45 years ago tonight, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on a motel balcony in Memphis. A previously unpublished life magazine photo shows his open briefcase as he left it in his motel room that day. So many people were forever changed by that visit to Memphis. He was there after all to support striking sanitation workers. Tonight Ann Curry has the story of two who were there. Memphis, the spring of 1968. 1300 sanitation workers on strike against unsafe working conditions. The Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. standing with them. Memphis has gotten by for a long time with numerous injustices where black people are concerned. King's own advisors urged him to skip Memphis, fearing violence. And there was. Alvin Turner, now 79, was there. And he took that building club. And puttin' me right there. Cleo Smith, 70, was too. People's getting beaten, fight, stingers, a ton on them. Turner says the job paid just 70 cents an hour, but that wasn't the worst of it. I had been treated like a boy for so long, boy, get over it and do that. I was proud to wear that sign. I'm a man. The message was, I'm nobody's boy. I'm nobody's boy. I'm a man. I'm a man. A man thinking about his children. I had to fight to try to make a better community for a little girl. They faced overwhelming odds. There was a little steal, boys, and me kept saying, hold on. It was going to get better. They were both here when Dr. King gave his last speech. Because I've been to the mountain top. Anyone on the saying that I might and I get there with you. But I want you to know the night that we as a people will get to the Promised Land. The next day, Dr. King was killed. Martin Luther King III, on the balcony where his father died, remembers coming to Memphis with his mother. Emotionally, it's challenging because it's, you know, you, you, you, again, I was 10 years old. Days later, the strike was settled in the sanitation workers' favor. You're still working as a sanitation worker. The old worker, yeah. And enjoying the every minute of it. Alvin Turner, now retired, still has his scar. It's even more than I feel it and I feel it. And then I look at my kids, I feel that it will work. His four children now grown all college educated, his dream fulfilled. Anne Curry, NBC News, Memphis.