Charlotte Area

Watch: 50 Years Later, Charlotte-Area Activists Reflect on Martin Luther King's Death

WFAE | By Todd Sumlin

Published April 4, 2018 at 6:35 AM EDT

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Civil rights activist Rev. Jesse Douglas Sr., 88, who now lives in Mint Hill was part of the March on Washington and one of the planners of the Selma-to-Montgomery march. He was also a friend of Dr. Martin Luther King.

Todd Sumlin

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Jesse Douglas (second from right) walks alongside Martin Luther King Jr. (center) during a march in Montgomery, Alabama in 1965.

Courtesy of Jesse Douglas

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The Martin Luther King Memorial at Marshall Park in uptown Charlotte.

Todd Sumlin

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Rev. Brenda Stevenson of the New Outreach Christian Center was a teenager when Martin Luther King was killed in 1968.

Todd Sumlin

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The front page of The Charlotte Observer from April, 5, 1968.

The Charlotte Observer

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Charlotte attorney and civil rights activist, Charles Jones, 80, at his west Charlotte home.

Todd Sumlin / For WFAE

Fifty years ago today, Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. King was originally scheduled to be in Charlotte on that fateful day but he decided to stay in Memphis to help striking sanitation workers.

As part of remembering Dr. King, we speak to Mint Hill resident, Rev. Jesse Douglas Sr., 88, who marched with King and considered him a personal friend, as well as Civil Rights attorney Charles Jones, and the Rev. Brenda Stevenson, about their reflections on the aftermath of King's death.

In the early sixties, Douglas was president of the Montgomery Improvement Association, where he helped plan King’s historic Selma-to-Montgomery march for voting rights.