, resist it with all of the strength and all of the soul force that you can muster, and yet not stoop to the level of hatred and violence in the process. And, therefore, this I believe — that we can work passionately and unrelentingly for first-class citizenship and yet not use second-class methods to gain it.”

Presciently, King spoke about the need to suspend nuclear tests and disarm the world. Failure to do so “may well be a civilization plunged into the abyss of annihilation,” he warned.

In a world where satellites are “dashing through outer space and guided missiles are carving highways of death through the stratosphere, no nation can win a war,” King said. “It is no longer a choice between violence and non-violence. It is either non-violence or non-existence.”

He added, “We have failed to make of it a brotherhood through our moral and ethical comment, and now we must all learn to live together as brothers or we will perish together as fools. This is what we must face today. No individual can live alone; no nation can live alone. We are interdependent.”

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