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The church where MLK gave his final speech is getting a $1.2 million renovation

Officials announced a $1.2 million federal grant for Memphis Mason Temple on Monday to fund facility improvements and technology infrastructure upgrades as part of a nearly $18 million congressional appropriations package for local projects.
Mason Temple, world headquarters for the Church Of God in Christ, remains a revered Civil Rights Movement landmark where Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his final speech, the stirring "I've Been to the Mountaintop" address, in 1968.
The appropriations package includes $3.1 million for restoring historic Clayborn Temple, a staging area for the 1968 sanitation workers strike that investigators say was heavily damaged by an intentionally set fire in April 2025.
U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen, a Democrat from Memphis who first announced the grant in February, will join Church Of God in Christ leaders at a Monday news conference to discuss the funding and renovation details.
These renovations preserve critical community spaces, including Mason Temple's role as the site of a January 2023 memorial service for Tyre Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man, ensuring the landmarks continue serving as focal points for local history and civil rights memory.

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