MIAMI – There is a rare picture of the relaxed civil rights icon in Miami’s Overtown section back in the 60s at the historic Hampton house. Segregation made it a popular motel for traveling Black celebrities.
Martin Luther King Jr. had a suite on the ground floor and is said to have delivered the first version of his famous “I Have a Dream” speech at an event at the historic Hampton House.
King called for Cubans and African Americans to unite. Enid Pinkney said she was a little girl when she saw King at the beach in Virginia Key and heard him speak at a crowded church.
“He loved the beach. I heard him speak at Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church. He spoke there, and people would go to hear him,” Pinkey said. “He could always draw a crowd.”
If King was alive today, he would be 95 years old. In 1986, 18 years after he was assassinated on a motel balcony in Memphis, Jan. 20 was declared a national holiday.
Yolanda Denise King, the civil rights leader’s first-born child with Coretta Scott King, also visited Miami. She explained the importance of commemorating MLK Day.
“It’s about giving back. It’s about a day on, not a day off,” Yolanda King said on the anniversary of her 78-year-old mother’s death of complications with a stroke.
Four months later, Yolanda King died of a heart attack on May 15, 2007, in Santa Monica, California. Her brothers, Martin Luther King III, and Dexter King, and her sister Bernice continue to support The King Center in Atlanta, Georgia.