(CNN) -- Today is the 45th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., a champion for freedom, civil rights and justice. 

I was blessed to be with him the last weekend before his death. I remember the trauma he felt as a result of his opposition to the war in Vietnam. 

Before going to Memphis, King had the Rev. Ralph Abernathy call for a staff meeting in his church study on a Saturday morning. His close aides came. King complained that he had felt the pain of "a migraine headache for four days." He said, "Maybe I've done as much as I could. We've come from the back of the bus, gotten the Voting Rights Act, the Civil Rights Act..." One of us -- Andy Young -- asked him not to talk that way. King responded, "Don't say peace when there is no peace." 

Many of his supporters had turned against him because of his position on the war in Vietnam, but King felt he had to do what was right. He contended, "There are those who want me to confine my morality to the war on poverty and overlook the war in Vietnam. However, the bombs in Vietnam ultimately explode at home because of poverty." He contemplated fasting until he was near the point of death, anticipating that "those who disagree with me would come to my bedside and we could reconcile." 

But then he shook off his pessimism and declared, "Let's turn a minus into a plus, like we did before. Let's make this nation deal forthrightly with the issue of poverty." 
For how long?
near the point of death