MLK Jr.’s last speech was incredibly eerie

In 1905 philosopher George Santayana said, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Winston Churchill's adaptation in a 1948 speech to the House of Commons is the more well known, "Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it."

We're at an interesting point in the nation's history, with deep divisions and hatred on the rise. MLK Day this year seems more poignant than ever thinking of Churchill. This is something I shared a year ago.

Martin Luther King Jr.'s final night on earth was spent in Memphis at the Mason Temple. He was delivering a fiery speech on the Memphis Sanitation Strike which called for boycotts, economic sanctions, non-violent protest and basically for the United States to keep up its end of a bargain.

As the speech wound down, MLK's eyes grew haunted as he began speaking the most famous part of that speech which later became known as the "I've Been to the Mountaintop" speech. What he says in that closing minute and a half was almost supernatural and seemingly prophetic. If you never saw it or it's been many years, take a look.

That was on April 3, 1968. The next day at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee Martin Luther King Jr. was standing outside his room on the balcony. At 6:01 pm James Earl Ray fired a single .30-06 bullet from a Remington Model 760 rifle. The bullet tore through King's right cheek, shattering his jaw and a number of vertebrae as it traveled down his spinal cord, severing his carotid artery along the way. The force of the shot was so powerful they say it ripped King's necktie off. He collapsed unconscious and never regained consciousness. He was pronounced dead 64 minutes later at St. Joseph's Hospital.

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