Martin Luther King Jr. - "Why America May Go to Hell."

MSNBC

"If America does not use her vast resources of wealth to end poverty, to make it possible for all of God's children to have the basic necessities of life, she too will go to Hell…."

The incendiary speech of Barak Obama's controversial former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright? Hardly. These words were spoken with great fervor by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., American hero, not long before his death.

Forty years ago this week – April 4, 1968 – King was staying in Room 306 of the homely Lorraine Motel in downtown Memphis. According to historical accounts he was working on a speech called, "Why America May Go to Hell."

It was part of a pattern. In the last years of his life, the tone of King's rhetoric was more biting, and anguished than his earlier speeches. And though steadfastly non-violent, King, at the end of his life, was often highly critical of the United States. Today, at the anniversary of King's assassination, some local spiritual leaders see King's more strident period as an integral, if overlooked, part of his legacy.

"A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death." Martin Luther King Jr., in his 1967 book, "Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community"

In King's mind, his commitment to civil rights – which won him the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize, the ear of the American president, and the devotion of millions – naturally led to a vehement opposition to the Vietnam War, and demands that America turn her resources instead to wiping out poverty. "What does it profit a man to be able to eat at an integrated lunch counter if he doesn't have enough money to buy a hamburger?" King asked a group of Memphis sanitation workers just two weeks before his death.

King wanted more than a colorblind society, the thing for which he is well-remembered today. King wanted what he often termed "a just society."

Historical accounts suggest King had a lot on his mind 40 years ago. A march he'd led in Memphis days before his death, in support of striking sanitation workers, had devolved into rioting – something that so disturbed King that he insisted on a second march, on April 8, vowing that violence would not prevail.

But King's message of nonviolence was a harder sell in 1968 than it had been earlier in the decade. Vietnam was raging and numerous other leaders, of all races, were calling for more active means to end the war and push social change.

And King himself was becoming a harder sell. His painfully sharp criticisms of American policy were ostracizing him from the circles of power that he had so recently joined.

"It is a crime for people to live in this rich nation and receive starvation wages," King said two weeks before his death."… I can hear the God of the universe saying… 'The children of my sons and daughters were in need of economic security, and you didn't provide for them. So you cannot enter the kingdom of greatness'."

King's oratory in these last years alienated many, including President Lyndon B. Johnson, who was escalating America's military involvement in Vietnam. Some critics said King was embracing the bugaboo of the day, communism.

Rev. Mark Whitlock, pastor of Christ Our Redeemer AME Church in Irvine, said King's words in the last years of his life were received much as the oratory of Obama's former pastor, Rev. Wright, has been received today.

"King wins the Nobel, pushes the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights act, he's considered (an) American hero," Whitlock said. "And then here comes the Vietnam War, King saying America is the most violent nation and will pay for what it has done. He's uninvited by the president. Pushed aside.

"For me, he was the Rev. Wright of that day," Whitlock added. "Wright's words were highly emotional, and had a lot of toxicity, but they're in line with the Old Testament prophets like Jeremiah and Isaiah, and they certainly were in line with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr."

King said in the weeks before his death that he agonized over criticizing his country, especially at a time of war, but that he had to speak out, to goad it toward its great ideals, and great promise.

"America …. gave the black man a bad check that's been bouncing all around," King said in March, 1968. "… You are even unjustly spending $500,000 to kill a single Viet Cong soldier, while you spend only $53 a year per person for everybody categorized as poverty-stricken.' Instead of spending $35 billion every year to fight an unjust, ill-considered war in Vietnam and $20 billion to put a man on the moon, we need to put God's children on their own two feet."

King was preparing a speech in the same vein 40 years ago when he broke away from his writing to have dinner with friends.

He stepped out of his room and onto the second floor landing which ran the length of the Lorraine Motel. His driver admonished him to get a coat because the night would be chilly; King agreed, according to historical accounts.

At 6:01 p.m. witnesses heard a noise, like a car backfiring or a firecracker exploding. King collapsed, blood gushing from his face. A rifle bullet had pierced his jaw, tore through his neck and severed his spinal cord. He was pronounced dead less than an hour later.

James Earl Ray, a racist with a rap sheet, was convicted of the murder. Conspiracy theorists still whisper about possible government involvement, though no credible study has produced such evidence.

Back in 1965 – when Bernard P. King, now rabbi emeritus with Congregation Shir Ha-Ma'alot in Irvine, marched with King and thousands of others into Montgomery, Ala. – few could imagine that someday King would be honored with a national holiday.

Still, King the rabbi doesn't see much parallel between Martin Luther King Jr. and Obama's former pastor, Wright.

"I think Dr. King was head and shoulders above most of the leaders of his time. He was caught between Malcolm X and the black power movement, accused of being a communist. And yet he maintained his integrity, and constantly strove to have nonviolent protest," Rabbi King said.

"Dr. King really tried to bring people together. Maybe that's not fashionable anymore."