Address Delivered to the National Press Club and Question and Answer Period

Author: King, Martin Luther, Jr.

Date: July 19, 1962?

Location: Washington, D.C.

Genre: Speech

Topic: Albany Movement

Martin Luther King, Jr. - Arrests

Martin Luther King, Jr. - Political and Social Views

Montgomery Bus Boycott

Nonviolence

Details

Despite efforts by southern members of the National Press Club to derail his invitation to address the organization, King became the first African American to speak before the organization.¹ Before a capacity crowd of 400, King calls for “full realization” of the “American dream,” which is a “land where men no longer argue that the color of man’s skin determines the content of his character.” He dreams, he says, of a “land where every man will respect the dignity and the worth of human personality,” and that one day the “jangling discords of our nation will be transformed into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood” where “men everywhere will know that America is truly the land of the free and the home of the brave.”²

In the question and answer session immediately following his speech, King responds to a wide range of topics, including the federal government’s role in the Albany Movement, the Supreme Court’s recent ruling against prayer in public schools, and rumors of discord among the top civil rights organizations.³ Responding to an Indian reporter, King acknowledges his indebtedness to Mahatma Gandhi, but draws a distinction between integration and independence, claiming that in India a “foreign invader is being driven out,” but African Americans “are seeking to gain freedom within a situation where we will have to live with the same people the minute we get that freedom.” The following transcript is taken from an audio recording of the event.

Mr. Chairman, distinguished dais guests, members of the National Press Club, ladies and gentlemen. I warmly welcome the opportunity to address such a distin­guished group of journalists. As has been said, I almost didn’t make it. Just last week I was convicted in the city court of Albany, Georgia, for participating in a peaceful march protesting segregated conditions in that community. I decided on the basis of conscience not to pay the fine of $178 but to serve the jail sentence of forty-five days. Just as I was about to get adjusted to my new home for forty-five days, Reverend Abernathy and I were notified that some unknown donor had paid our fines and that we had to leave the jail.⁴ As the Atlanta Constitution suggested the other day, we have now reached a new landmark in race relations.⁵ We have witnessed persons being ejected from lunch counters during the sit-ins [laughter] and thrown into jails during the Freedom Rides. But for the first time, we witness persons being kicked out of jail.⁶ [laughter]

Victor Hugo once said that there is nothing more powerful in all the world than an idea whose time has come.⁷ Anyone sensitive to the present moods in our nation must know that the time for racial justice has come. The issue is not whether segrega­tion and discrimination will be eliminated, but how they will pass from the American scene. During the past decade, some intelligent leadership in the South recognized inevitability, but others vainly tried to stop the wind from blowing and the tides from flowing. The recalcitrant forces offered such concepts as nullification and interposi­tion along with uglier evils such as bombings, mob violence, and economic reprisals. But the idea whose time had come moved on, and over the rubble left by the violence of the mobsters, many communities resumed their normal activities and moved out on a new basis of partial integration. To be sure, the changes have been unevenly distributed, and in some communities even a small beginning is barely perceptible. Yet enough has been accomplished to make the pattern of the future sharply clear. The illusions of the die-hards have been shattered, and in most instances they have made a hurried retreat from the reckless notions of ending public education and closing public facilities.

But in the tradition of the old guard which dies but does not surrender, a new, hastily constructed roadblock has appeared in the form of planned and institution­alized tokenism.⁸ Thus, we have advanced in some areas from all-out, unrestrained resistance to a sophisticated form of delay embodied in tokenism. In a sense, this is one of the most difficult problems that our movement confronts. But I’m confident that this tactic will prove to be as vain a hope as the earlier quest to utilize massive resistance to inhibit even a scintilla of change.

Now, what of the future? Will it be marked by the same types of action as the past periods? This question is not easy to answer with precision. Certainly there will continue to be resistance, but in spite of this, I am convinced that the opponents of desegregation are fighting a losing battle. The old South has gone, never to return again. Many of the problems that we are confronting in the South today grow out of a futile attempt of the white South to maintain a system of human values that came into being under a feudalistic plantation system and which cannot survive in a day of democratic equalitarianism.

First, if the South is to grow economically, it must continue to industrialize. We see signs of this vigorous industrialization with a concomitant urbanization throughout every southern state.⁹ With the growth of industry, the folkways of white supremacy will gradually pass away. This growth of industry will also increase the purchasing power of the Negro, and this augmented purchasing power will result in improved medical care, greater educational opportunities, and more adequate housing. Each of these developments will result in a further weakening of segregation.

