16 August 1967
Atlanta, Georgia
Dr. Abernathy, our distinguished vice president, fellow delegates to
this, the tenth annual session of the Southern Christian Leadership
Conference, my brothers and sisters from not only all over the South,
but from all over the United States of America: ten years ago during the
piercing chill of a January day and on the heels of the year-long
Montgomery bus boycott, a group of approximately one hundred Negro
leaders from across the South assembled in this church and agreed on the
need for an organization to be formed that could serve as a channel
through which local protest organizations in the South could coordinate
their protest activities. It was this meeting that gave birth to the
Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
And when our organization was formed ten years ago, racial
segregation was still a structured part of the architecture of southern
society. Negroes with the pangs of hunger and the anguish of thirst were
denied access to the average lunch counter. The downtown restaurants
were still off-limits for the black man. Negroes, burdened with the
fatigue of travel, were still barred from the motels of the highways and
the hotels of the cities. Negro boys and girls in dire need of
recreational activities were not allowed to inhale the fresh air of the
big city parks. Negroes in desperate need of allowing their mental
buckets to sink deep into the wells of knowledge were confronted with a
firm “no” when they sought to use the city libraries. Ten years ago,
legislative halls of the South were still ringing loud with such words
as “interposition” and “nullification.” All types of conniving methods
were still being used to keep the Negro from becoming a registered
voter. A decade ago, not a single Negro entered the legislative chambers
of the South except as a porter or a chauffeur. Ten years ago, all too
many Negroes were still harried by day and haunted by night by a
corroding sense of fear and a nagging sense of nobody-ness. (Yeah)
But things are different now. In assault after assault, we caused the
sagging walls of segregation to come tumbling down. During this era the
entire edifice of segregation was profoundly shaken. This is an
accomplishment whose consequences are deeply felt by every southern
Negro in his daily life. (Oh yeah) It is no longer possible to count the
number of public establishments that are open to Negroes. Ten years
ago, Negroes seemed almost invisible to the larger society, and the
facts of their harsh lives were unknown to the majority of the nation.
But today, civil rights is a dominating issue in every state, crowding
the pages of the press and the daily conversation of white Americans. In
this decade of change, the Negro stood up and confronted his oppressor.
He faced the bullies and the guns, and the dogs and the tear gas. He
put himself squarely before the vicious mobs and moved with strength and
dignity toward them and decisively defeated them. (Yes) And the courage
with which he confronted enraged mobs dissolved the stereotype of the
grinning, submissive Uncle Tom. (Yes) He came out of his struggle
integrated only slightly in the external society, but powerfully
integrated within. This was a victory that had to precede all other
gains.
In short, over the last ten years the Negro decided to straighten his
back up (Yes), realizing that a man cannot ride your back unless it is
bent. (Yes, That’s right) We made our government write new laws to alter
some of the cruelest injustices that affected us. We made an
indifferent and unconcerned nation rise from lethargy and subpoenaed its
conscience to appear before the judgment seat of morality on the whole
question of civil rights. We gained manhood in the nation that had
always called us “boy.” It would be hypocritical indeed if I allowed
modesty to forbid my saying that SCLC stood at the forefront of all of
the watershed movements that brought these monumental changes in the
South. For this, we can feel a legitimate pride. But in spite of a
decade of significant progress, the problem is far from solved. The deep
rumbling of discontent in our cities is indicative of the fact that the
plant of freedom has grown only a bud and not yet a flower.
And before discussing the awesome responsibilities that we face in
the days ahead, let us take an inventory of our programmatic action and
activities over the past year. Last year as we met in Jackson,
Mississippi, we were painfully aware of the struggle of our brothers in
Grenada, Mississippi. After living for a hundred or more years under the
yoke of total segregation, the Negro citizens of this northern Delta
hamlet banded together in nonviolent warfare against racial
discrimination under the leadership of our affiliate chapter and
organization there. The fact of this non-destructive rebellion was as
spectacular as were its results. In a few short weeks the Grenada County
Movement challenged every aspect of the society’s exploitative life.
Stores which denied employment were boycotted; voter registration
increased by thousands. We can never forget the courageous action of the
people of Grenada who moved our nation and its federal courts to
powerful action in behalf of school integration, giving Grenada one of
the most integrated school systems in America. The battle is far from
over, but the black people of Grenada have achieved forty of fifty-three
demands through their persistent nonviolent efforts.
