A crowd gathered at Central Magnet High School in Murfreesboro on Monday afternoon to march together in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
The group of more than 500 marched went down Hancock St, turning left onto Mercury Boulevard and into the Patterson Park Community Center, where Pastor Donald Whitmore of the True Gospel Missionary Baptist Church recited excerpts from two famous King speeches from memory.
“I was reading a paper that said I was going to do part of the Martin Luther King ‘I Have a Dream’ speech, and I had decided I was going to do part of another speech that I had been preparing,” Whitmore said. “So I’m going to do the last speech he ever did in Memphis, Tennessee.”
Whitmore began to recite words King gave in Memphis on April 3, 1968, the day before his assassination. In the speech, King recalls being stabbed at a signing for his first book in Harlem in 1958. The New York Times, King said, claimed that if he had so much as sneezed, the blade would have punctured his aorta, and he would have “drowned in [his] own blood.”
In the hospital, King recieved letters from the PresidentLyndon B. Johnson, Vice President Hubert Humphrey, and the governor of New York. But the one he chose to remember came from a white ninth grade girl, who said she was glad he didn’t sneeze.
Taking this as a refrain, both King at the Mason Temple in Memphis in 1968 and Whitmore under the Pavillion of the Patterson Park Community Center in Murfreesboro in 2015, launched into a timeline of the accomplishments of the Civil Rights Movement that King saw in his life, counting them as reasons he too was “so happy he didn’t sneeze.”
That speech ends with King saying he does not fear death, despite threats of it surrounding him, because he had seen the “promised land.”
“We’ve got some difficult days ahead of us. But it doesn’t really matter with me now, because I’ve been to the mountaintop,” King said in his speech.
Pivoting energetically on the balls of his feet, Whitmore started into “I Have a Dream” without missing a beat. Continuing the themes of violence faced by black Americans and connecting past to present, Whitmore improvised on some of King’s immortal lines.
“I have a dream that we will see a day when we no longer have to see the atrocities that Trayvon Martin had to face, or that Ferguson, Missouri had to face,” Whitmore said before shouting “I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe!” in a tribute to Eric Garner.
Pastor Donald Whitmore recites an excerpt from Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have A Dream” speech at Patterson Park Community Center in Murfreesboro, Tennessee on January 19, 2015.
Pastor Donald Whitmore recites an excerpt from Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have A Dream” speech at Patterson Park Community Center in Murfreesboro, Tennessee on January 19, 2015.
Pastor Donald Whitmore recites an excerpt from the final speech Martin Luther King Jr. gave before his assassination, “I’ve Been To The Mountaintop,” at Patterson Park Community Center in Murfreesboro, Tennessee on January 19, 2015.
Julius Caldwell and Sunni Hickey, both 20, walk in a Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade in Murfreesboro, Tennessee on January 19, 2015. The words on their t-shirts, “I Can’t Breathe,” memorialize Eric Garner, who was killed by New York City police in 2014.
A march commemorating the life of Martin Luther King Jr. on January 19, 2015 in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, drew 568 people. They walked from Central Magnet High School to Patterson Park Community Center.
Stacy Windrow, 48, Tammy Smith, 44, and shalita Simmonds, 43, were among several people sporting sorority and fraternity colors in a march on January 19, 2015, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.
568 people gathered to march down Hancock Street in Murfreesboro, Tennessee on January 19, 2015 to commemorate Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
A march down Hancock Street in Murfreesboro, Tennessee on January 19, 2015 to remember Martin Luther King Jr. was organized by the Murfreesboro Lodge No. 12, Free and Accepted Mason, Prince Hall Affiliated, and the Martin Luther King Jr. Scholarship Fund of Rutherford County.
A march down Hancock Street in Murfreesboro, Tennessee on January 19, 2015 to remember Martin Luther King Jr. was organized by the Murfreesboro Lodge No. 12, Free and Accepted Mason, Prince Hall Affiliated, and the Martin Luther King Jr. Scholarship Fund of Rutherford County.
A march down Hancock Street in Murfreesboro, Tennessee on January 19, 2015 to remember Martin Luther King Jr. was organized by the Murfreesboro Lodge No. 12, Free and Accepted Mason, Prince Hall Affiliated, and the Martin Luther King Jr. Scholarship Fund of Rutherford County.
Kim Hopkins, Paulette Graves, Chris Hopkins, and the Hopkins’ daughter, march with a parade comemmorating the life of Martin Luther King Jr. on January 19, 2015, in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.
A march down Hancock Street in Murfreesboro, Tennessee on January 19, 2015 to remember Martin Luther King Jr. was organized by the Murfreesboro Lodge No. 12, Free and Accepted Mason, Prince Hall Affiliated, and the Martin Luther King Jr. Scholarship Fund of Rutherford County.
A man sings African-American spirituals as he walks down Hancock St. with other marchers in a Martin Luther King Jr. Day Parade on January 19, 2015, in Murfreesboro, Tennessee
A march down Hancock Street in Murfreesboro, Tennessee on January 19, 2015 to remember Martin Luther King Jr. was organized by the Murfreesboro Lodge No. 12, Free and Accepted Mason, Prince Hall Affiliated, and the Martin Luther King Jr. Scholarship Fund of Rutherford County.
People gather at Central Magnet High School in Murfreesboro, Tennessee in preparation for a march honoring the legacy of civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. on January 19, 2014
Zach Foxworth, 6, holds a portrait of Martin Luther King Jr. before setting out on a parade honoring the civil rights activist’s legacy on January 19, 2015 in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.
Rosie Fain, 55, Michelle Fain, 22, Fach Foxworth, 6, and Johnnie Wade, 70, gather before a parade honoring Martin Luther King Jr. on January 19, 2015, in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.
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