In spite of screams of “Over my dead body will any change come,” one must not overlook the changes that have come to the South as a result of federal action. There are always those who argue that legislation, court orders, and executive decrees from the federal government are ineffective because they cannot change the heart. They contend that you cannot legislate morals. Well, it may be true that morality cannot be legislated, but behavior can be regulated. The law may not change the heart, but it can restrain the heartless.¹⁰ Federal court decrees have altered transportation pat­terns and changed the educational mores.¹¹ The habits, if not the hearts, of people have been and are being altered every day by federal action. These major social changes have accumulated force, conditioning other segments of life.

More and more, the voice of the church is being heard. It is still true that the church is the most segregated major institution in America. As a minister of the gos­pel, I am ashamed to have to affirm that eleven o’clock on Sunday morning, when we stand to sing “In Christ There Is No East Nor West,” is the most segregated hour of America.¹² But in spite of this appalling fact, we’re beginning to shake the lethargy from our souls. And here and there churches are courageously making attacks on segregation.¹³ As the church continues to take a forthright stand on this issue, the transition from a segregated to an integrated society will be infinitely smoother.

Probably the most powerful force that is breaking down the barriers of segregation is a new determination of the Negro himself. For many years, the Negro tacitly accepted segregation. He often, he was often the victim of stagnant passivity and deadening complacency. And while there were always solo voices in the Negro com­munity crying out against segregation, conditions of fear and apathy made it difficult to develop a mass chorus. But through the forces of history, something happened to the Negro. The social upheavals of two world wars, the Great Depression, and the spread of the automobile have made it possible and necessary for the Negro to move away from his former isolation on the rural plantation. The decline of agriculture and parallel growth of industry have drawn large numbers of Negroes to urban centers and brought about a gradual improvement in their economic status. New contacts have led to a broader, a broadened outlook and new possibilities for educa­tional advance.

Once plagued with a tragic sense of inferiority resulting from the crippling effects of slavery and segregation, the Negro has now been driven to re-evaluate himself. He has come to feel that he is somebody, and with this new sense of somebody-ness and self-respect, a new Negro has emerged with a new determination to achieve freedom and human dignity whatever the cost may be.¹⁴

This is the true meaning of the struggle that is taking place in the South today. One cannot understand the Montgomery bus boycott and the sit-ins without under­standing that there is a new Negro on the scene with a new sense of dignity and des­tiny. And thousands of Negroes have come to see that it is ultimately more honorable to suffer indignity than accept segregation and humiliation.

A special feature of our struggle is its universal quality. Every social strata is involved, every age—children, teenagers, adults, and senior citizens. The whole nation was startled by the Montgomery bus boycott in 1956 chiefly because every Negro allied himself in the cause with firm discipline. The same universal involvement is now appearing in Albany, Georgia. Last December, more than seven hun­dred Negroes from this community willingly went to jail to create an effective pro­test. I shall never forget this experience in which elderly women over seventy, young teenagers, and middle-aged adults crowded the jail cells—some with professional degrees in medicine, law, and education; some simple housekeepers and laborers; others from business—all differences of age and social status but all united around one objective. This is a powerful, growing force which no society may wisely ignore.

Fortunately, the Negro has been willing to grapple with a creative and powerful force in his struggle for racial justice: namely, nonviolent resistance. This does not mean that a new method has come into being to serve as a substitute for litigation and legislation. Certainly, we must continue to work through the courts and legisla­tive channels. But those who adhere to the method of nonviolent direct action recognize that legislation and court orders tend only to declare rights; they can never thoroughly deliver them. And 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 resistance is 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. It also makes it possible for the individual to struggle to secure moral ends through moral means. One of the most persistent philosophi­cal debates of the centuries has been over the question of ends and means. There have been those from Machiavelli on down who have argued that the end justifies the means.¹⁵ This I feel is one of the greatest tragedies of Communism. Read Lenin as he says, “Lying, deceit, and violence are justifiable means to bring about the end of a classless society.”¹⁶ This is where nonviolence breaks with Communism and any other method which contends that the end justifies the means. In a real sense, the means represent the ideal in the making and the end in process. And so in the long run, destructive means cannot bring about constructive ends, because the end is pre-existent in the 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, but nonviolence saves it from degenerating into morbid bitterness and hatred. Hate is always tragic. It is as injurious to the hater as it is to the hated.¹⁷ Psychiatrists are telling us now that many of the inner conflicts and strange things that happen 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 it is my great hope that as the Negro plunges deeper into the quest for freedom, he will plunge even deeper into the philosophy of nonviolence.