Slowly but surely, our southern affiliates continued their building
and organizing. Seventy-nine counties conducted voter registration
drives, while double that number carried on political education and
get-out-the-vote efforts. In spite of press opinions, our staff is still
overwhelmingly a southern-based staff. One hundred and five persons
have worked across the South under the direction of Hosea Williams. What
used to be primarily a voter registration staff is actually a
multifaceted program dealing with the total life of the community, from
farm cooperatives, business development, tutorials, credit unions,
etcetera. Especially to be commended are those ninety-nine communities
and their staffs which maintain regular mass meetings throughout the
year.
Our Citizenship Education Program continues to lay the solid
foundation of adult education and community organization upon which all
social change must ultimately rest. This year, five hundred local
leaders received training at Dorchester and ten community centers
through our Citizenship Education Program. They were trained in
literacy, consumer education, planned parenthood, and many other things.
And this program, so ably directed by Mrs. Dorothy Cotton, Mrs. Septima
Clark, and their staff of eight persons, continues to cover ten
southern states. Our auxiliary feature of C.E.P. is the aid which they
have given to poor communities, poor counties in receiving and
establishing O.E.O. projects. With the competent professional guidance
of our marvelous staff member, Miss Mew Soong-Li, Lowndes and Wilcox
counties in Alabama have pioneered in developing outstanding poverty
programs totally controlled and operated by residents of the area.
Perhaps the area of greatest concentration of my efforts has been in
the cities of Chicago and Cleveland. Chicago has been a wonderful
proving ground for our work in the North. There have been no
earth-shaking victories, but neither has there been failure. Our open
housing marches, which finally brought about an agreement which actually
calls the power structure of Chicago to capitulate to the civil rights
movement, these marches and the agreement have finally begun to pay off.
After the season of delay around election periods, the Leadership
Conference, organized to meet our demands for an open city, has finally
begun to implement the programs agreed to last summer.
But this is not the most important aspect of our work. As a result of
our tenant union organizing, we have begun a four million dollar
rehabilitation project, which will renovate deteriorating buildings and
allow their tenants the opportunity to own their own homes. This pilot
project was the inspiration for the new home ownership bill, which
Senator Percy introduced in Congress only recently.
The most dramatic success in Chicago has been Operation Breadbasket.
Through Operation Breadbasket we have now achieved for the Negro
community of Chicago more than twenty-two hundred new jobs with an
income of approximately eighteen million dollars a year, new income to
the Negro community. [Applause] But not only have we gotten jobs through
Operation Breadbasket in Chicago; there was another area through this
economic program, and that was the development of financial institutions
which were controlled by Negroes and which were sensitive to problems
of economic deprivation of the Negro community. The two banks in Chicago
that were interested in helping Negro businessmen were largely unable
to loan much because of limited assets. Hi-Lo, one of the chain stores
in Chicago, agreed to maintain substantial accounts in the two banks,
thus increasing their ability to serve the needs of the Negro community.
And I can say to you today that as a result of Operation Breadbasket in
Chicago, both of these Negro-operated banks have now more than double
their assets, and this has been done in less than a year by the work of
Operation Breadbasket. [applause]
In addition, the ministers learned that Negro scavengers had been
deprived of significant accounts in the ghetto. Whites controlled even
the garbage of Negroes. Consequently, the chain stores agreed to
contract with Negro scavengers to service at least the stores in Negro
areas. Negro insect and rodent exterminators, as well as janitorial
services, were likewise excluded from major contracts with chain stores.
The chain stores also agreed to utilize these services. It also became
apparent that chain stores advertised only rarely in Negro-owned
community newspapers. This area of neglect was also negotiated, giving
community newspapers regular, substantial accounts. And finally, the
ministers found that Negro contractors, from painters to masons, from
electricians to excavators, had also been forced to remain small by the
monopolies of white contractors. Breadbasket negotiated agreements on
new construction and rehabilitation work for the chain stores. These
several interrelated aspects of economic development, all based on the
power of organized consumers, hold great possibilities for dealing with
the problems of Negroes in other northern cities. The kinds of requests
made by Breadbasket in Chicago can be made not only of chain stores, but
of almost any major industry in any city in the country.
And so Operation Breadbasket has a very simple program, but a
powerful one. It simply says, “If you respect my dollar, you must
respect my person.” It simply says that we will no longer spend our
money where we can not get substantial jobs. [applause]
In Cleveland, Ohio, a group of ministers have formed an Operation
Breadbasket through our program there and have moved against a major
dairy company. Their requests include jobs, advertising in Negro
newspapers, and depositing funds in Negro financial institutions. This
effort resulted in something marvelous. I went to Cleveland just last
week to sign the agreement with Sealtest. We went to get the facts about
their employment; we discovered that they had 442 employees and only
forty-three were Negroes, yet the Negro population of Cleveland is
thirty-five percent of the total population. They refused to give us all
of the information that we requested, and we said in substance, “Mr.
