Climb Ev'ry Mountain; Ain't No Mountain High Enough. (Go ahead. Sing. We're not listening.) The proverbial guru perched on a peak.

Even Shmoop's own "Tough-o-Meter."

Everywhere you look, it's mountains, mountains, mountains: they're one of our oldest metaphors for struggle, and also for the clear and far-reaching vision we're rewarded with at the top. And it's this image, both familiar and powerful, that Martin Luther King, Jr. uses to close his very last speech.

Actually, though, "I've Been to the Mountaintop" isn't the official title. There is no official title, because this speech was improvised. But that's what everyone calls it. The name comes from the last paragraph, which alludes to the story of Moses, the Biblical leader who sees the Promised Land from the top of a mountain but never actually gets there. King tells his audience, "I've been to the mountaintop."

Dr. King uses the Promised Land story to assure his audience that African Americans' struggle for equality will definitely, unquestionably succeed, even without him: "We, as a people, will get to the Promised Land" (45.10). And the Civil Rights Movement did have to go on without him. Like Moses, MLK didn't live to see the future he imagined. But, at that moment, in his mind, he'd already reached the top of the mountain and seen the better world to come.