Address Delivered at Albany Movement Mass Meeting at Shiloh Baptist Church
Author: King, Martin Luther, Jr.
Date: July 16, 1962?
Location: Albany, Ga.
Genre: Speech
Topic: Albany Movement
Martin Luther King, Jr. - Arrests
Details
Reacting to the Albany City Commission’s public refusal to meet with the Albany Movement and the commission’s reluctance to uphold terms of earlier negotiations, King reiterates his promise to remain in Albany until a settlement is reached.1 He calls on his audience to prepare themselves for renewed demonstrations, saying: “If they will not listen to our words, they will have to face our bodies.” Declaring this a “decisive moment” in the Albany Movement, King implores his audience to remain committed to the end: “I want you to be committed now. I don’t want you to wait until next week. I don’t want you to wait until eighty-four hours from now. I don’t want you to wait until two days from now to get committed. I don’t want you to wait until an hour from now to get committed. I want you to become committed this minute.” The following transcript is taken from an audio recording of the meeting.
Again, I address you as fellow citizens of Albany, and I address you that way because I no longer feel like a person living outside of Albany, but I feel like a person living in Albany.2 [applause] I regret that we are a little late tonight—at least that we were late getting to the meeting. But I’m sure that you will all agree that the situation that made us late was a situation that merited our attention and our concern. We journeyed over to Camilla, Georgia, where we had the privilege of visiting the Reverend Doctor C. K. Steele and the other courageous, freedom-loving citizens of this community who are still in jail.3 And they said they are willing to stay there until the walls of segregation come tumbling down. [Audience:] (Yes) [applause] We are all proud of these people and deeply grateful to them for their dedication, for their commitment to freedom and their unswerving devotion to the ideals and principles of the Albany Movement.
Now, there can be no denying of the fact that the Negro citizens of Albany have been dominated politically, exploited economically, and humiliated over and over again. And these conditions exist because of a system known as racial segregation. These conditions exist in Albany today because there are still individuals in the power structure of this community who are determined to maintain segregation at any cost.
But you have made it clear in the past and you are making it clear now that you are absolutely opposed to segregation. You know that segregation is unconstitutional; it is against the law of the land. But deeper than that, segregation is against the noble precepts of our democratic and Christian heritage. And we want it known all over Albany tonight, all over Georgia, all over the South, and all over the United States that we are no longer willing to accept segregation. [applause]
But the thing that makes me so happy, and I think the thing that makes men and women all over this nation of goodwill so happy is that you have been willing to stand up against segregation courageously and nonviolently. I remember when I came here last December along with Dr. Ralph Abernathy to join you in this struggle, I was so deeply inspired and deeply moved by your determined efforts, by your willingness to suffer and sacrifice and stand up nonviolently against segregation.4 Now, we’ve demonstrated good faith at every point. They called Dr. Abernathy and I, along with Mr. [Eddie] Jackson and Mr. [Solomon] Walker, to trial the other day. We came back. And after we were convicted and given the alternative to pay $178 or serve forty-five days in jail, you remember that we decided to serve the forty-five days and work on the streets of Albany. But they tricked us out of jail, thinking [laughter] that this would stop the movement. [applause] And when they tricked us out, I guess they thought that this would mean that we would get the first plane back to Atlanta and that the mass meetings would come to an immediate halt and that the Negro citizens of Albany would go back to their homes willing to accept their conditions as they existed. (Yeah) But your presence here tonight demonstrates that we are more determined now than ever before. [applause]
Now, we have tried to talk and negotiate. We are not a rabble-rousing group; we are not a violent group; we are not a group of individuals saturated with hate in our hearts. And so we have said all along that we want to sit down at the conference table and air our grievances and talk about these problems. We’ve made that clear. We’ve talked with Chief Pritchett, and I sincerely believe that Chief Pritchett is a nice man, a basically decent man, but he’s so caught up in the system that he ends up saying one thing to us behind closed doors and then we open the newspapers and he’s said something else to the press.5 (Yeah) [applause]
And so we know now that the problem is far from solved and that we need to go not to the chief of police to talk, but we want to talk with the city commission itself (Yes), the chief legislative and executive power in the government of this city. (Yes) We sent a telegram requesting a meeting with the city commission.6 We did this in good faith, for we feel that you have a right through your leaders to talk with the people who are supposed to be representing all of the people. (Yeah) The city commission of Albany, the mayor of Albany, and all of the people in the city government are not to be representing some of the people; they are to be representing all of the people. And we sought to talk with them.