Sealtest, we’re sorry. We aren’t going to burn your store down. We
aren’t going to throw any bricks in the window. But we are going to put
picket signs around and we are going to put leaflets out and we are
going to our pulpits and tell them not to sell Sealtest products, and
not to purchase Sealtest products.”
We did that. We went through the churches. Reverend Dr. Hoover, who
pastors the largest church in Cleveland, who’s here today, and all of
the ministers got together and got behind this program. We went to every
store in the ghetto and said, “You must take Sealtest products off of
your counters. If not, we’re going to boycott your whole store.” (That’s
right) A&P refused. We put picket lines around A&P; they have a
hundred and some stores in Cleveland, and we picketed A&P and
closed down eighteen of them in one day. Nobody went in A&P.
[applause] The next day Mr. A&P was calling on us, and Bob Brown,
who is here on our board and who is a public relations man representing a
number of firms, came in. They called him in because he worked for
A&P, also; and they didn’t know he worked for us, too. [laughter]
Bob Brown sat down with A&P, and he said, they said, “Now, Mr.
Brown, what would you advise us to do.” He said, “I would advise you to
take Sealtest products off of all of your counters.” A&P agreed next
day not only to take Sealtest products off of the counters in the
ghetto, but off of the counters of every A&P store in Cleveland, and
they said to Sealtest, “If you don’t reach an agreement with SCLC and
Operation Breadbasket, we will take Sealtest products off of every
A&P store in the state of Ohio.”
The next day [applause], the next day the Sealtest people were
talking nice [laughter], they were very humble. And I am proud to say
that I went to Cleveland just last Tuesday, and I sat down with the
Sealtest people and some seventy ministers from Cleveland, and we signed
the agreement. This effort resulted in a number of jobs, which will
bring almost five hundred thousand dollars of new income to the Negro
community a year. [applause] We also said to Sealtest, “The problem that
we face is that the ghetto is a domestic colony that’s constantly
drained without being replenished. And you are always telling us to lift
ourselves by our own bootstraps, and yet we are being robbed every day.
Put something back in the ghetto.” So along with our demand for jobs,
we said, “We also demand that you put money in the Negro savings and
loan association and that you take ads, advertise, in the Cleveland Call
& Post, the Negro newspaper.” So along with the new jobs, Sealtest
has now deposited thousands of dollars in the Negro bank of Cleveland
and has already started taking ads in the Negro newspaper in that city.
This is the power of Operation Breadbasket. [applause]
Now, for fear that you may feel that it’s limited to Chicago and
Cleveland, let me say to you that we’ve gotten even more than that. In
Atlanta, Georgia, Breadbasket has been equally successful in the South.
Here the emphasis has been divided between governmental employment and
private industry. And while I do not have time to go into the details, I
want to commend the men who have been working with it here: the
Reverend Bennett, the Reverend Joe Boone, the Reverend J. C. Ward,
Reverend Dorsey, Reverend Greer, and I could go on down the line, and
they have stood up along with all of the other ministers. But here is
the story that’s not printed in the newspapers in Atlanta: as a result
of Operation Breadbasket, over the last three years, we have added about
twenty-five million dollars of new income to the Negro community every
year. [applause]
Now as you know, Operation Breadbasket has now gone national in the
sense that we had a national conference in Chicago and agreed to launch a
nationwide program, which you will hear more about.
Finally, SCLC has entered the field of housing. Under the leadership
of attorney James Robinson, we have already contracted to build 152
units of low-income housing with apartments for the elderly on a choice
downtown Atlanta site under the sponsorship of Ebenezer Baptist Church.
This is the first project [applause], this is the first project of a
proposed southwide Housing Development Corporation which we hope to
develop in conjunction with SCLC, and through this corporation we hope
to build housing from Mississippi to North Carolina using Negro workmen,
Negro architects, Negro attorneys, and Negro financial institutions
throughout. And it is our feeling that in the next two or three years,
we can build right here in the South forty million dollars worth of new
housing for Negroes, and with millions and millions of dollars in income
coming to the Negro community. [applause]
Now there are many other things that I could tell you, but time is
passing. This, in short, is an account of SCLC’s work over the last
year. It is a record of which we can all be proud.
With all the struggle and all the achievements, we must face the
fact, however, that the Negro still lives in the basement of the Great
Society. He is still at the bottom, despite the few who have penetrated
to slightly higher levels. Even where the door has been forced partially
open, mobility for the Negro is still sharply restricted. There is
often no bottom at which to start, and when there is there’s almost no
room at the top. In consequence, Negroes are still impoverished aliens
in an affluent society. They are too poor even to rise with the society,
too impoverished by the ages to be able to ascend by using their own
resources. And the Negro did not do this himself; it was done to him.
