Address Delivered at Albany Movement Mass Meeting
Author: King, Martin Luther, Jr.
Date: July 24, 1962?
Location: Albany, Ga.
Genre: Speech
Topic: Albany Movement
Martin Luther King, Jr. - Arrests
Martin Luther King, Jr. - Travels
Nonviolence
Details
Immediately after the injunction was lifted, a vindicated King returned to Albany, where he spoke to audiences at Shiloh and Mt. Zion Baptist Churches. In the following address, King calls for a continuation of demonstrations, insisting that there is no shame in going to jail because like Indian prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru and Ghanaian president Kwame Nkrumah, you can “rise from prison to power.”1 Surveying the crowd, King asks: “Who will go? Who will be a part of greater ongoing movement who made God’s kingdom a reality?” In closing, King insists that if Albany officials continue to deny demonstrators the right to protest, “we will have to present our very bodies and our lives and lay this issue squarely before the conscience of this community.” At the end of the mass meeting, a group of three hundred protesters, led by Marvin Rich of CORE, spontaneously marched on Albany City Hall, and when police moved in to disperse the crowd, bystanders began throwing rocks and bottles, injuring two law enforcement officers.2 The following transcript is taken from an audio recording of the mass meeting.
Some three or four years ago, Mrs. King and I had the great privilege of spending about six weeks in that great country in Asia known as India.3 You may be aware of the fact that India is the second most populous nation in the world. It has a population of more than four hundred million people. That’s larger than the United States and the whole continent of Africa put together. You may also know that for many, many years, the Indian people were dominated politically, exploited economically, segregated and humiliated by some foreign power. So in a sense, the problems that the Indian people faced were not too different from the problems we face in Albany, Georgia, today for we too are dominated politically, we too are exploited economically, we too are segregated and humiliated on a day-to-day basis.
When I landed in India, in Bombay, we journeyed the next day to New Delhi, which is the capital of that great nation. We had dinner that evening with the prime minister, a man by the name of Jawaharlal Nehru—a great man, one of the great statesmen of the world.4 But I want you to know this tonight: that Mr. Nehru was placed in jail exactly fourteen times in his life as he struggled for the independence of his people. The next day, we had dinner with President Prasad.5 A great man, a great legal mind; he was a lawyer. I want you to know that as we talked with President Prasad, he reminded us that he had spent three years of his life in jail. The next day, we had dinner with a man who is a great philosopher. He taught at Oxford. He is the vice president—at that time he was the vice president of India, a man by the name of Radhakrishnan.6 Doctor Radhakrishnan told us of hours he’d spent in the independence struggle and the times he’d spent in jail. Not long after that, we met with Mrs. Indira Gandhi, the daughter of Prime Minister Nehru—beautiful, charming young lady.7 And she told us in beautiful terms, in joyous terms, that she had been arrested seven times in her life during the independence struggle.
Not long after that, we began our journey over that vast country. We moved into Madras, we moved into Trivandrum, we moved to Calcutta.8 We were entertained and we were the guests of the various governors in every province of India. I didn’t meet a single governor who had not spent time in jail. And out of the thousands and thousands of people that we met all over India, I doubt seriously if we met one hundred people who had not been to jail as they struggled to free themselves from the conditions that they faced in India.
Well, a few years before that, Mrs. King and I journeyed to Africa.9 It was the first time that we had been to Africa. We went over to join thousands and millions of people in celebrating the independence of the new nation of Ghana. This was the country known as the Gold Coast in West Africa. And I never will forget that night when Prime Minister [Kwame] Nkrumah came out on that stage and stood before some three hundred thousand people. When Prime Minister Nkrumah stood there, he cried out, “We are now a free and an independent people,” and I looked at that point and I saw a flag coming down and another flag going up. The flag coming down was the Union Jack flag of the British Empire; the flag going up was the flag of the new nation of Ghana. And I looked around and we heard young men and women, old men and women crying as they had never been able to cry it before: “Freedom [Audience:] (Yes), freedom, freedom.” Then we looked up at, around Prime Minister Nkrumah and the members of his cabinet were assembled with him and they had on some funny little caps, and I inquired of the person who was taking us around, the guide, what did the caps mean? And the guide looked over and said, “Those are prison caps. You see all of those men went to prison to get our independence.”10 (Yes, That’s right) Whether you realize it or not, Prime Minister Nkrumah was elected the prime minister of the Gold Coast while he was in jail.
