The WMC stations moved to their current location at 1960 Union Avenue in Midtown Memphis in 1959 and celebrated with a broadcast hosted by comedian George Gobel . In 1960 , the stations broadcast live remotes of John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon , who both came to Memphis to campaign for the presidency . When Dr. Martin Luther King , Jr. came to Memphis to support the sanitation workers ' strike that set the stage for his assassination in 1968 , then-station general manager Mori Greiner established an unprecedented program called '' The 40 % Speaks '' , in an effort to promote racial healing in the community . In an odd illustration of how little real integration had occurred in local television , the first host of this program was news anchor Dave Patterson , who himself was Caucasian . When Patterson left WMC-TV , his replacement was a white professor from Memphis State University , now the University of Memphis
assassination
Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.
WMC-TV