Address Delivered at the “Freedom Fund Dinner” at the Fifty-third Annual Convention of the NAACP
Author: King, Martin Luther, Jr.
Date: July 5, 1962?
Location: Atlanta, Ga.
Genre: Speech
Topic: Civil Disobedience
Montgomery Bus Boycott
Details
In an effort to dispel rumors of disunity between the NAACP and SCLC, John Morsell, assistant to Roy Wilkins, invited King to address the NAACP annual convention.1 Speaking to an audience of over 1,500 gathered at the Morehouse College gymnasium for the NAACP’s Freedom Fund Dinner, King debunks six myths about the civil rights movement: time will solve the race problem, only education and not legislation will resolve racial conflict, the South had peaceful race relations prior to the movement, the African American vote has no impact, disunity amongst the civil rights organizations and leadership undermines the movement, and nonviolent direct action is ineffective. To the proponents of gradualism, King argues that change comes through persistence and that time is neutral: “It can be used either constructively or destructively and it may well be that we will have to repent in this generation not merely for the bitter words and actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people.” He dismisses rumors of disunity among SCLC, SNCC, CORE, and the NAACP, asserting that “we are all moving down the same road toward the same beautiful city of freedom and first-class citizenship.” In conclusion, King urges his audience to refrain from complacency and challenges everyone to actively push forward in the nonviolent struggle for civil rights. The following transcript is taken from an audio recording of the event.
My good friend Judge Delany, my good friend Mr. [Roy] Wilkins, other distinguished dais guests, delegates to this the fifty-third convention of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, ladies and gentlemen.2 I sincerely welcome the opportunity to be with you on this auspicious occasion. We reaffirm our appreciation to you for all of the significant work that you have done across the years. As a result of the work of the NAACP, America is a better nation, and we as Negroes are the heirs of a legacy of dignity and courage. One day all America will be proud of your achievements.
As a citizen of Atlanta, I would like to say how much I regret that short-sightedness, moral laxity, and downright prejudice on the part of some made it impossible for the hotels to be open for this convention. I know that this has been an insult to your dignity and an affront to your person. You ought to be commended for protesting this grave injustice. Your picket lines have eloquently laid the issue before the conscience of the community. This whole episode reveals that Atlanta is far from where it ought to be in human relations.
Now, it is very hot tonight, and since it is very hot, it makes it difficult for the speaker to speak, and it makes it difficult for the listeners to listen. But for the moments left, I would like to attempt to assess the progress that has been made in the civil rights struggle and determine from that the challenges and responsibilities which lie ahead.
On the one hand, we can affirm with almost inexpressible joy that we have made some significant strides in our long trek up freedom’s road. In the words of Prime Minister Macmillan, “The wind of change is blowing and with almost hurricane force, it is sweeping away an old and unjust order.”3 Probably the most overt expression of this change is a gradual breakdown of the system of segregation. We all know the legal history of this system. It had its beginning in 1896 when the Supreme Court of the nation rendered the Plessy versus Ferguson decision, establishing the doctrine of separate but equal as the law of the land. Of course, we know what happened as a result of the Plessy doctrine. There was always a strict enforcement of the separate without the slightest intention to abide by the equal. [applause] And so the Negro ended up being plunged into the abyss of exploitation, where he experienced the bleakness of nagging injustice.
The minute the Plessy decision was rendered, there were those who saw its injustice. About twelve years later, the NAACP came into being, and then followed its brilliant, diligent, and courageous work on behalf of justice and Negro rights. It was mainly the work of this great organization which led to the decision of May seventeenth 1954. In this decision, the Supreme Court of the nation examined the legal body of segregation and pronounced it constitutionally dead. It said in substance that the old Plessy doctrine must go, that separate facilities are inherently unequal, that to segregate a child on the basis of his race is to deny that child equal protection of the law. This decision came as a refreshing oasis in a desert sweltering with the heat of injustice.
