Martin Luther King Jr.,

400 Years Of Bigotry And Hate

St. Augustine, Florida-A beautiful town, the nation's oldest city, recently was the scene of raging tempers, flaring violence and the most corrupt coalition of segregationist opposition outside of Mississippi.

Here the Klan has made a last-ditch stand against the nonviolent movement. They flock to St. Augustine's Slave Market Plaza from all across North Florida, Georgia and Alabama. In St. Augustine they find welcome from Sheriff L. O. Davis, who deputized many of them and give them the cover of law in their ruthless terrorization of Negro citizens.

Sheriff Davis is supported in this by the local power structure who reflect a strong John Birch Society influence.

St. Augustine has been the nonviolent prelude to what may be a long, hot summer. The Negro population has been struggling alone for more than a year. Stall-ins in New York streets and the U.S. Senate threatened the nation. Violence seemed tragically close. Only the nonviolent movement could give the release and hope that millions of Negroes needed to maintain their faith in the American Dream and the democratic process.

Once in St. Augustine, SCLC uncovered a sore of hatred, violence and ignorance which spread its venom throughout the business and political life of Florida and reached subtly into the White House.

Florida responded out of a concern for tourist trade. But when Governor Bryant realized that justice was the price to be paid for a good image, ho resorted to the old South line of attempting to crush those seeking their Constitutional rights. Only Judge Bryan Simpson of the Federal District Court, and a Republican appointee proved to be free enough of the "system" to preserve Constitutional Rights for St. Augustine's Negroes.

For the past month, St. Augustine's 3,700 Negro citizens waged an heroic campaign in the midst of savage violence and brutality condoned and committed by police. Night after night they marched by the hundreds amidst showers of bricks, bottles and insults. Day by day they confronted restaurants, beaches and the Slave Market where they spoke and sang of their determination to be free.

SCLC came to St. Augustine at the request of the local unit which was seeking: 1) a Bi-racial Com

mittee; 2) desegregation of Public Accommodations; 3) hiring of policemen, firemen and office workers in municipal jobs; and 4) dropping of charges against persons peacefully protesting for their Constitutional Rights.

The Civil Rights Law will give some relief to this situation. It will give a body of law to support the persons of goodwill in this city. But the law is only a beginning to meet the needs of the Negro. Demonstrations are the only way to convince local power structures that these needs must be dealt with if there is to be peace and prosperity. Demonstrations alone, unearth the corrupt police state methods.

St. Augustine has been a testing ground. Can the deep South change? Will Southern states maintain law and order in the face of change? Will local citizens, black and white, work together to make democracy a reality throughout America? These are the questions the nonviolent movement seeks to answer with a resounding: "Yes-God willing!"

The Negro Revolution In 1964

As I look toward 1964, one fact is unmistakably clear: the thrust of the Negro toward full emancipation will increase rather than decrease. The immediate assessment against the backdrop of the summer of 1963 could easily be one that anticipates less activity because some measurable gains have been made in hundreds of individual communities as well as across the nation. However, closer scrutiny of the Negro revolution will reveal that the awareness of his gains has only whetted his appetite for more gains and more quickly. An ancillary force is the fact that whereas a year ago, only a sprinkling of cities, South and North, had been involved in demonstrations, picketing, etc., there are now nearly one thousand cities where, under the banner of non-violence, some baptism of fire has taken place. The Negro, as a community, has increased his skills tremendously in quantity and quality.

The civil rights legislation now before Congress will feel the intense focus of Negro interest. It was born in the streets of Birmingham amid snarling dogs and the battering of fire hoses. It was fashioned in the jail cells of the South and by the marching feet in the North. It became the order of the day at the great March on Washington last summer. The

Negro and his compatriots for self-respect and hunan dignity will not be denied. If a filibuster occurs, the nation might well fasten its safety belt. Once the bill is written into law, there will still be he matter of implementation, state by state and community by community. Then, of course, there is the matter of wider use of the technique of selective patronage as popularized in Philadelphia and Atlanta. There is at this moment an elaborate plar broaden the base of selective buying in orde. that the power of the Negro consumer market can be used as a lever to pry open the door to wider employment opportunities. The Negro has learned his lesson well: "If you respect my dollar, then you must also respect my person." The advent of monstrous automation coupled with the Negro comprising the largest segment of Amer

ica's semi-skilled and unskilled labor force, makes equal employment opportunities one of the priority concerns of the Negro community in 1964. The innovation for this year will be largescale selective buying programs aimed at the giants in the consumer industry.

I do not forsee any wide-spread turning of the Negro to violence. This will perhaps be a glowing commentary on the success of the nonviolent method in bringing about social transformation that produces tangible results. The last year's record has demonstrated that non-violence is more than pious injunctions to do good for evil, that it is a practical technique that has maintained a sense of hope in the American Negro community that America can realize the dreams of the founding fathers. 1964 should compound the gains realized in 1963.

