North Texans marched, held prayer services following MLK's assassination

Immediately following Martin Luther King Jr’s assassination in 1968, people around the world paused to honor him.

It included events in and around North Texas, like a church rally at People's Missionary Baptist Church in South Dallas.

Reverend Clarence Glover says he helped unearth a once-lost recording of Dr. King at SMU in 1966.

"Dallas had rejected him as a troublemaker,” Glover recalled. “Dr. Tate pulled me to the side one day and asked me did I know that Dr. King had spoken at SMU. I said ‘No, he was rejected, I thought.’ He said, ‘No, I brought him here.’”

The speech was about progress in racial equality.

Glover is a historian of African American history. Not only does he chronicle King's years before and after his death, but he also educates children about it.

“My father was from Memphis. And when Dr. King was assassinated, he took me to Memphis,” Glover said. “And I went into the Lorraine Motel before it became a museum.”

Glover says he is certain that encounter changed him forever. He points out, like the folks in 1968 at a church in South Dallas, he found great passion in the Dr. King's legacy.

"We are preservers of freedom. We're not called upon to go out and fight as they did, give our lives as they did,” Glover said. “We are called upon to keep the flame burning. And that's the job I seek to do here is to keep the flame burning.”

Glover and others will gather at the Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center in Dallas Wednesday night at 7 p.m. for the annual observance of the assassination anniversary.