For more than half of his American history, he was enslaved. Yet, he
built the spanning bridges and the grand mansions, the sturdy docks and
stout factories of the South. His unpaid labor made cotton “King” and
established America as a significant nation in international commerce.
Even after his release from chattel slavery, the nation grew over him,
submerging him. It became the richest, most powerful society in the
history of man, but it left the Negro far behind.
And so we still have a long, long way to go before we reach the
promised land of freedom. Yes, we have left the dusty soils of Egypt,
and we have crossed a Red Sea that had for years been hardened by a long
and piercing winter of massive resistance, but before we reach the
majestic shores of the promised land, there will still be gigantic
mountains of opposition ahead and prodigious hilltops of injustice.
(Yes, That’s right) We still need some Paul Revere of conscience to
alert every hamlet and every village of America that revolution is still
at hand. Yes, we need a chart; we need a compass; indeed, we need some
North Star to guide us into a future shrouded with impenetrable
uncertainties.
Now, in order to answer the question, “Where do we go from here?”
which is our theme, we must first honestly recognize where we are now.
When the Constitution was written, a strange formula to determine taxes
and representation declared that the Negro was sixty percent of a
person. Today another curious formula seems to declare he is fifty
percent of a person. Of the good things in life, the Negro has
approximately one half those of whites. Of the bad things of life, he
has twice those of whites. Thus, half of all Negroes live in substandard
housing. And Negroes have half the income of whites. When we turn to
the negative experiences of life, the Negro has a double share: There
are twice as many unemployed; the rate of infant mortality among Negroes
is double that of whites; and there are twice as many Negroes dying in
Vietnam as whites in proportion to their size in the population. (Yes)
[applause]
In other spheres, the figures are equally alarming. In elementary
schools, Negroes lag one to three years behind whites, and their
segregated schools (Yeah) receive substantially less money per student
than the white schools. (Those schools) One-twentieth as many Negroes as
whites attend college. Of employed Negroes, seventy-five percent hold
menial jobs. This is where we are.
Where do we go from here? First, we must massively assert our dignity
and worth. We must stand up amid a system that still oppresses us and
develop an unassailable and majestic sense of values. We must no longer
be ashamed of being black. (All right) The job of arousing manhood
within a people that have been taught for so many centuries that they
are nobody is not easy.
Even semantics have conspired to make that which is black seem ugly
and degrading. (Yes) In Roget’s Thesaurusthere are some 120 synonyms for
blackness and at least sixty of them are offensive, such words as blot,
soot, grim, devil, and foul. And there are some 134 synonyms for
whiteness and all are favorable, expressed in such words as purity,
cleanliness, chastity, and innocence. A white lie is better than a black
lie. (Yes) The most degenerate member of a family is the “black sheep.”
(Yes) Ossie Davis has suggested that maybe the English language should
be reconstructed so that teachers will not be forced to teach the Negro
child sixty ways to despise himself, and thereby perpetuate his false
sense of inferiority, and the white child 134 ways to adore himself, and
thereby perpetuate his false sense of superiority. [applause] The
tendency to ignore the Negro’s contribution to American life and strip
him of his personhood is as old as the earliest history books and as
contemporary as the morning’s newspaper. (Yes)
To offset this cultural homicide, the Negro must rise up with an
affirmation of his own Olympian manhood. (Yes) Any movement for the
Negro’s freedom that overlooks this necessity is only waiting to be
buried. (Yes) As long as the mind is enslaved, the body can never be
free. (Yes) Psychological freedom, a firm sense of self-esteem, is the
most powerful weapon against the long night of physical slavery. No
Lincolnian Emancipation Proclamation, no Johnsonian civil rights bill
can totally bring this kind of freedom. The Negro will only be free when
he reaches down to the inner depths of his own being and signs with the
pen and ink of assertive manhood his own emancipation proclamation. And
with a spirit straining toward true self-esteem, the Negro must boldly
throw off the manacles of self-abnegation and say to himself and to the
world, “I am somebody. (Oh yeah) I am a person. I am a man with dignity
and honor. (Go ahead) I have a rich and noble history, however painful
and exploited that history has been. Yes, I was a slave through my
foreparents (That’s right), and now I’m not ashamed of that. I’m ashamed
of the people who were so sinful to make me a slave.” (Yes sir) Yes
[applause], yes, we must stand up and say, “I’m black (Yes sir), but I’m
black and beautiful.” (Yes) This [applause], this self-affirmation is
the black man’s need, made compelling (All right) by the white man’s
crimes against him. (Yes)
Now another basic challenge is to discover how to organize our
strength in to economic and political power. Now no one can deny that
the Negro is in dire need of this kind of legitimate power. Indeed, one
of the great problems that the Negro confronts is his lack of power.