I say all of this in a round-about way to try to tell you tonight that there’s nothing wrong with going to jail because you can rise from prison to power (Yes), and we have something. [applause]
I want to leave that with you tonight. I want you to think about it tonight. We have problems in Albany. (Amen) God is speaking through the long vistas of eternity saying, “Who will go?” (Well) It is echoing through the centuries: Who will go? Who will be a part of greater ongoing movement who made God’s kingdom a reality?
Now, today many of our hopes and many of our longings were vindicated. When I stood before you Sunday afternoon, I said to you that it was a little dark. I couldn’t quite see my way clear. There are times that you do cry out, “Why?” (Yes), and I don’t mind crying, “Why?” occasionally (Well) ’cause even our Lord and master found himself crying out one day, “My God, my God, why?” (Why, Yes Lord) Sunday I was crying “Why?” After we had become aroused and after we had gotten ourselves ready, [recording interrupted] participated in a magnificent drama (Yes) [unfolding?] onto the stages of history (Yes), the injunction came. (Yes) And I told you Sunday afternoon that we just needed to keep ourselves together and have faith and realize that sometimes the darkest hour (Yes) is just that hour before the dawn of a new day.11 (Yes, Yes, Yes) This morning something came (Yes), transformed dark and desolate valleys into sunlit paths of [peace?]. (Yeah) This morning something happened. (Yes) It came to me to transform the fatigue of despair into the buoyancy of hope. This morning something happened (Yeah) that caused me to leave that courtroom (Yeah) saying, not “Lord, why is all of this trouble coming?” Not, on the one hand, “Nobody knows the trouble we see,” but I could leave crying, “I am so glad that trouble don’t last always.”12 [applause]
And so we’re all happy about the decision rendered by Judge [Elbert] Tuttle. It gave us renewed faith in the judicial branch of our government. We know that there are some bad apples in the basket of the federal judiciary (Yeah), but we are happy and thankful to God that by and large (Yes) the men in this branch of our government are men who have decided to stand up for what is right on the basis of our Constitution. (Yeah) And we are appreciative of these men and their leadership in this tense period of transition.
As Charles Jones said, we do not need to go around with a victory complex (Yes), for when you begin to love God and when you begin to love humanity (Yes), you never see these temporary changes as victories for one particular group.13 And God knows I am not interested in seeing a victory merely for twenty million Negroes in the United States. (Yes) My concern is that we will have a victory for justice (Yes), a victory for democracy (Yes), so that every child born in this world would be able to know that he can walk the earth with dignity and self-respect (That’s right), knowing that he’s somebody. (Yeah)
Tonight I would remind you that the tension in Albany is not tension merely between black people and white people—this isn’t the tension. The tension in Albany is at bottom a tension between justice and injustice. (Yes, That’s right, That’s right) It is a tension between the forces of light and the forces of darkness. And this is why we say we welcome anybody in this movement (Yes) on the basis of conscience. This isn’t a colored folks movement (Well); this is a movement for justice, and any white person who wants to join this movement, come on and get in it and let’s get free. [applause]
So, my friends, we have an opportunity now—I must stress something that I always say and I never tire of saying it—so by now you know what I believe about this. I don’t have but one speech. I don’t have but one message as I journey around this country, and it is the message which says that I am convinced that the most potent weapon available to oppressed people (Yes sir) as they struggle for freedom and justice is the weapon of nonviolence. (Yes, Yes) Let us keep this weapon. Let’s keep it in the forefront. (Yes)