When this Brown decision was rendered, seventeen states and the District of Columbia practiced absolute segregation in the public schools. Today, all but three of these states have made some move, most of them token, toward integrating their schools. So there are only three states now seeking to hold out with determined resistance: the state of South Carolina, the state of Alabama, and the great sovereign state of Mississippi. [laughter] Segregation has broken down in other areas. When the Montgomery bus boycott started in 1955, most communities in the South had segregated bus systems. Today segregation is almost totally eliminated on city buses in the major urban areas of the South. Since the sit-in movement started in 1960, more than 150 cities of the South have integrated their lunch counters. Since the freedom rides began in 1961, segregation in interstate travel has all but been eliminated.4 So in a real sense, the system of segregation is on its death bed today, and the only thing uncertain about it is how costly the South will make the funeral. [applause]
Now, this would be a wonderful place for me to bring an end to my speech. On such a hot night it would mean making a short speech, and of course this would be a magnificent accomplishment for a Baptist preacher. [laughter] But it would also mean that the problem is about solved [and?] now and that we can sit comfortably by the wayside and wait on the coming of the inevitable. But if I stop at this point, I will merely be stating a fact and not telling the truth. You see, a fact is merely the absence of contradiction, but truth is the presence of coherence; truth is the relatedness of facts. Now, it’s a fact that we have made meaningful strides in civil rights over the last few years, but it isn’t the whole truth. We’ve got to go on and add the other side, and that is that we still have a long, long way to go.
And so if I stop at this point, I am afraid that I will leave you the victims of a dangerous optimism. If I stop now, I will leave you the victims of an illusion wrapped in superficiality. So in order to tell the truth, it is necessary to move on and say we are far from the Promised Land in civil rights. We need not look very far to see this. There are still legislative halls in the South ringing loud with such words as interposition and nullification. The Negro still confronts numerous problems in seeking to register and vote in many sections of the South. Economic injustice is still an ugly reality where the Negro is involved. All over the nation, the Negro is still the last hired and the first fired.
Above all, we must not overlook the fact that segregation is still with us. It still exists in the South in its overt and glaring forms. It still exists in the North in its hidden and subtle forms. It is true as I just said, figuratively speaking, that Old Man Segregation is on his death bed, but history has proven that social systems have a great last minute breathing power, and the guardians of the status quo are always on hand with their oxygen tents to keep the old order alive. [applause] But we know as we assemble here for this convention that segregation is a cancer in the body politic which must be removed before our democratic health can be realized. [applause] In fact if [applause], in fact if democracy is to live, segregation must die. [applause]
America does not have long to solve this problem. I know that there are those—some well-intentioned—who are telling us to slow up and cool off for a while. They urge us to adopt a policy of moderation. Well, if moderation means moving on toward the goal of justice with wise restraint and calm reasonableness, then moderation is a great virtue which all men of goodwill must seek to achieve in this tense period of transition. But if moderation means slowing up in the move for freedom and capitulating to the undemocratic practices of the guardians of the evil system of segregation, then moderation is a tragic vice which all men of goodwill must condemn. We can’t afford to slow up. We have our self respect to maintain. But even more, we can’t afford to slow up because of our love for America and the democratic way of life. The jet-like pace of modern world events does not afford America the luxury of oxcart movement in civil rights.
There are approximately two billion eight hundred million people in the world. The vast majority of these people live in Asia and Africa. For years, they have been dominated politically, exploited economically, segregated, and humiliated by some foreign power. But the wind of change began to blow, and what a jostling wind it is. Just fifteen years ago, the British Empire had under its political domination in Asia and Africa more than six hundred fifty million people. Today that number has been reduced to less than fifty million. Twenty-five years ago, there were only three independent countries in the whole of Africa.5 With the birth of three new nations in the last two weeks, including Algeria, there are now thirty-two independent nations in Africa.6 [applause] As these former colonial subjects gain their independence, they are saying in no uncertain terms that racism and colonialism must go. And they are making it clear that they will not respect any nation that will subject a segment of its citizenry on the basis of race or color. So the hour is late. The hands of the clock of destiny are fastly moving toward midnight. To put it another way, the motor is now cranked up and we are moving up the highway of freedom toward the city of equality, and we can’t afford to stop now because our nation has a rendezvous with destiny. [applause] We must keep moving. [applause]