I guess it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say wait. Bu hen you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mowers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hatefilled policemen curse, kick, brutalize, and even kill your black brothers and sisters with impunity; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has been just advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her little eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see the depressing clouds of inferiority begin to form in her little mental sky, and see her begin to distort her little personality by unconsciously developing a bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a fiveyear-old son asking in agonizing pathos: Daddy, why hite people treat colored people so mean?'; wh you take a cross-country drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading 'white' men and 'colored'; when your first name becomes 'nigger' and your middle name becomes 'boy' (however old you

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are) and your last name becomes 'John,' and when your wife and mother are never given the respected title 'Mrs.'; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance never quite knowing what to expect next, and plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of 'nobodyness';-then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into an abyss of injustice where they experience the bleakness of corroding despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience.

Dr. King, (right) and Dr. Abernathy (left), are placed under arrest by police chief Virgil Stuart (right) when they sought to be served at the Monson restaurant.

Your Majesty, your Royal Highness, Mr. President, excellencies, ladies and gentlemen:

I accept the Nobel prize for peace at a moment when 22 million Negroes of the United States of America are engaged in a creative battle to end the long night of racial injustice. I accept this award in behalf of a civil rights movement which is moving with determination and a majestic scorn for risk and danger to establish a reign of freedom and a rule of justice.

I am mindful that only yesterday in Birmingham, Ala., our children, crying out for brotherhood, were answered with fire hoses, snarling dogs and even death. I am mindful that only yesterday in Philadelphia, Miss., young people seeking to secure the right to vote were brutalized and murdered.

I am mindful that debilitating and grinding poverty afflicts my people and chains them to the lowest rung of the economic ladder.

Therefore, I must ask why this prize is awarded to a movement which is beleaguered and committed to unrelenting struggle: to a movement which has not won the very peace and brotherhood which is the essence of the Nobel prize.

After contemplation, I conclude that this award which I received on behalf of that movement is profound recognition that nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral question of our time-the need for man to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to violence and oppression.

Civilization and violence are antithetical concepts. Negroes of the United States, following the people of India, have demonstrated that nonviolence is not sterile passivity, but a powerful moral force which makes for social transformation. Sooner or later, all the people of the world will have to discover a way to live together in peace, and thereby transform this pending cosmic elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood.

If this is to be achieved, man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.

From the depths of my heart I am aware that this prize is much more than an honor to me personally.

Every time I take a flight I am always mindful of

the many people who make a successful journey possible, the known pilots and the unknown ground

crew.

So you honor the dedicated pilots of our struggle who have sat at the controls as the freedom movement soared into orbit. Your honor, once again, Chief (Albert) Lithuli of South Africa, whose struggles with and for his people, are still met with the most brutal expression of man's inhumanity to man.

You honor the ground crew without whose labor and sacrifices the jetflights to freedom could never have left the earth.

Most of these people will never make the headlines and their names will not appear in Who's Who. Yet the years have rolled past and when the blazing light of truth is focused on this marvelous age in which we live-men and women will know and children will be taught that we have a finer land, a better people, a more noble civilization--because these humble children of God were willing to suffer for righteousness' sake.

I think Alfred Nobel would know what I mean when I say that I accept this award in the spirit of a curator of some precious heirloom which he holds in trust for its true owners-all those to whom beauty is truth and truth beauty-and in whose eyes the beauty of genuine brotherhood and peace is more precious than diamonds or silver or gold.

The tortuous road which has led from Montgomery, Ala., to Oslo bears witness to this truth. This is a road over which millions of Negroes are travelling to find a new sense of dignity. This same road has opened for all Americans a new era of progress and hope. It has led to a new civil rights bill, and it will, I am convinced, be widened and lengthened into a superhighway of justice as Negro and white men in increasing number create alliances to overcome their common problems.

I accept this award today with an abiding faith in America and an audacious faith in the future of mankind. I refuse to accept the idea that the "isness" of man's present nature makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the eternal "oughtness" that forever confronts him.

I refuse to accept the idea that man is mere flotsam and jetsam in the river of life which surrounds him. I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight

Martin Luther King, Jr., in a speech in 1965. I tried to love and serve

The only way we can really achieve freedom is to somehow conquer the fear of death. For if a man has not

overed something that he will are for, he isn't fit to live.

Deep down in our non-violent creed is the conviction that there are some things so dear, some things so precious, some things so eternally true, that they are worth dying for.

And if a man happens to be 36 years old, as I happen to be, and some great truth stands before the door of his life, some great opportunity to stand up for that which is right and that which is just, and he refuses to stand up because he wants to live a little longer and he is afraid his home will get bombed, or he is afraid that he will lose his job, or he is afraid that he will get shot he may go on and live until he's 80, and the cessation of breathing in his life is merely the belated announcement of an earlier death of the spirit. Man dies when he refuses to stand up for that which is right. A man dies when he refuses to take a stand

that which is true. So we are go... to stand up right here... letting the world know we are determined to be free.

A drum major for justice

In a sermon early in February at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. discussed his own eulogy.