From the old plantations of the South to the newer ghettos of the North,
the Negro has been confined to a life of voicelessness (That’s true)
and powerlessness. (So true) Stripped of the right to make decisions
concerning his life and destiny he has been subject to the authoritarian
and sometimes whimsical decisions of the white power structure. The
plantation and the ghetto were created by those who had power, both to
confine those who had no power and to perpetuate their powerlessness.
Now the problem of transforming the ghetto, therefore, is a problem of
power, a confrontation between the forces of power demanding change and
the forces of power dedicated to the preserving of the status quo. Now,
power properly understood is nothing but the ability to achieve purpose.
It is the strength required to bring about social, political, and
economic change. Walter Reuther defined power one day. He said, “Power
is the ability of a labor union like UAW to make the most powerful
corporation in the world, General Motors, say, ‘Yes’ when it wants to
say ‘No.’ That’s power.” [applause]
Now a lot of us are preachers, and all of us have our moral
convictions and concerns, and so often we have problems with power. But
there is nothing wrong with power if power is used correctly.
You see, what happened is that some of our philosophers got off base.
And one of the great problems of history is that the concepts of love
and power have usually been contrasted as opposites, polar opposites, so
that love is identified with a resignation of power, and power with a
denial of love. It was this misinterpretation that caused the
philosopher Nietzsche, who was a philosopher of the will to power, to
reject the Christian concept of love. It was this same misinterpretation
which induced Christian theologians to reject Nietzsche’s philosophy of
the will to power in the name of the Christian idea of love.
Now, we got to get this thing right. What is needed is a realization
that power without love is reckless and abusive, and that love without
power is sentimental and anemic. (Yes) Power at its best [applause],
power at its best is love (Yes) implementing the demands of justice, and
justice at its best is love correcting everything that stands against
love. (Speak) And this is what we must see as we move on.
Now what has happened is that we’ve had it wrong and mixed up in our
country, and this has led Negro Americans in the past to seek their
goals through love and moral suasion devoid of power, and white
Americans to seek their goals through power devoid of love and
conscience. It is leading a few extremists today to advocate for Negroes
the same destructive and conscienceless power that they have justly
abhorred in whites. It is precisely this collision of immoral power with
powerless morality which constitutes the major crisis of our times.
(Yes)
Now we must develop progress, or rather, a program—and I can’t stay
on this long—that will drive the nation to a guaranteed annual income.
Now, early in the century this proposal would have been greeted with
ridicule and denunciation as destructive of initiative and
responsibility. At that time economic status was considered the measure
of the individual’s abilities and talents. And in the thinking of that
day, the absence of worldly goods indicated a want of industrious habits
and moral fiber. We’ve come a long way in our understanding of human
motivation and of the blind operation of our economic system. Now we
realize that dislocations in the market operation of our economy and the
prevalence of discrimination thrust people into idleness and bind them
in constant or frequent unemployment against their will. The poor are
less often dismissed, I hope, from our conscience today by being branded
as inferior and incompetent. We also know that no matter how
dynamically the economy develops and expands, it does not eliminate all
poverty.
The problem indicates that our emphasis must be twofold: We must
create full employment, or we must create incomes. People must be made
consumers by one method or the other. Once they are placed in this
position, we need to be concerned that the potential of the individual
is not wasted. New forms of work that enhance the social good will have
to be devised for those for whom traditional jobs are not available. In
1879 Henry George anticipated this state of affairs when he wrote
in Progress and Poverty:
The fact is that the work which improves the condition of mankind,
the work which extends knowledge and increases power and enriches
literature and elevates thought, is not done to secure a living. It is
not the work of slaves driven to their tasks either by the, that of a
taskmaster or by animal necessities. It is the work of men who somehow
find a form of work that brings a security for its own sake and a state
of society where want is abolished.
Work of this sort could be enormously increased, and we are likely to
find that the problem of housing, education, instead of preceding the
elimination of poverty, will themselves be affected if poverty is first
abolished. The poor, transformed into purchasers, will do a great deal
on their own to alter housing decay. Negroes, who have a double
disability, will have a greater effect on discrimination when they have
the additional weapon of cash to use in their struggle.