Now, if we are to bring a final end to the system of segregation and discrimination we must continue to explode and refute several time-worn myths. The first myth is the idea that time will solve all problems. It lingers around in many quarters; it is expressed in many familiar phrases: “It takes time, you know.” “This thing can’t be done overnight.” “Just be patient and the problem will work itself out in a few generations.” Proponents of this myth fail to see that time is neutral. It can be used either constructively or destructively, and it may well be that we will have to repent in this generation not merely for the bitter words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people. Human [applause], human progress never rolls in on the wheels of inevitability. It comes through the tireless efforts and the persistent work of dedicated individuals. Without this hard work, time itself becomes the ally of the insurgent and primitive forces of irrational emotionalism and social stagnation. We must always be up and doing and realize that the time is always right to do right. [applause]
The second myth affirms that only education can solve problems of racial conflict. The devotees of this cherished myth contend that legislation, court orders, and executive decrees are ineffective because they cannot change the heart. They also go on to argue that you can’t legislate morals. Well, it may be true that morality cannot be legislated, but behavior can be regulated. In short, the law may not make a man love me, but it can keep him from lynching me, and I think that’s pretty important also. [applause] The law may not change the heart, but it can restrain the heartless. It will take education and religion to change bad internal attitudes, but legislation and court orders can control the external effects of bad internal attitudes. And so we are challenged to work diligently for meaningful legislation. There is need for civil rights legislation now. [applause] It is appalling [applause], it is appalling and tragic that in this enlightened year of 1962, the United States has a do-nothing Congress in civil rights.7 [Audience:] (Go ahead)
The third myth that must be exploded is the idea that the South had peaceful race relations until NAACPers, sit-inners, freedom riders, and the Supreme Court began their vigorous action. Now, the proponents of this myth argue that we are going backwards instead of forward in race relations. They constantly talk about tension being created and hostilities being aroused. They have the strange illusion that there can be a tensionless social transition. But they must be reminded that there is a kind of creative tension which is necessary for growth. They must be reminded that we do not now and we have never had true peace in race relations in the South. [applause]
I remember when I still lived in Montgomery, Alabama, one of the friends from the white community came by my office one day and he was very disturbed. He said, “Brother King, the thing that worries me is that over so many years we’ve had such wonderful and such harmonious and peaceful race relations. And now you people have started this boycott and destroyed all of the peace that once existed. And we used to love the Negroes; I used to give contributions to your church, and I just don’t feel like giving it now. I don’t have the same attitude that I once had.” [laughter] And I looked at him—I knew he was sincere—and I said, “My friend, we’ve never had peaceful race relations in Montgomery. We may have had a sort of negative peace in which the Negro patiently adjusted to and accepted second-class citizenship. And you must know that true peace is not merely the absence of some negative force; it is the presence of some positive force. True peace is not merely the absence of tension, but it is the presence of justice.”8
And I think this is what Jesus meant when he looked at his disciples one day and said, “I come not to bring peace but a sword.”9 Now, certainly he didn’t mean he came to bring a physical sword. Certainly he didn’t mean that he did not come to bring true peace. But Jesus was saying this, in substance: that I come not to bring an old negative peace, which makes for deadening passivity and stagnant complacency. And whenever I come, a conflict is precipitated between the old and the new. Whenever I come, tension sets in between justice and injustice. Whenever I come, a division takes place between the forces of light and the forces of darkness. I come not to bring an old-negative peace which is merely the absence of tension, but I come to bring a positive peace which is the presence of justice, which is the presence of love, which is the presences of brotherhood. And we must get rid of the myth once and for all that we have peaceful race relations in the South. The tension which we see in the South today is a necessary tension that comes when the oppressed rise up and start to move forward toward a permanent, positive peace. And this we must see.
Another myth that must be refuted is the idea that the Negro vote can do very little to alter conditions in the nation in general and the South in particular. Strangely enough, the supporters of this myth are not the whites but the Negroes. The white ruling class in the South has always recognized the power of the Negro vote. This is why they have fought so long and hard to deprive the Negro of this right. There are still all too many Negroes devoid of motivation, caught in the clutches of apathy and expressing the attitude that “My vote does not count.” We have the job of going out into the hedges and the highways to arouse the motivation of our people and lift them from their apathetic slumber. I am still convinced that one of the most significant steps that the Negro can take at this hour is that short walk to the voting booth. [applause] And I commend you [applause], and I commend you for making this issue the theme of your convention.10
I would like to urge everyone here to take this matter seriously. Let us go back into our communities and develop intensive voter registration campaigns. This job cannot be done through eloquent speeches and emotion-packed mass meetings, although both may be useful means of arousing interest and enthusiasm. But after the interest is aroused, it must be followed through with block-to-block, door-to-door organization. We must go to the grassroots level and mobilize every segment of the community for this massive drive.
