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King Jr.'s 1958 visit to Charlotte postponed after assassination attempt

By Glenn Counts, wsoctv.com
By Glenn Counts, wsoctv.com

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s final speech that happened in Memphis was a memorable one. He was there to support sanitation workers that were on strike.

King’s original plan was to be in Charlotte that week.

"This was a place where he obviously paid a lot of attention and wanted to be involved in what was going on here," state Rep. Kelly Alexander Jr., D-Mecklenburg, said.

Alexander’s father was head of the NAACP and worked to bring King to the Queen City.

"He was a great orator, and it's that oratory that kind of lit a level of excitement, and of course that was something that everybody would look forward to," Alexander said of King.

King Jr.’s first speech in Charlotte was supposed to be in 1958 at the Charlotte Park Center, known now as the Grady Cole Center.

The trip was postponed after King was stabbed in an assassination attempt in Harlem.

A series of letters and telegrams was exchanged by King and Kelly Alexander Sr. in 1960, and those documents can be found at UNC-Charlotte's J. Murry Atkins library.

There, visitors can view a photo of King's visit in 1960 at Johnson C. Smith University, which was his first time to Charlotte.

Alexander Sr. was heavily involved in the logistics behind some of King’s trips to Charlotte, including security.

"You had to pay attention to, not only meeting the plane, but how you got him safely from point A to B," Alexander Jr. said.

The Alexanders have been in the mortuary business for more than 100 years and have been fighting for civil rights for most of that time.

"Dr. King was much more than simply the symbol. He was the leader, spiritually -- emotionally -- of a movement that continues today," Alexander Jr. said.

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