Congressman Adam Clayton Powell of Harlem derisively called the great leader Martin "Loser" King. And at times even his closest friends, such as Andrew Young and Ralph Abernathy, began to feel that King was becoming so visionary as to be ineffective. King's wife, Coretta, remarked on her husband's demons in life: "My husband was what psychologists call a guilt-ridden man. He was so conscious of his awesome responsibilities that he literally set himself the task of never making an error in the affairs of the Movement."

In the violent America of the 1960s, perhaps it was inevitable that the driven civil rights leader would meet fatal violence. He went to Memphis, Tennessee, to help out striking garbage workers in their push toward better salaries. Perhaps it was fitting that King saw his highest and most tragic goal in this setting. "Well, I don't know what will happen now," he said in his speech. "But it doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountaintop. I won't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long time. Longevity has its place. 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." He darkened his vision with strong hints of his own doom: "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. So I'm happy tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man." And he ended this emotional climb with the words: "Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!"

King was assassinated April 4, 1968, on the balcony outside his Memphis motel room. Perhaps no more fitting tribute could be raised to the slain believer in the power of nonviolence than one of his own statements: "If a man hasn't found something he will die for, he isn't fit to live. .