Rev. Kyles became the only living person to have been with King during the last hour of his life.

Lavaron Lumpkin, right, Front Line Leader for Humana's, greets Rev. Sammul “Billy” Kyles, an activist leader during the1960’s Civil Rights movement in Memphis, Tenn.

In 1968 Kyles helped form and lead an effort to gain community support for striking sanitation workers. The group looked to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to rally support and lead the workers' march. When the first march ended in violence, King decided there would be another peaceful march. Kyles, along with other Memphis ministers who had been organizing nightly rallies and raising money for the strike, planned a major rally to prepare for another march. The rally, held at the Mason Temple on April 3, 1968, was the meeting that King gave his now famous "mountaintop" speech, foreshadowing his own assassination.



The following day, Kyles was to host King for dinner at his home. Kyles went to the Lorraine Motel to pick up his dinner guest at 5:00 p.m. There, Kyles talked with Ralph Abernathy and King for an hour before leaving the motel for dinner at 6:00 p.m. As the two were leaving the motel, King was assassinated. Kyles and Abernathy spent the last hour of King's life with him in his hotel room.

When Abernathy passed away in 1990, Kyles became the only living person to have been with King during the last hour of his life.

Four decades later, Kyles remains in Memphis, building his ministry, Monumental Baptist Church. He also frequently speaks on his experiences with King, and gives tours at the Lorraine Motel, now refurbished into the National Civil Rights Museum.

Kyles was the keynote speaker Humana's Diversity and Inclusion Day, held Wednesday, May 23. Lumpkin is the son of Racine County Supervisor Ken Lumpkin.


View video of Rev. Kyles