In an extract from his memoir written before he died last year, Gil Scott-Heron talks about when he toured with Stevie Wonder to establish Martin Luther King Day as a national holiday in the US

Memphis, Tennessee was only 90 miles west of Jackson, my childhood home. But Memphis was as far away as the north pole in my mind. The history that we were given about it was done in light pencil that hopscotched its way to a semi-solid landing with Elvis Presley on The Ed Sullivan Show. Sun Records considered itself the fuse that lit the 1950s with Elvis and rock'n'roll. With Carla and Rufus Thomas and Otis Redding, Stax Records brought blues to the hit parade with hooks and horns and a solid beat, evolving into Al Green and Willie Mitchell. Memphis meant music.

And unless you stop to think for a minute, you might forget that it was in Memphis that Dr Martin Luther King, Jr was shot and killed on a motel balcony on 4 April 1968. Stevie Wonder did not forget. In 1980, Stevie joined with the members of the Black Caucus in the US congress to speak out for the need to honour the day King was born, to make his birthday a national holiday.

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