King’s Final Speech to Be Read Aloud in Boston

BOSTON — Martin Luther King Jr.’s last speech before his assassination 50 years ago this week will be read out aloud in Boston.

Dozens of speakers aged 5 to 91 will take turns reading short passages from the speech at Monday afternoon’s remembrance on City Hall Plaza.

King originally delivered it in Memphis, Tennessee, on the eve of his April 4, 1968, death.

Democratic Boston Mayor Marty Walsh is hosting the event organized by the Boston Mountaintop Project. The group sees King’s last words as a “framework” for a more open and accepting culture.

Mountaintop Project director Kevin Peterson says the speech’s themes of racial and economic inequality make it timeless.

King found his calling as a civil rights activist in Boston and met his wife, Coretta Scott King, while studying there.