Beyond these advantages, a host of positive psychological changes
inevitably will result from widespread economic security. The dignity of
the individual will flourish when the decisions concerning his life are
in his own hands, when he has the assurance that his income is stable
and certain, and when he knows that he has the means to seek
self-improvement. Personal conflicts between husband, wife, and children
will diminish when the unjust measurement of human worth on a scale of
dollars is eliminated.
Now, our country can do this. John Kenneth Galbraith said that a
guaranteed annual income could be done for about twenty billion dollars a
year. And I say to you today, that if our nation can spend thirty-five
billion dollars a year to fight an unjust, evil war in Vietnam, and
twenty billion dollars to put a man on the moon, it can spend billions
of dollars to put God’s children on their own two feet right here on
earth. [applause]
Now, let me rush on to say we must reaffirm our commitment to
nonviolence. And I want to stress this. The futility of violence in the
struggle for racial justice has been tragically etched in all the recent
Negro riots. Now, yesterday, I tried to analyze the riots and deal with
the causes for them. Today I want to give the other side. There is
something painfully sad about a riot. One sees screaming youngsters and
angry adults fighting hopelessly and aimlessly against impossible odds.
(Yeah) And deep down within them, you perceive a desire for
self-destruction, a kind of suicidal longing. (Yes)
Occasionally, Negroes contend that the 1965 Watts riot and the other
riots in various cities represented effective civil rights action. But
those who express this view always end up with stumbling words when
asked what concrete gains have been won as a result. At best, the riots
have produced a little additional anti-poverty money allotted by
frightened government officials and a few water sprinklers to cool the
children of the ghettos. It is something like improving the food in the
prison while the people remain securely incarcerated behind bars.
(That’s right) Nowhere have the riots won any concrete improvement such
as have the organized protest demonstrations.
And when one tries to pin down advocates of violence as to what acts
would be effective, the answers are blatantly illogical. Sometimes they
talk of overthrowing racist state and local governments and they talk
about guerrilla warfare. They fail to see that no internal revolution
has ever succeeded in overthrowing a government by violence unless the
government had already lost the allegiance and effective control of its
armed forces. Anyone in his right mind knows that this will not happen
in the United States. In a violent racial situation, the power structure
has the local police, the state troopers, the National Guard, and
finally, the army to call on, all of which are predominantly white.
(Yes) Furthermore, few, if any, violent revolutions have been successful
unless the violent minority had the sympathy and support of the
non-resisting majority. Castro may have had only a few Cubans actually
fighting with him and up in the hills (Yes), but he would have never
overthrown the Batista regime unless he had had the sympathy of the vast
majority of Cuban people. It is perfectly clear that a violent
revolution on the part of American blacks would find no sympathy and
support from the white population and very little from the majority of
the Negroes themselves.
This is no time for romantic illusions and empty philosophical
debates about freedom. This is a time for action. (All right) What is
needed is a strategy for change, a tactical program that will bring the
Negro into the mainstream of American life as quickly as possible. So
far, this has only been offered by the nonviolent movement. Without
recognizing this we will end up with solutions that don’t solve, answers
that don’t answer, and explanations that don’t explain. [applause]
And so I say to you today that I still stand by nonviolence. (Yes)
And I am still convinced [applause], and I’m still convinced that it is
the most potent weapon available to the Negro in his struggle for
justice in this country.
And the other thing is, I’m concerned about a better world. I’m
concerned about justice; I’m concerned about brotherhood; I’m concerned
about truth. (That’s right) And when one is concerned about that, he can
never advocate violence. For through violence you may murder a
murderer, but you can’t murder murder. (Yes) Through violence you may
murder a liar, but you can’t establish truth. (That’s right) Through
violence you may murder a hater, but you can’t murder hate through
violence. (All right, That’s right) Darkness cannot put out darkness;
only light can do that. [applause]
And I say to you, I have also decided to stick with love, for I know
that love is ultimately the only answer to mankind’s problems. (Yes) And
I’m going to talk about it everywhere I go. I know it isn’t popular to
talk about it in some circles today. (No) And I’m not talking about
emotional bosh when I talk about love; I’m talking about a strong,
demanding love. (Yes) For I have seen too much hate. (Yes) I’ve seen too
much hate on the faces of sheriffs in the South. (Yeah) I’ve seen hate
on the faces of too many Klansmen and too many White Citizens Councilors
in the South to want to hate, myself, because every time I see it, I
know that it does something to their faces and their personalities, and I
say to myself that hate is too great a burden to bear. (Yes, That’s
right) I have decided to love. [applause] If you are seeking the highest
good, I think you can find it through love. And the beautiful thing is
that we aren’t moving wrong when we do it, because John was right, God
is love. (Yes) He who hates does not know God, but he who loves has the
key that unlocks the door to the meaning of ultimate reality.