As a race, we must work passionately and unrelentingly for first-class citizenship, but we must never use second-class methods to gain it. As I’ve said so often, we must never succumb to the temptation of using violence in our struggle, for if this happens, unborn generations will be the recipients of a long and desolate night of bitterness, and our chief legacy to the future will be an endless reign of meaning­less chaos.¹⁸ The nonviolent resisters can summarize their message in the following simple terms: We will take direct action against injustice without waiting for other agencies to act. We will not obey unjust laws or submit to unjust practices. We will do this peacefully and openly because our aim is to persuade. We adopt the means of nonviolence because our end is a community at peace with itself. We will try to persuade with our words but if our words fail, we will try to persuade with our acts. We will always be willing to talk and seek fair compromise, but we are ready to suf­fer when necessary and even risk our lives to become witnesses to the truth as we see it.¹⁹

This approach to the problem is not without successful precedent. We have the magnificent example of Mohandas K. Gandhi, who challenged the might of the British Empire and won independence for his people by using only the weapons of truth, noninjury, courage, and soul force. Today we have the noble example of thousands of Negro students who have nonviolently challenged the principalities of seg­regation. Their courageous and disciplined activities have come as a refreshing oasis in a desert sweltering with the heat of injustice. They have taken the whole nation back to those great wells of democracy which were dug deep by the founding fathers in the formulation of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. And I believe that one day, all of America will be proud of their achievements.²⁰

Along with our continued efforts in nonviolent direct action, we are determined to extend our exercise of constitutional privileges to areas heretofore neglected, par­ticularly in the exercise of the ballot. We are embarked upon a campaign to involve millions of Negroes in the use of the franchise. Some of our workers have already suffered violence and arrests for their efforts, but we will continue. We believe that with our intensified actions, a correspondingly expanded federal government program of vigorous law enforcement is indispensable. A number of administrative initiatives have been useful, and the present Justice Department has certainly moved with forthrightness and concern in the sensitive area of voter registration.²¹ But the coming period will undoubtedly require that the Justice Department utilize the Civil Rights Act of 1960 extensively and seek court-appointed referees in thousands of communities in which the right to vote is brutally denied to Negroes.²²

Now, I have spent most of my time talking about the problem as it exists in the South. But I hope this is not interpreted as my feeling that the problem is merely Southern. Indeed no section of our country can boast of clean hands in the area of brotherhood. Segregation may exist in the South in overt and glaring forms, but it exists in the North in hidden and subtle forms. Housing and employment discrimi­nation are often as prominent in the North as they are in the South. In short, the racial issue that we confront in America is not a sectional but a national problem.

I must also clear up another impression which may have been conveyed. I have talked about the emerging new order of integration and the forces that are at work to assure its realization. From this, one may conclude that I am laboring under the impression that the problem is about solved now and that men can sit complacently by the wayside and wait on the coming of the inevitable. Nothing could be further from the truth. Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable. The Darwinian theory of evolution is valid in the biological realm, but when a Herbert Spencer seeks to apply it to the whole of society, there is very little evidence for it.²³ Even a superficial look at history reveals that no social advance rolls in on the wheels of inevitability. It comes through the tireless efforts and persistent work of dedicated individuals. Without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the primitive forces of irratio­nal emotionalism and social stagnation.

To outline the problem is to chart the course of the Negro freedom movement. We have come to the day when a piece of freedom is not enough for us as human beings nor for the nation of which we are part. We have been given pieces, but unlike bread, a slice of which does diminish hunger, a piece of liberty no longer suffices. Freedom is like life: You cannot be given life in installments. You cannot be given breath but no body, nor a heart but no blood vessels. Freedom is one thing. You have it all, or you are not free, and our goal is freedom. I believe we will win it because the goal of the nation is freedom.²⁴ Our destiny is bound up with the destiny of America. We built it for two centuries without wages. We made cotton king. We built our homes and homes for our masters and suffered injustice and humiliation but out of a bottomless vitality continued to live and grow. If the inexpressible cruelties of slavery could not extinguish our existence, the opposition we now face will surely fail.

We feel that we are the conscience of America. We are its troubled soul. We will continue to insist that right be done because both God’s will and the heritage of our nation speak through echoing demands.

We are simply seeking to bring into full realization the American dream, a dream yet unfulfilled—a dream of equality of opportunity, of privilege and property widely distributed. A dream of a land where men no longer argue that the color of a man’s skin determines the content of his character. A dream of a land where every man will respect the dignity and the worth of human personality. This is a dream, and when it is realized, the jangling discords of our nation will be transformed into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood, and men everywhere will know that America is truly the land of the free and the home of the brave.²⁵ [applause]

[George Cullen]: Doctor, we’ll get you right off to a good hot question here. The press reports that you used your influence to obtain a preferment for a bank charter with the Federal Home Loan Bank. Will you please explain fully your intercession and why?

