MEMPHIS — Memphis is a city that wears its ache.

At the church where the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his final speech — the evening before he was killed — a floral arrangement is ever-present.

At the motel where he was slain, a world-class museum has been erected in honor of Dr. King and the civil rights struggle. And across town, at the University of Memphis, an original copy of Dr. King’s 1965 “We Shall Overcome” speech is on loan from a local philanthropist.

In concrete ways, and in far more subtle ones, Memphis is inexorably tied to Dr. King, and more than any other city, it is perceived as a place to measure the progress of Dr. King’s legacy and dreams.

But in the half-century since Dr. King was assassinated in Memphis during his peaceful crusade against pauperism and racism, the city has been immersed in poverty, segregation and violence. Its triumphs are never far from its trials.