And so I say to you today, my friends, that you may be able to speak
with the tongues of men and angels (All right); you may have the
eloquence of articulate speech; but if you have not love, it means
nothing. (That’s right) Yes, you may have the gift of prophecy; you may
have the gift of scientific prediction (Yes sir) and understand the
behavior of molecules (All right); you may break into the storehouse of
nature (Yes sir) and bring forth many new insights; yes, you may ascend
to the heights of academic achievement (Yes sir) so that you have all
knowledge (Yes sir, Yes); and you may boast of your great institutions
of learning and the boundless extent of your degrees; but if you have
not love, all of these mean absolutely nothing. (Yes) You may even give
your goods to feed the poor (Yes sir); you may bestow great gifts to
charity (Speak); and you may tower high in philanthropy; but if you have
not love, your charity means nothing. (Yes sir) You may even give your
body to be burned and die the death of a martyr, and your spilt blood
may be a symbol of honor for generations yet unborn, and thousands may
praise you as one of history’s greatest heroes; but if you have not love
(Yes, All right), your blood was spilt in vain. What I’m trying to get
you to see this morning is that a man may be self-centered in his
self-denial and self-righteous in his self-sacrifice. His generosity may
feed his ego, and his piety may feed his pride. (Speak) So without
love, benevolence becomes egotism, and martyrdom becomes spiritual
pride.
I want to say to you as I move to my conclusion, as we talk about
“Where do we go from here?” that we must honestly face the fact that the
movement must address itself to the question of restructuring the whole
of American society. (Yes) There are forty million poor people here,
and one day we must ask the question, “Why are there forty million poor
people in America?” And when you begin to ask that question, you are
raising a question about the economic system, about a broader
distribution of wealth. When you ask that question, you begin to
question the capitalistic economy. (Yes) And I’m simply saying that more
and more, we’ve got to begin to ask questions about the whole society.
We are called upon to help the discouraged beggars in life’s
marketplace. (Yes) But one day we must come to see that an edifice which
produces beggars needs restructuring. (All right) It means that
questions must be raised. And you see, my friends, when you deal with
this you begin to ask the question, “Who owns the oil?” (Yes) You begin
to ask the question, “Who owns the iron ore?” (Yes) You begin to ask the
question, “Why is it that people have to pay water bills in a world
that’s two-thirds water?” (All right) These are words that must be said.
(All right)
Now, don’t think you have me in a bind today. I’m not talking about
communism. What I’m talking about is far beyond communism. (Yeah) My
inspiration didn’t come from Karl Marx (Speak); my inspiration didn’t
come from Engels; my inspiration didn’t come from Trotsky; my
inspiration didn’t come from Lenin. Yes, I read Communist
Manifesto andDas Kapital a long time ago (Well), and I saw that maybe
Marx didn’t follow Hegel enough. (All right) He took his dialectics, but
he left out his idealism and his spiritualism. And he went over to a
German philosopher by the name of Feuerbach, and took his materialism
and made it into a system that he called “dialectical materialism.”
(Speak) I have to reject that.
What I’m saying to you this morning is communism forgets that life is
individual. (Yes) Capitalism forgets that life is social. (Yes, Go
ahead) And the kingdom of brotherhood is found neither in the thesis of
communism nor the antithesis of capitalism, but in a higher synthesis.
(Speak) [applause] It is found in a higher synthesis (Come on) that
combines the truths of both. (Yes) Now, when I say questioning the whole
society, it means ultimately coming to see that the problem of racism,
the problem of economic exploitation, and the problem of war are all
tied together. (All right) These are the triple evils that are
interrelated.
And if you will let me be a preacher just a little bit. (Speak) One
day [applause], one night, a juror came to Jesus (Yes sir) and he wanted
to know what he could do to be saved. (Yeah) Jesus didn’t get bogged
down on the kind of isolated approach of what you shouldn’t do. Jesus
didn’t say, “Now Nicodemus, you must stop lying.” (Oh yeah) He didn’t
say, “Nicodemus, now you must not commit adultery.” He didn’t say, “Now
Nicodemus, you must stop cheating if you are doing that.” He didn’t say,
“Nicodemus, you must stop drinking liquor if you are doing that
excessively.” He said something altogether different, because Jesus
realized something basic (Yes): that if a man will lie, he will steal.
(Yes) And if a man will steal, he will kill. (Yes) So instead of just
getting bogged down on one thing, Jesus looked at him and said,
“Nicodemus, you must be born again.” [applause]
In other words, “Your whole structure (Yes) must be changed.”