Fortunately, some exciting things are already happening in this area. It is significant, indeed, that the major civil rights organizations—the NAACP, CORE, SCLC, SNCC, and the Urban League—have come together to develop the most thorough and effectively coordinated campaigns ever seen in voter registration. Already we are getting results. In Georgia alone, we were able to register more than thirty thousand Negroes in less than ninety days. Take a community like Macon, Georgia. The leaders of that community came together a few months ago and organized a massive voter registration campaign. Little did we know in SCLC when we invested staff and money in that campaign that in sixty days six thousand new persons would be registered, thereby doubling the number of Negro registration in that community. Just a few days ago, the NAACP and SCLC began a joint drive in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Mr. Patton of the NAACP, Mr. John Calhoun, and the Reverend Fred Bennette of SCLC began working with the community.11 In slightly less than thirty days, some 2,800 persons have been registered.
This, I believe, is the answer. If we can do this all over the South, things will change. With the ballot, we will be able to liberalize the total political climate of the South. With the ballot, we will be able to elect Negro congressmen right here in the South. With the ballot, we will be able to transform the salient misdeed of bloodthirsty mobs into the blessed good deeds of orderly citizens. With the ballot, we will be able to end police brutality and bring a halt to the dastardly acts of hooded perpetrators of violence. With the ballot, we will be able to house our courts with judges who will do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with God. We will be able to send to the sacred halls of Congress men who will not sign the Southern Manifesto, because of their commitment to the manifesto of justice and love.12 [applause] This is our challenge. [applause]
I would like to discuss briefly the next myth and I know [you would?] like for me to be honest and candid as I discuss it, for I think the time has come to discuss it publicly. The fifth mist, myth expresses the idea that the civil rights movement is a confused admixture of organizations seething with disunity. Disunity in the civil rights movement is becoming a favorite topic for a certain number of newspapers and magazines. Recently Time magazine offered opinions of observers whom it styled as spokesmen but whose identities are not revealed, evidently to encourage them to make sensational charges about other civil rights leaders.13
Frankly, I believe we are being victimized. We are enticed into self-serving statements and borderline slander about others to furnish gossip and colorful copy. And certainly we all know that none of us is immune to error. We frequently have different views on some questions. And thankfully, we are creative and intellectually bold enough to reach in new directions. We can and should criticize each other in fair and free exchange, but we must be watchful of a growing tendency to encourage and stimulate rancor within us by forces outside.
The civil rights movement necessarily has weaknesses and the people who lead it have faults. But in the past few years, this movement has meant more to America than even its civil rights objectives.
It is singularly a mass movement, vibrant with idealism, with goodwill, with honest zeal which has inspired tens of millions. Its wholesome qualities have refreshed the spirit of mature adults, young people, and children. Amidst seas of corruption, reported in detail in the press, this movement has been an island of purity of purpose. This generation has had little to hold on to against the storms of cynicism other than the spiritual grandeur of our struggle.
Our differences are relatively minor. Our criticisms of each other are not deep or intense. Yet when they are sensationally presented, they have the illusion of importance, and if repeated often enough, a new image of our movement will emerge: that of leaders and followers smiling at each other over trivialities and proving by this conduct how unworthy they are of freedom’s responsibility. When I say “trivialities,” let me be very clear. It is not the disclosure that there are criticisms which disturb me. In any movement, absence of criticism means limited depth of bureaucratic dictation. But when our differences of opinion are exploited to disfigure our appearance, we must send petty gossipmongers on their way empty-handed but educated in the strength of our dignity.
I would like to directly deal with the alleged issue of disunity. The dictionary defines disunity as alienation, as the severing of parts. By this definition, we do not have disunity at all. We have instead differences of opinion, of interests, but not disunity. Indeed, I think few movements of broad scope have had some of the features of unity which characterizes ours. In looking over my schedule the other day, I found that I, president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, had addressed NAACP chapters in more than twenty states and appeared at its national convention three years out of the past five.14 The chairmen of several SCLC affiliates are presidents of the NAACP chapters in their communities, and right here in Atlanta, the Reverend Sam Williams, the host, is a president of the NAACP and also a vice president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.15 The NAACP has given significant legal assistance to CORE and SNCC. SCLC has contributed cash and personnel to SNCC. Beyond this intimacy organizationally, I believe a flexible unity and diversity of views characterizes our work.
