On April 3, in 1968, the Mason Temple in Memphis was packed.

Memphis was a city in mourning.

It was grappling with unrest over the deaths of two black employees

of the Memphis Department of Public Works, employees who were crushed to death

while taking cover from severe weather.

Today marks the 55th anniversary of their deaths today.

Under the slogan, I am a man, more than a thousand black employees were on strike

and tensions were rising.

So despite a bad thunderstorm that April night, the room was filled

and there was one man the crowd wanted to hear from.

Martin Luther King, Jr., had visited Memphis twice before.

He was trying to help the black workers get a living wage and decent working conditions

and that night he was back.

He was delivering what would be his final speech the night before he was assassinated.

Dr. King began his famous mountaintop speech by saying something is happening in Memphis.

Something is happening in our world.

We have been forced to a point where we are going to have to grapple

with the problems that men have been trying to grapple with through history

but the demands didn't force them to do it.

Survival demands that we grapple with them and the human rights revolution.

If something isn't done and done in a hurry to bring the colored peoples of the world

out of their long years of poverty, their long years of burden neglect,

...