[applause] A nation that will keep people in slavery for 244 years will
“thingify” them and make them things. (Speak) And therefore, they will
exploit them and poor people generally economically. (Yes) And a nation
that will exploit economically will have to have foreign investments and
everything else, and it will have to use its military might to protect
them. All of these problems are tied together. (Yes) [applause]
What I’m saying today is that we must go from this convention and say, “America, you must be born again!” [applause] (Oh yes)
And so, I conclude by saying today that we have a task, and let us go out with a divine dissatisfaction. (Yes)
Let us be dissatisfied until America will no longer have a high blood pressure of creeds and an anemia of deeds. (All right)
Let us be dissatisfied (Yes) until the tragic walls that separate the
outer city of wealth and comfort from the inner city of poverty and
despair shall be crushed by the battering rams of the forces of justice.
(Yes sir)
Let us be dissatisfied (Yes) until those who live on the outskirts of hope are brought into the metropolis of daily security.
Let us be dissatisfied (Yes) until slums are cast into the junk heaps
of history (Yes), and every family will live in a decent, sanitary
home.
Let us be dissatisfied (Yes) until the dark yesterdays of segregated
schools will be transformed into bright tomorrows of quality integrated
education.
Let us be dissatisfied until integration is not seen as a problem but
as an opportunity to participate in the beauty of diversity.
Let us be dissatisfied (All right) until men and women, however black
they may be, will be judged on the basis of the content of their
character, not on the basis of the color of their skin. (Yeah) Let us be
dissatisfied. [applause]
Let us be dissatisfied (Well) until every state capitol (Yes) will be
housed by a governor who will do justly, who will love mercy, and who
will walk humbly with his God.
Let us be dissatisfied [applause] until from every city hall, justice
will roll down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.
(Yes)
Let us be dissatisfied (Yes) until that day when the lion and the
lamb shall lie down together (Yes), and every man will sit under his own
vine and fig tree, and none shall be afraid.
Let us be dissatisfied (Yes), and men will recognize that out of one
blood (Yes) God made all men to dwell upon the face of the earth. (Speak
sir)
Let us be dissatisfied until that day when nobody will shout, “White
Power!” when nobody will shout, “Black Power!” but everybody will talk
about God’s power and human power. [applause]
And I must confess, my friends (Yes sir), that the road ahead will
not always be smooth. (Yes) There will still be rocky places of
frustration (Yes) and meandering points of bewilderment. There will be
inevitable setbacks here and there. (Yes) And there will be those
moments when the buoyancy of hope will be transformed into the fatigue
of despair. (Well) Our dreams will sometimes be shattered and our
ethereal hopes blasted. (Yes) We may again, with tear-drenched eyes,
have to stand before the bier of some courageous civil rights worker
whose life will be snuffed out by the dastardly acts of bloodthirsty
mobs. (Well) But difficult and painful as it is (Well), we must walk on
in the days ahead with an audacious faith in the future. (Well) And as
we continue our charted course, we may gain consolation from the words
so nobly left by that great black bard, who was also a great freedom
fighter of yesterday, James Weldon Johnson (Yes):
Stony the road we trod (Yes),
Bitter the chastening rod
Felt in the days
When hope unborn had died. (Yes)
Yet with a steady beat,
Have not our weary feet
Come to the place
For which our fathers sighed?
We have come over a way
That with tears has been watered. (Well)
We have come treading our paths
Through the blood of the slaughtered.
Out from the gloomy past,
Till now we stand at last (Yes)
Where the bright gleam
Of our bright star is cast.
Let this affirmation be our ringing cry. (Well) It will give us the
courage to face the uncertainties of the future. It will give our tired
feet new strength as we continue our forward stride toward the city of
freedom. (Yes) When our days become dreary with low-hovering clouds of
despair (Well), and when our nights become darker than a thousand
midnights (Well), let us remember (Yes) that there is a creative force
in this universe working to pull down the gigantic mountains of evil
(Well), a power that is able to make a way out of no way (Yes) and
transform dark yesterdays into bright tomorrows. (Speak)
Let us realize that the arc of the moral universe is long, but it
bends toward justice. Let us realize that William Cullen Bryant is
right: “Truth, crushed to earth, will rise again.” Let us go out
realizing that the Bible is right: “Be not deceived. God is not mocked.
(Oh yeah) Whatsoever a man soweth (Yes), that (Yes) shall he also reap.”
This is our hope for the future, and with this faith we will be able to
sing in some not too distant tomorrow, with a cosmic past tense, “We
have overcome! (Yes) We have overcome! Deep in my heart, I did believe
(Yes) we would overcome.” [applause]