And so let us stay together, remembering that we are all moving down the same road. It may be a three-lane road, with some emphasizing the way of litigation and mobilizing forces for meaningful legislation and others emphasizing the way of nonviolent direct action and others moving through research and education and building up forces to prepare the Negro for the challenge of a highly urbanized society. But we are all moving down the same road toward the same beautiful city of freedom and first-class citizenship. [applause] (And we’ll achieve it?) [applause]
Another myth that is alive today—this is the last one that I would like to discuss—is the idea that nonviolent direct action is weak, is a weak and ineffective method that lulls people to sleep. How this idea ever emerged is strange indeed. Can one honestly refer to the fifty thousand Negroes of Montgomery, Alabama, the thousands of sit-inners and the hundreds of freedom riders as weak and asleep? Of course not, and so this method is for the strong and well-disciplined. It does not overlook the need for court action; only the misinformed and short-sighted would seek to minimize the importance of litigation. Many of the current breakthroughs have come because of the groundwork laid by the diligent work through the courts across the years, and so nonviolent direct action should not minimize work through the courts. But it recognizes that legislation and court orders can only declare rights; they can never thoroughly deliver them. Only when the people themselves begin to act are rights on paper given life blood. A catalyst is needed to breathe life experience into a judicial decision by the persistent exercise of the rights until they become usual and ordinary in human conduct.
The method of nonviolent direct action is also effective in that it has a way of disarming the opponent. It exposes his moral defenses; it weakens his morale; and at the same time, it works on his conscience, and he just doesn’t know what to do. If he seeks to beat you, you develop the capacity to accept it without retaliation. If he doesn’t beat you, fine. If he doesn’t put you in jail, wonderful; nobody likes to go to jail who has any sense. If he puts you in jail, you go in that jail and transform it from a dungeon of shame to a haven of freedom and human dignity. [applause] Even if he tries to kill you [applause], even if he tries to kill you, you develop the quiet courage of dying if necessary without killing. And he just doesn’t know how to handle it.16
And then this method also makes it possible for the individual to struggle to secure moral ends through moral means.17 There has been a long debate through, in history on the whole question of ends and means. There have been those, from Machiavelli on down, who argued that the end justifies the means.18 Sometimes, systems of government will argue this, and I think this is the great weakness of Communism. Communism says somewhere that the end justifies the means. Read Lenin and you will hear him saying that “Lying, deceit, and even violence are justifiable means for the achievement of the end of the classless society.”19 This is where we would break with Communism and any movement that would argue that the end justifies the means, because the end is pre-existent in the means. The means represent the ideal in the making and the end in process. In the long run of history, destructive means cannot bring about constructive ends. Immoral methods cannot achieve moral goals, and we must work to secure moral ends through moral means.
Nonviolent resistance also provides a creative force through which men can channelize their discontent. It does not require that they abandon their discontent. This discontent is sound and healthy. Nonviolence saves this discontent from degenerating into morbid bitterness and hatred. Hate is always tragic. It is as harmful to the hater as it is to the hated. It distorts the personality and scars the soul. Psychiatrists are telling us now that many inner conflicts, many of those strange things that happen deep down in the subconscious, are rooted in hate. And so they are now saying, “Love or perish.” This is the beauty of nonviolence. It says you can struggle without hating, you can fight war without violence, and this is where we find the ethic of love standing at the center of this movement. And at the center of nonviolent resistance stands the idea that noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good.20 Now, this is the whole idea of civil disobedience. This is probably the most misunderstood aspect of the nonviolent movement. [gap in tape]
Well, first I would say that a just law is a law that squares with the moral law of the universe. A just law is a law that is in line with the law of God. An unjust law is a law that is out of harmony with the law of the universe, the moral laws of the universe. Well, somebody said, “Now you’re talking in religious terms, and I don’t have much religion, and I don’t believe in those abstract things called moral laws. Make it a little more concrete.” Well, I would say that an unjust law is a code which a majority inflicts on the minority, which is not binding on itself so this becomes difference made legal. By the same token a just law is a code which the majority compels the minority to follow because it is willing to follow it itself. This is sameness made legal. And then an unjust law is a code which a majority inflicts on a minority which that minority had no part in enacting or creating because it was denied the right to vote. We could say that the legislative body of Mississippi or Georgia or Alabama which brought into being many of these laws was democratically elected. The fact is that Negroes cannot vote in many of these situations, and so they have no power in enacting or creating these laws. And therefore an unjust law is a code that is inflicted on a group that that group had no part in enacting or creating, because it was denied the right to vote.