They made it clear this afternoon that they will not talk with us. And they said they will not talk with lawbreakers.7 This is what they call us: lawbreakers. Now, first we don’t feel that we have done anything wrong. We know that deep down in the democratic creed is the whole idea that individuals can protest for that which they consider right. It is embedded in the First Amendment of the Constitution and when we engage in nonviolent, orderly, peaceful pilgrimages to pray and to seek an audience with the city commission, we are just doing that in line with our great American heritage. (Yes) And so we do not consider ourselves dangerous lawbreakers, but we consider ourselves children of almighty God made in his image (Yeah), created equal as all men (Yeah, Yeah), and that we have a right to stand up and protest in a peaceful way. (Yeah) [applause] Now, since they refused to talk with us, since they refuse to meet us across the conference table, we must make it palpably clear that they will have to meet us in some way. (Yeah) [sustained applause]
We’ve tried to talk, and we’ve tried to negotiate, but if they will not listen to our words, they will have to face our bodies and our bare lives so that we can witness to the truth as we see it. (Yes, Yes) And we must begin now to purify ourselves and prepare ourselves because we must move all the way to the end in order to make it clear all over this city and all over this nation that we are determined to be free, and we must be willing to fill up jails all over the state of Georgia. [sustained applause]
Let us stay together, let us mobilize our forces, let us work together, let us pray together. More details will be given to you as the hours unfold, but let me conclude by saying this is the decisive moment. (Yeah) Let us realize that we have a great challenge and a great opportunity. And God grant that everybody assembled here tonight is committed. I want you to be committed now to go with us all the way. (Yeah) I want you to be committed now. I don’t want you to wait until next week. I don’t want you to wait until eighty-four hours from now. I don’t want you to wait until two days from now to get committed. I don’t want you to wait until an hour from now to get committed. I want you to become committed this minute, for somewhere I read a little poem which goes like this: “A tiny little minute, /just sixty seconds in it. /I didn’t choose it. /I can’t refuse it. /It’s up to me to use it. /A tiny little minute, /just [applause] sixty seconds in it.”8 [sustained applause]
1. For more on the December 1961 negotiations, see King, Anderson, and Abernathy to John F. Kennedy, 17 December 1961, pp. 349–350 in this volume.
2. In his introduction of King, William G. Anderson said, “It gives me a good deal of pleasure at this time to again present to Albany, one who is now one of us, pledged to stay with us throughout the civil rights struggle, none other than the twentieth-century Moses, Dr. Martin Luther King.”
3. In a show of solidarity with King after his 10 July sentencing in Albany, C. K. Steele and thirty-two other demonstrators were arrested as they marched from Shiloh Baptist Church on 11 July. All declined bail and were later transferred to jail in Camilla, Georgia (“King Batters ‘Walls of Albany,’” Baltimore Afro-American, 21 July 1962).
4. Responding to Anderson’s invitation, King traveled to Albany on 15 December 1961. The next day, he and a group of over two hundred protesters were arrested as they marched to City Hall (see King, Address Delivered at Albany Movement Mass Meeting at Mt. Zion Baptist Church, 15 December 1961, pp. 342–344 in this volume).
5. See Claude Sitton, “Dr. King’s Release Reduces Tensions,” New York Times, 14 July 1962.
6. Citing a history of unfulfilled promises made in meetings with Pritchett, the telegram requested a direct meeting with the commissioners no later than 17 July (Vic Smith, “‘No Deal’, City Informs Negro Violators of Law,” Albany Herald, 16 July 1962).
7. The city commission acknowledged the request, but declared they would not “deal with Law Violators” (Albany City Commission, Statement regarding special meeting with Albany Movement, 16 July 1962).
8. Often attributed to Benjamin Mays, King paraphrases the anonymous poem “God’s Minute”: “I have only a moment/Only sixty seconds in it/Forced upon me, /Can’t refuse it, /Didn’t seek it, /Didn’t choose it /But it’s up to me to use it. /I must suffer if I lose it/Give account if I abuse it/Just a tiny little minute/But eternity is in it.”
Source: GDL-G-Ar, Georgia Department of Law, Georgia Department of Archives and History, Morrow, Ga.