Yet King had no “martyr’s complex.” “I’m tired of the threat of death,” he proclaimed in a stressful moment during the later protests in Chicago. “I want to live. I don’t want to be a martyr. And there are moments when I doubt if I am going to make it through. . . . But the important thing is not how tired I am; the important thing is to get rid of [injustice].”[33] King just wanted to follow Jesus, even if it led to his own death. He really believed what Jesus said to his disciples: “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Mt 16:24).
