Address Delivered at Mass Meeting at Shiloh Baptist Church
Author: King, Martin Luther, Jr.
Date: July 12, 1962?
Location: Albany, Ga.
Genre: Audio
Speech
Topic: Albany Movement
Martin Luther King, Jr. - Arrests
Details
To a crowd of 1,500 gathered at Shiloh Baptist Church, King explains the circumstances surrounding his and Ralph Abernathy’s release from jail earlier that day, despite their resolve to serve their forty-five day sentence.1 A dismayed King tells the audience that he does not “appreciate the subtle and conniving methods being used to get us out of jail” and vows to remain in Albany until justice is “properly worked out in this community.”2 Within hours of his release from jail, King and members of the Albany Movement had met with police chief Laurie Pritchett for further negotiations. A news report indicated that after the two sides emerged from the two-hour meeting, King expressed optimism that “definite progress” was being made toward resolving the city’s racial problems.3 The following transcript is taken from an audio recording of the mass meeting.
President Anderson, and my dear friend and close associate Ralph Abernathy and all of my friends and fellow strugglers for freedom and first-class citizenship of the city of Albany, ladies and gentlemen: I, like Ralph Abernathy, find myself in a difficult position tonight. Now, I don’t want to give anybody the impression that I have a great joy in going to jail—and a great desire to appreciate the subtle and conniving methods being used to get us out of jail. Now, several people have asked today since we’ve been out, “Why do you think they did that?” Well, I don’t know; I don’t have the answer. There are probably several reasons that could be given for this action on the part of those who decided to follow this course. I do remember the chief saying to me, “God knows, Reverend, I don’t want you in my jail.”4 [laughter]
Now [laughter], we had decided that we would be in the chief’s jail for forty-five days, and I say to you in all seriousness that we had come to this decision on the basis of what we thought was the right position to take. Last December we joined with many of you in going down in a nonviolent pilgrimage to have prayer at the city hall. We knew we were not doing anything wrong. This is a right that every American citizen should have. We were not in a parade, as they said later. We were not violent as we moved forth, but we were nonviolent to the core. And finally, we were arrested and we were convicted on the basis of a statute which said that it is not legal to parade without a permit.5
We felt, and we still feel, that this law was unjustly applied to all of the people who engaged in this nonviolent demonstration. [Audience:] (Yes) And consequently, we felt that since we had been convicted on the basis of a law that was unjustly applied, we could not in all good conscience pay the fine because we would have been cooperating with an unjust law.
And so we decided as we stood in the courtroom and as we listened to the decision of Judge Durden the other day that we would not and we could not pay the fine of $178. And we said, “Instead, we will accept the forty-five days to work on the streets of Albany, Georgia,” in order to make our moral witness clear and in order to make it clear to this city and to this nation that never again would we adjust to an unjust law. (No) This was why we decided to do it, and we were prepared to stay every minute of that time. We had no idea that anything would be done—whether it would be done in legitimate ways or whether it would be done in underhand ways—to get us out, because we’d made it clear to our families, we’d made it clear to the Albany Movement, and we’d made it clear to friends that we felt that we should serve this time.
Now, another reason we decided to serve the time was the fact that 750-some-odd persons still have hanging over them these cases and these possible trials. And we wanted it to be known all over Albany and all over this nation that we were not concerned about ourselves alone, but we were concerned about our more-than-700 brothers and sisters (That’s right) who still have these cases hanging over them. And we will not be content, and we will not cease our determined activities (Amen), until these 750-odd-people here in the city of Albany (Amen) are dealt with in a proper manner (Yes, Yes), and that these cases will not continue to hang over their heads.6 [applause]
Now, after we made it clear to the chief of police, Chief Pritchett, that we had been dealt with unjustly and that we had been deprived of our constitutional rights, having fines paid against our wills, and after he had made it clear that we had to leave, that they could not hold us, that they had to release us on the basis of the fine being paid, we did not go over to some place or some corner and make a decision to leave Albany. We made it clear that we were still concerned and we were still determined to see justice properly worked out in this community.
And so we decided that we needed to open channels of communication and channels of negotiation. And we got together and decided to go back to Chief Pritchett and talk with him concerning the conditions in Albany. I joined the Reverend Abernathy, attorney C. B. King, and your own president, Dr. Anderson, in talking with Chief Pritchett.
Now, you will remember that your leaders set forth five simple yet important proposals, and these things have been offered to the city commission, to the police chief, and to the city manager in an attempt to work out the problems in this community. They have been offered in good faith.
These are the five things that you have asked for: Number one: That the ICC ruling, which was handed down on November 1 or, rather took effect on November 1, 1961 (Yes), would be vigorously enforced here in Albany. Now, this ruling says in substance that there can be no segregation (No) in interstate travel, no segregated facilities in the bus terminals, and no segregation on the buses themselves. Now, there has been some harassment at this point in Albany. And this ICC ruling has never thoroughly been enforced. And so one of the things that you insisted on was that this ruling would be vigorously enforced. Number two: You asked and demanded that if the city buses are returned, that there would be no segregation on these buses and that the police force would not seek to enforce segregation on the buses. Number three: You asked and made it clear that you wanted to see developed in this community a biracial committee that would serve as a channel through which you could discuss and grapple with the other problems that you still confront in this community. Number three, number four: You asked that all of the money that had been paid for cash bonds would be returned to the individuals who put up this money. (That’s right) Number five: You asked that all of the charges against the more than seven hundred citizens of this community who engaged in the nonviolent demonstrations would be dropped. These are the five things that you asked for.
We talked about two hours with Chief Pritchett about these things. We made it clear that the community was still determined. We made it clear that [recording interrupted]
1. King was introduced by Abernathy, who hailed him as “the Moses of the twentieth century.”
2. Desperate to avoid the political and media fallout of jailing King again, white Albany officials secretly arranged for B. C. Gardner, a colleague of Mayor Asa Kelley, to pay the fines owed by King and Abernathy (Norma L. Anderson and William G. Anderson, Autobiographies of a Black Couple of the Greatest Generation [n.p.: privately printed, 2004], p. 220). Chief Pritchett told the public that an “unidentified ‘tall, well-dressed Negro’” paid the fines (Bill Shipp, “Freed by Mystery Fine Donor, Rev. King Meets Police Chief,” Atlanta Constitution, 13 July 1962).
3. Shipp, “Freed by Mystery Fine Donor,” 13 July 1962.
4. In a statement following his release from jail, King said he told Albany police chief Pritchett that he wanted to serve his entire sentence, but the police chief responded: “God knows, Reverend, I don’t want you in my jail” (King, Press conference following release from Albany Jail, 12 July 1962).
5. During his trial in February, King testified that the demonstration was strictly a nonviolent march to city hall “to pray and seek to have talks with the Commissioners.” Albany officials, however, maintained that the march constituted an official “parade” (“Dr. King Is Jailed for Georgia Protest,” New York Times, 11 July 1962).
6. A New York Times article indicated that from 10 December through 16 December 1961, 749 people had been arrested in Albany (Claude Sitton, “Dr. King Among 265 Negroes Seized in March on Albany, Ga., City Hall,” New York Times, 17 December 1961). Of the more than 700 protesters arrested in December, only King, Abernathy, and two others had been brought to trial by July 1962 (“Rev. King Set Free; Not Happy about It,” Chicago Daily Tribune, 13 July 1962).
Source: Nashville, Tenn.: Creed Records, Nashboro Record Company, 1984.