By ADRIAN SAINZ
Contributing Writer
MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — A local landmark indelibly linked to one of the most iconic moments of the modern civil rights movement is expected to get a $1.2 million facelift, officials announced this week.
Mason Temple, the church where the Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his final speech on April 3, 1968, will receive a $1.2 million federal grant to preserve a treasured piece of American history, officials said April 13.
The grant is part of a nearly $18 million package for Memphis projects included in the annual congressional appropriations process.
The package also includes $3.1 million for the restoration of historic Clayborn Temple, the staging area for the 1968 sanitation workers strike that brought King to Memphis. It was heavily damaged by a fire that investigators say was intentionally set last April.
The grant for Mason Temple is for long-term facility improvements and technology infrastructure upgrades, with more details set to come at an April 13 news conference by Church Of God in Christ leaders and U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen, a Democrat from Memphis who first announced the grant in February.
The two churches being renovated are located near the former Lorraine Motel, where King was fatally shot on April 4, 1968. Fighting a cold, King visited Mason Temple the night before and made what was to be his final speech, the stirring “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” address.
King, 39, gave an impassioned account of his life experiences and seemed to foretell his own death.
“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,” King said.
In a 2018 Associated Press story about the 50th anniversary of King’s assassination, witnesses described how King captivated the audience in the packed church during a thunderstorm.
“It’s a tin roof, so that’s banging. There’s rafters up there above us, and the rafters are blowing with the wind and hitting each other and hitting the walls from the fierceness of the wind and the rain,” said Rev. James Lawson, a prominent civil rights activist.
When he finished, King slumped into a chair. To Mike Cody, one of King’s lawyers, he looked like a “toy that had the air taken out of it.”
“Ministers, men were crying,” the Rev. Jesse Jackson told the AP in the 2018 story.
The Mason Temple was completed in 1945 following the destruction of the original church by fire. It serves as the world headquarters for the Church Of God in Christ.
It also was the site of a January 2023 memorial service for Tyre Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man who was brutally beaten to death by Memphis police officers after he fled a traffic stop.
Adrian Sainz writes for the Associated Press.