Every now and then I guess we all think realistically about that day when we will be victimized with what is life's final common denominator-that something we call death. We all think about it and every now and then I think about my own death and I think about my own funeral. And I don't think about it in a morbid sense. And every now and then I ask myself what it is that I would want said and I leave the word to you this morning.

If any of you are around when I ve to meet my day, I don't want a long funeral, and if you get somebody to deliver the eulogy tell him not to talk too long. And every now and then I wonder what I want him

awards-that's not important. Tell him not to mention where I went to school. I'd like somebody to mention that day that Martin Luther King, Jr. tried to give his life serving others. I'd like for somebody to say that day that Martin Luther King, Jr. tried to love somebody. I want you to say that day that I tried to be right and to walk with him. I want you to be able to say that day that I did try to feed the hungry. I want you to be able to say that day that I did try in my life to clothe the naked. I want you to say on that day that I did try in my life to visit those who were in prison. And I want you to say that I tried to love and serve humanity.

Yes, if you want to, say that I was a drum major. Say that I was a drum major for justice.

Say that I was a drum major for peace. I was a drum major for righteousness. And all the other shallow things will not matter.

I won't have any money to leave behind. I won't have the fine and luxurous things of life to leave behind. But I just want to leave a comImitted life behind. And that is all ! want to say.

If I can help somebody as I pass along, if I can cheer somebody with a well song, if I can show somebody he's traveling wrong, then my living will not be in vain.

If I can do my duty as a Christian ought, if I can bring salvation to a world once wrought, if I can spread the message as the Master taught, then my living will not be in vain. Live together as brothers or perish together as fools. (Washington's National Cathedral, March 31, 1968)

"One day we will have to stand before the God of history and we will talk in terms of the things we've done. Yes, we will be able to say we built gargantuan bridges to span the seas, we built gigantic buildings to kiss the skies. Yes, we made our submarines to penetrate oceanic depths. We brought into being many other things with our scientific and technological power.

"It seems that I can hear the God of history saying, 'That was not enough! But I was hungry and ye fed me not. I was naked and ye clothed me not. I was devoided of a decent sanitary house to live in, and ye provided no shelter for me. And consequently, you cannot enter the kingdom of greatness. If ye do it

unto the least of these, my brethren, ye do it unto me.'

"We must all learn to live together as brothers. Or we will all perish as fools. We are tied together in the single garment of destiny, caught in an inescapable network of mutuality. And whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. For some strange reason I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. And you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be.

"With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair the stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood."

At the mountaintop April 3, 1968.

When Martin Luther King arrived in Memphis, he addressed a rally in words that turned out to be prophetic. He said:

"I left Atlanta this morning and as we got started on the plane there were six of us. The pilot said over the public address system, 'We're sorry for the delay but we have Dr. Martin Luther King on the plane, and to be sure that all of the bags were checked and to be sure that nothing. would be wrong on the plane, we had to check out everything properly and we've had the plane protected and guarded all night.'

"And then I got into Memphis and some began to say the threats talk about the threats that were out, of what would happen to me from some of our 'ck white brothers.

"Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn't matter with me now, because I have been to the mountaintop. I don't mind.

"Like anybody, I would like to live a long life; longevity has its grace. But I am not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain and I've looked over. And I have seen the promised land.

"I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight that we as people will go to the promised

land.

"So I am happy tonight. I am not worried about anything. I am not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord."

the British Empire without a sword and won, Martin Luther King Jr. challenged the interracial wrongs of his country without a gun. And he had faith to believe that he would win the battle for social justice. I make bold to assert that it took more courage for King to practice nonviolence than it took his assassin to fire the fatal shot.

He was severely criticized for his opposition to the war in Vietnam. It must be said, however, that one could hardly expect a prophet of Dr. King's commitments to advocate nonviolence at home and violence in Vietnam. Nonviolence to King was total commitment not only in solving the problems of race in the United States, but in solving the problems of the world.

We all pray that the assassin will be apprehended and brought to justice. But make no mistake, the American people are in part responsible for Martin Luther King Jr.'s death. The Memphis officials must bear some of the guilt for Martin Luther's assassination. The strike should have been settled several weeks ago.

If we love Martin Luther King Jr., and respect him, as this crowd testifies, let us see to it that he did not die in vain; let us see to it that we do not dishonor his name by trying to solve our problems through rioting in the streets.

But let us see to it also that the conditions that cause riots are promptly removed, as the President of the United States is trying to get us to do. Let black and white alike search their hearts; and if there be any prejudice in our hearts against any racial or ethnic group, let us exterminate it and let us pray, as Martin Luther King Jr. would pray if he could: "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do."

If we do this, Martin Luther King Jr. will have died a redemptive death from which all mankind will benefit

I close by saying to you what Martin Luther King Jr. believed, that if physical death was the price he had to pay to rid America of prejudice and injustice, nothing could be more redemptive. To paraphrase the words of the immortal John Fitzgerald Kennedy, permit me to say that Martin Luther King Jr.'s unfinished work on earth must truly be our own.