Now, when the individuals do this and engage in civil disobedience, they do it peacefully and openly if they are in line with the nonviolent movement. Most important, they willingly accept the penalty, whatever it is, for in this way the public comes to re-examine the law in question and will thus decide whether it uplifts or degrades man. And so they do not seek to subvert, they do not seek to evade or defy the law. This would be anarchy; this is what many of the segregationists would do. But I submit to you that any individual who decides to break a law that conscience tells him is unjust and willingly accepts the penalty for it is at that moment expressing the very highest respect for law. [applause]
There is nothing new about this. [applause] There is nothing new about this. Go back with me, if you will, to the Old Testament. See Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego as they stand before King Nebuchadnezzar. They made it clear: we cannot bow.21 Come if you will to Plato’s Dialogues, open to Crito or the Apology, and see Socrates practicing civil disobedience.22 And academic freedom is a reality today because Socrates practiced civil disobedience. Come to the early Christians; see them practicing civil disobedience to the point that they are willing to be thrown to the lions to stand up for what they believe. Listen to Peter as he says, “We must obey God, rather than man.”23 Come up to the modern world. Never forget that everything that Hitler did in Germany was legal. It was illegal to aid and comfort a Jew in the day of Hitler’s Germany, but I believe if I had lived there, with my present attitude, I would have disobeyed that law, and I would have encouraged people to aid and comfort our Jewish brothers. [applause] If I lived [applause], if I lived in South Africa today, I would join Chief [Albert] Lutuli as he says to his people, “Break this law. Don’t take this unjust pass system, where you must have passes. Take them and tear them up and throw them away.”24 We come up through history and see it, even in our own nation, for what is the Boston Tea Party [applause] but a massive act of civil disobedience? [applause]
So, I say that those who practice civil disobedience are in noble company, and I’m still willing in Atlanta, Georgia, to break a law that conscience tells me is unjust. [applause] So today, my friends, I say we are challenged more than ever before. Let us explode these myths. May we not let up in our determination.
We must make it palpably clear that three simple words describe the meaning of our struggle. They are the words all, here, and now.
We do not want some of our rights. (No) We shall not be content with a few token handouts here and there. We must be ever mindful of a dangerous trend that is developing in the South. It is a trend toward planned and institutionalized tokenism. Token integration as a good-faith start may have some merit, but it is too often a bad, faithless, evasive scheme. It is the old resistance dressed in sophisticated garments. It is nothing but a new form of discrimination covered up with certain niceties of complexity. But we will not settle for token integration. (No) We want all of our rights [applause], and we must make it clear. [applause]
We do not plan to run to some distant land to get our rights. We will join neither a Back to Africa movement, nor a White Citizens’ Council freedom-ride-north movement.25 [applause] We want our freedom here in America, here in the black belt of Mississippi, here behind the cotton curtain of Alabama, here on the red clay of Georgia. [applause] We want all of our rights, and we want them here.
And we are not willing to wait a hundred years for our rights. (No) We have lived with gradualism and we know that it is nothing but do-nothingism and escapism, which ends up in stand-stillism. No, we are not willing to wait any longer. We want freedom now. [sustained applause]
Honesty impels me to admit—as I leave you in my conclusion—as we continue our struggle in the days ahead, the journey will not always be easy. Before we reach the Promised Land, we will confront gigantic mountains of resistance and prodigious hilltops of opposition. Some will have to get scarred up a bit. Some more will have to go to jail. And I do not know, maybe some will have to face physical death. If physical death is the price that some must pay to free their children from a permanent psychological death, then nothing can be more redemptive. Before the victory is won, some will be misunderstood and called bad names. Some will be dismissed as dangerous rabble-rousers and agitators. Some will lose their jobs. Some will have restless nights and will be forced to stand amidst the chilly winds of adversity.
