Martin Luther King's Voice Lives On 50 Years After Assassination

ATLANTA, GA — On the evening of April 4, 1968, an assassin's bullet ended the life of 39-year-old civil-rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. On Wednesday, fifty years later, a new generation will gather to remember a man whose message of equality and nonviolence could never be silenced.

A Nobel Peace Prize winner and the first president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, King led the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott and the 1963 March on Washington. His "Letter From a Birmingham Jail" and "I Have A Dream" speech remain iconic civil-rights documents.

In countries around the world, bells will toll 39 times at 6:01 p.m. Wednesday (when King was shot) in remembrance. At the King Center campus in downtown Atlanta, family members of the civil rights legend will place wreaths on the crypts of King and his late wife, Coretta Scott King.

During their first joint interview in more than a decade, Bernice King and her brothers, Dexter and Martin, recently told CBS News they still relive the trauma of their father's assassination. The brothers saw the fatal shooting while watching television.

"Even to this day, when I see a breaking news flash I have PTSD," Dexter King said. "You see your father being shot on television, and that's very, very traumatic."

Older brother Martin said he remembered his mother saying, "Your dad has gone home to live with God."

In Atlanta, where King preached as pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church, the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change has a full slate of events scheduled to mark the day.

"Today, we remember my father’s death, but most importantly, we must remember the purpose and power of his life," the center's CEO, Bernice A. King, said in a news release. "Although this day is challenging for our family and for many around the world, I encourage you to hope today and to hope always ... . Our family encourages you to not be angered by my father’s death; be bolstered by his teachings and awakened by his work."

A day before he was murdered, King arrived in Memphis to help lead a peaceful protest march by the city's striking sanitation workers that was set for April 5. While there, he delivered his “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech, which referenced death and fear.

“We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn’t matter with me now, because I’ve been to the mountaintop. And I don’t mind. Like anybody, I would like to live—a long life; 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," King said. "And I’ve looked over. And 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. So I’m happy, tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man.”

The next evening, April 4, a white supremacist named James Earl Ray fatally shot the father of four with a high-powered rifle from the window of a rooming house across the street from King's motel.

As the country grappled with a deadly white supremacist march in Virginia last summer, Atlanta unveiled a statue of King at the Georgia State Capitol. The King family was on hand for the event, which came as much of the nation, especially the South, debated the import of monuments and markers. The issue has simmered for years, but it boiled over with the tragic clashes in Charlottesville.

King's daughter Bernice spoke at the event, saying that "now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children."

Events at the King Center, many of which are free, include:

• Tuesday, 7 p.m. Bernice King and special guests gather to remember Dr. King’s last speech delivered on April 3, 1968, at the Mason Temple in Memphis, Tennessee.
• Wednesday, 10:30 a.m. The Martin Luther King, Jr. Nonviolent Peace Prize, the King Center’s highest award, is presented for commitment to nonviolence as a way of life through which social justice, human rights and civil liberties are attained for all. This year's honorees are Benjamin Ferencz and Bryan Stevenson. Ferencz was a prosecutor at the Nuremburg trials of World War II-era Nazis and Stevenson is an attorney who fought to have mandatory life sentences for convicts 17 and younger declared unconstitutional.
• Wednesday, 7:01 p.m. Global bell ringing and King family wreath-laying at Martin Luther King's crypt. The event is scheduled for the time King was declared dead 50 years earlier.
• Saturday, 11 a.m.-4 p.m. "King Centennial Speaks: The Centennial Generation of King Children," will feature messages from Yolanda Renee King, MLK's granddaughter, and Maryn Rippy, granddaughter of A.D. King, his younger brother. The event will be at the Georgia Freight Depot and is designed for children ages 2-13.

The King Center is located at 449 Auburn Ave. NE in Atlanta.

King's impact has endured over the decades despite his never having held political office. And while some observers say it is easy for today's leaders to claim they would have supported King, his words ring as true today as they did in the 1960s.

In his last Sunday sermon, King called on good people to speak out against injustice instead of remaining on the sidelines. His words still ring true in an era of gun-violence, marches, police-shooting protests and #MeToo.

"Human progress never rolls in on the wheels of inevitability," King told a largely white congregation at Washington National Cathedral. "It comes through the tireless efforts and the persistent work of dedicated individuals who are willing to be co-workers with God."

He went on to condemn "the appalling silence and indifference of the good people who sit around and say, 'Wait on time.'"

When tempers frayed and flared, King urged patience.

One of King's most memorable quotes, from his book "Strength to Love" that was first published in 1963, continues to ring true:

"Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction."

King's three surviving children have made headlines for court battles over two of their father's most famed possessions. His sons Martin and Dexter have been at odds with their sister Bernice over whether to sell their father's Bible and Nobel Prize. The siblings were in court several years ago seeking legal right to the artifacts. One historian accused them of being motivated by greed.

King's Bible was last seen in public when President Barack Obama used it in early 2013 while taking the oath of office at his second inauguration, according to Associated Press. Former President Jimmy Carter has urged the siblings to remove themselves from the business of running their father's estate, which they said they plan to do.

Here are six books that shed more light on King and his life (courtesy of Time):

• Martin Luther King Jr.: A Life, by Marshall Frady (2002)
• The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr., edited by Clayborne Carson (1998)
• Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-63, by Taylor Branch (1988)
• The Heavens Might Crack: The Death and Legacy of Martin Luther King Jr., by Jason Sokol (2018)
• The Promise and the Dream: The Untold Story of Martin Luther King, Jr. And Robert F. Kennedy, by David Margolick (2018)
• The Seminarian: Martin Luther King Jr. Comes of Age, by Patrick Parr (2018)

— The Associated Press contributed to this story.

Photo courtesy Martin Luther King Jr. Center For Nonviolent Social Change