Judge Tuttle made it clear today that on the basis of the First and the Fourteenth Amendment, people have a right to protest. And I believe this is the greatness of our nation. This is why I could never be a Communist; this is why my allegiance could never turn to Russia, for I know that deep down within this nation is a commitment to something even if it fails to live up to it. (Yes) Deep down within this nation is a commitment to freedom, which says that every man has a right to protest for right. (Yeah) And ever and again something comes to remind us that America was based and built on a great principle: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” (Amen) Not “some men,” but “all men.” (All right) Not “all white men,” but “all men,” which includes black men. (All right) This is deep down (That’s right) in the very structure of our nation. (Yes) We have a right to do what we are doing. (Yes)
And I go on with a faith that as we engage in these peaceful demonstrations and these peaceful protests (Yes) that we are doing what is right because we are trying to say to Albany (Well), “If you won’t sit down and talk with us and grant us those things which are ours on the basis of the Constitution of the United States (Yes), sanctioned by heaven itself and endorsed by the forces of justice, if you won’t do that, we will have to present our very bodies and our lives and lay this issue squarely before the conscience of this community.” (Yes) This is what we’ve got to do all over Albany. (Yes) There may be somebody here moving toward the evening of life. (Well) You may be sixty, you may be seventy. You’ve gone through the morning of childhood, somehow you’ve moved [recording interrupted]
1. Nkrumah spent a year in prison after being convicted of sedition in 1950. As the leader of the Indian National Congress, Nehru spent more than thirteen years in prison for his protest activities.
2. According to newspaper reports, a crowd of about two thousand African American bystanders had gathered at city hall. King and other movement leaders did not participate in the unplanned march. Forty people were arrested during the demonstration. The following day, King vehemently denied any Albany Movement involvement in the violence (Vic Smith, “Uneasy Calm Prevails Here As M. L. King Cries ‘Penance,’” Albany Herald, 25 July 1962; Claude Sitton, “Dr. King Sets a Day of Penance After Violence in Albany, Ga.,” New York Times, 26 July 1962).
3. King, his wife, Coretta, and SCLC historian Lawrence D. Reddick toured India from February to March 1959. For details about King’s trip to India, see Introduction in Papers 5:2–12.
4. King and his companions arrived in Bombay [Mumbai] on 9 February 1959. The following day King had dinner with Nehru at the prime minister’s home in New Delhi.
5. King had tea with Rajendra Prasad on 12 February.
6. King met India’s vice president Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan on 10 February.
7. King met Indira Gandhi on 10 February 1961, while a guest at Nehru’s home in Delhi.
8. King arrived in Calcutta on 15 February, in Madras on 18 February, and in Trivandrum on 22 February.
9. King attended the independence ceremonies in the Gold Coast from 4 March to 12 March 1957. For more on King’s trip to Ghana, see Introduction in Papers 4:7–10.
10. King expressed similar recollections about his trip to Ghana in his April 1957 sermon “Birth of a New Nation” (see Papers 4:155–167).
11. On the afternoon of Sunday, 22 July, King and Anderson held a press conference in the backyard of Anderson’s home. For the press conference, see pp. 545–546 in this volume. An Albany police surveillance report indicated that later that day King attended a mass meeting at Mt. Zion (Laurie Pritchett, J. Ed. Friend, and Bill Manley, Statement of police officers concerning the demonstrations, 22 July 1962). The Americus Times Recorder reported that King told the crowd: “I will not go out on a door-knocking campaign trying to tell people not to take part in what their conscience tells them they ought to do” (“Judge Denies Hearing on Albany Injunction,” Americus Times Recorder, 23 July 1962).
12. King quotes from the spirituals “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen” and “I’m So Glad Trouble Don’t Last Always.”
13. Jones (1937– ), field secretary of SNCC from 1961 to 1963, introduced King to the audience.
Source: GDL-G-Ar, Georgia Department of Law, Georgia Department of Archives and History, Morrow, Ga.