You have been here for these days, and in a few days, you will be going back to your communities. Some will be going into the hard-core states and the hard-core communities. It will be difficult, but I would say to you as you go back, that you go back with cosmic companionship. Go back knowing that as you struggle, you do not struggle alone. We must continue with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive and that “Truth, crushed to earth, will rise again.”26 Go back with the faith that “no lie can live forever.”27 Go back to the faith that “Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne—/Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim unknown,/Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own.”28 Go back with the faith that the Bible is right: “Ye shall reap what you sow.”29 Go back with the faith that there is something to remind us that one day “Every valley will be exalted, and every mountain and hill will be made low. The rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight. And the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.”30 (All right) [applause] And with this faith [applause], with this faith we will be able right here in America to adjourn the councils of despair and bring new light into the dark chambers of pessimism. We will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood.
This is our challenge. Let us use this moment creatively; let us continue to work. Wait not until next week, wait not until tomorrow morning, wait not an hour from now. For somewhere there’s a little poem which says, “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 sixty seconds in it. But eternity is in it, and God grant you to use it.”31 [sustained applause]
1. In his invitation to King, Morsell wrote that “our joint presence should speak with unmistakable clarity to the whole nation” (Morsell to King, 18 May 1962). Also appearing at the dinner was Coretta Scott King, who sang a solo, and comedian Dick Gregory, who was presented with a citation by Roy Wilkins (Program, “N.A.A.C.P. Fight for Freedom Fund and Awards Dinner,” 5 July 1962).
2. Hubert Thomas Delany (1901–1990) was a justice in the New York City Domestic Relations Court from 1942 to 1955 and a longtime member of the NAACP and its Legal Defense and Educational Fund.
3. Maurice Harold Macmillan (1894–1986) was prime minister of the United Kingdom from 1957 to 1963. King paraphrases Macmillan’s “Wind of Change” speech in which he criticized apartheid before the South African Parliament on 3 February 1960: “The wind of change is blowing through this continent, and whether we like it or not, this growth of national consciousness is a political fact. We must all accept it as a fact, and our national policies must take account of it.”
4. In the spring of 1961, members of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) launched the Freedom Rides to challenge segregation on interstate buses and bus terminals. Traveling on buses from Washington, D.C., to New Orleans, Louisiana, the riders met violent opposition in the Deep South, garnering extensive media attention and eventually forcing federal intervention from the Kennedy administration.
5. King refers to Ethiopia, Liberia, and Egypt.
6. Burundi and Rwanda gained their independence on 1 July, and Algeria became independent on 5 July. As of July 1962, the following countries in Africa were also independent: Benin (1960), Burkina Faso (1960), Cameroon (1960), Central African Republic (1960), Chad (1960), Congo (1960), Democratic Republic of Congo (1960), Côte d’Ivoire (1960), Egypt (1922), Gabon (1960), Ghana (1957), Guinea (1958), Liberia (1847), Libya (1951), Madagascar (1960), Mali (1960), Mauritania (1960), Morocco (1956), Niger (1960), Nigeria (1960), Senegal (1960), Sierra Leone (1961), Somalia (1960), South Africa (1931), Sudan (1956), Togo (1960), and Tunisia (1956).
7. King may be referring to the watered-down Manpower and Development Training Act (MDTA) passed in March 1962. The act did little for African Americans, who had long been excluded from jobs that required training and experience. He may have also been referring to Congress’s failure in May 1962 to pass the ill-supported literacy bill, which would have ended literacy tests as a requirement for voting. For more on King’s thoughts about the MDTA and the literacy bill, see King, “People in Action: Nothing Changing Unless,” 28 April 1962, and “People in Action: Literacy Bill Dies,” 26 May 1962, pp. 449–451 and pp. 466–468 in this volume, respectively. Besides King, others, like the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, criticized Congress’s failure to enact civil rights reforms. In January 1962, the Anti-Defamation League published a civil rights review, summarizing that “While more than seven years have passed since the Supreme Court had outlawed school segregation, only token desegregation has thus far been achieved in the South. Negro employment still follows the grim pattern of last to be hired and first to be fired, and the Negro jobless rate is still more than three times the white” (Warren Kornberg, “’61 Civil Rights Record Disappointing to ADL,” Washington Post, 2 January 1962).
8. King gives a similar account of this story in his 1956 sermon “When Peace Becomes Obnoxious,” in Papers 3:208.
9. Cf. Matthew 10:34.
10. An NAACP press release announced that voter registration, employment discrimination, school desegregation, urban renewal, and the role of direct action in the movement would be topics for the upcoming convention (NAACP, Press release, “Voting, schools and jobs, NAACP convention topics,” 22 June 1962).
11. W. C. Patton (1913–1997) was a civic leader who worked for voter registration and headed the Birmingham branch of the NAACP. John H. Calhoun (1899–1988) was a civil rights activist in Atlanta, Georgia, and cofounded the Negro Voters League. Fred C. Bennette, Jr. (1928–1994) was director of security for SCLC. The five-week long NAACP voter registration campaign in Chattanooga, Knoxville, Memphis, and Clarksville resulted in 8,000 newly registered voters. The campaign in Chattanooga, conducted in cooperation with the SCLC, resulted in the registration of 1,400 new voters, bringing the total number of black registered voters to 15,000 (“Along the N.A.A.C.P. Battlefront,” The Crisis [August–September 1962]: 412).
12. In March 1956, seventy-seven Southern congressmen and nineteen Southern senators signed the Declaration of Constitutional Principles, also known as the Southern Manifesto, which opposed racial integration in public places (U.S. Congress, Senate, Congressional Record, 84th Cong., 2nd sess., 1956, Vol. 102, pt. 4, 4459–4460).
13. “Confused Crusade,” Time, 12 January 1962; see also Stanley D. Levison to the Editor of Time Magazine, 11 January 1962, pp. 363–365 in this volume.
14. King delivered addresses at the 1956, 1957, and 1959 NAACP conventions (“The Montgomery Story,” Address Delivered at the Forty-seventh Annual NAACP Convention, 27 June 1956, in Papers 3:299–310; “Remarks in Acceptance of the Forty-second Spingarn Medal at the Forty-eighth Annual NAACP Convention,” 28 June 1957, in Papers 4:228–233; Address at the Fiftieth Annual NAACP Convention, 17 July 1959, in Papers 5:245–249).
15. Samuel Woodrow Williams (1912–1970) also cotaught a philosophy course with King at Morehouse College in 1961–1962 (see King to Mays, 1 August 1961, p. 258 in this volume).
16. King used this explanation of the method of nonviolent direct action in “The Future of Race Relations in the United States,” a speech delivered at Dartmouth College on 23 May 1962.
17. Immanuel Kant, The Metaphysics of Morals (1797).
18. Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527) was a political theorist and philosopher from Florence, Italy.
19. Robert J. McCracken’s Questions People Ask (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1951), pp. 168–169: “‘We must be ready,’ wrote Lenin, ‘to employ trickery, deceit, lawbreaking, withholding and concealing truth.’”
20. Cf. M. K. Gandhi, Satyagraha (Ahmadabad: Navajivan Publishing House, 1951), p. 165: “Non-co-operation with evil is as much a duty as co-operation with good”; see also Gandhi, “The Poet’s Anxiety,” Young India, 1 June 1921.
21. Cf. Daniel 3:16–18.
22. Cf. Plato, The Dialogues of Plato, trans. B. Jowett (New York: Scribner’s, 1911).
23. Cf. Acts 5:29.
24. Following the March 1960 Sharpeville massacre, in which more than sixty protesters were killed for demonstrating against South Africa’s pass system, ANC president Albert Lutuli publicly burned his pass and urged others to follow suit. For his actions, Lutuli was sentenced to six months in prison, but he was released due to poor health and exiled to Groutville. At Lutuli’s request, King sent him a copy of Stride Toward Freedom in 1959 (King to Lutuli, 8 December 1959, in Papers 5:344–345).
25. King likely refers to Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association.
26. Cf. William Cullen Bryant, “The Battlefield” (1839), stanza 9.
27. Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution (1837), vol. 1, book 6, chap. 3.
28. James Russell Lowell, “The Present Crisis” (1844), stanza 8.
29. Cf. Galatians 6:7.
30. Cf. Isaiah 40:4–5.
31. King paraphrases an anonymous poem, often attributed to Benjamin Mays, titled “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: PHBC-INP, Paul H. Brown Collection.