[King]: I did make a telephone call to Mr. [Joseph P.] McMurray, the head of the Home Loan Bank Board some months ago on behalf of the Franklin Savings and Loan Association of Miami, Florida. A group came to me from this association expressing their interest in getting the charter, stating that there was no fiscal institu­tion in the Negro community of Miami and stating that the board was interracial. After I talked with them, I felt that this was a worthwhile venture, I felt that there was a real need for a fiscal institution in that community, something that I have stressed over and over again that we must develop thrift, we must save and lift ourselves by our own economic bootstraps at points. So that because of my interest in seeing this and because of the fact that I do not know of any strong interracial savings and loan association in the South, I felt that it was something worthwhile. I simply called Mr. McMurray to make a character recommendation since I knew some of the men on the board and knew that they were men of great and genuine integrity. I also felt that this would be a new level in race relations with an interracial group in the South forming a savings and loan association. At that time, I did not know that another group was seeking a charter. It was only a month later, when I was in Miami address­ing the AFL-CIO convention that I discovered that another group was competing or seeking a charter. So when I made the call to Mr. McMurray, I had no knowledge of another group.²⁶

[Cullen]: We have a question here about your speech to the AFL convention, Doctor. Would you care to tell us whether the report is true that your friend Attorney Stanley Levison wrote the speech you made before the AFL convention?²⁷ [laughter]

[King]: No, my friend Stanley Levison did not write the speech that I made before the AFL-CIO convention. I don’t have the good fortune of having speech writers so that I write all of the speeches I make, including the one that I made at the AFL-CIO convention. [applause]

[Cullen]: Has the federal government been giving the Albany movement suf­ficient help? If not, what suggestions do you have?

[King]: Certainly the federal government has been concerned. The Justice Department has been in Albany, the FBI I think is on the job in Albany right now. I do think there is more that can be done because I think basic constitutional rights are being denied. The persons who are protesting in Albany, Georgia, are merely seeking to exercise constitutional rights through peaceful protest, nonviolent pro­test, and I think that the people in Albany are being denied their rights on the basis of the First Amendment of the Constitution. And I think it would be a very good thing for the federal government to take a definite stand on this issue even if it means joining with Negro attorneys who are working now in the situation and not only Negro attorneys but many attorneys are working in the situation, making it clear that these constitutional rights are being denied.

[Cullen]: Would you comment on the recent Supreme Court decision on prayers in public school system?²⁸

[King]: I know that this decision has received a great deal of criticism.²⁹ I would say simply that this decision was a sound and a good decision reaffirming something that is basic in our Constitution, namely separation of church and state. It was a reaffirmation of a basic constitutional principle and I think the principle, I mean the criticisms have been centered on issues that were nowhere in the decision. For those who believe in God, he is still on his throne and the Supreme Court decision did nothing to dethrone God and it did nothing to say that prayer is wrong. It simply reaffirmed this great principle of the separation of church and state. [applause]

[Cullen]: Since the Department of Justice and the courts are pressing for the enforcement of Negro rights, why do you condone extralegal activities such as sit-ins and demonstrations?

[King]: This question will take a little longer than others because it goes into a whole matter of civil disobedience and it is true at points that in the sit-ins and some of our other developments in the South, we have broken laws. And this is a very dif­ficult thing to understand when on the one hand we say obey the law when it deals with the 1954 decision of the Supreme Court and on the other hand we say break the laws.

First I would like to say that while we are practicing civil disobedience in the South, we’re practicing civil obedience to the Constitution and the federal govern­ment. The other thing is that I believe firmly that we must obey law, laws, we must respect law, I believe this firmly but there are two types of laws. There are just and unjust laws and I don’t think any moral person can adjust to and patiently respect and follow unjust laws.

Now the question comes, what is an unjust law and what is a just law and who determines this? First I would say that an unjust law is a law that is out of harmony with the moral laws of the universe. Any law that degrades the human personality is out of harmony with the moral laws of the universe and therefore is an unjust law. By the same token, a just law is a law that is in line with the moral principles of the universe.

Well, somebody would say that’s a little too abstract, I don’t believe in those abstract things called moral laws, so make it a little more concrete. I would say that an unjust law is a code which a majority inflicts on the minority which is not binding on itself. This is difference made legal wherein a just law is a code that a majority compels the minority to follow which it is willing to follow itself. This is sameness made legal. I would also say that 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. Who can say that the legislative bodies of the South had brought in all of these legislative, I mean, all of these segregation laws were demo­cratically elected—these persons who form the legislative bodies?

Now in order to protect ourselves from anarchy, we do not say defy the law, we do not say evade the law, we say that these laws are to be disagreed with or even broken openly and they are to be done publicly, they are to be done, they are to be broken nonviolently. And I submit that any individual who comes to the point that he has 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. And we are not practic­ing anarchy, we are merely saying that there are some laws unjust and the only way to call this to the attention of the community is to break them and suffer the penalty by staying in jail if necessary.

Now of course this is nothing new. It goes back into history for many years. In the Old Testament the three Hebrew boys in the fiery furnace so to speak and the early Christians practiced civil disobedience superbly to the point that they were thrown to the lions.³⁰ Socrates, to an extent academic freedom is a reality today because Socrates practiced civil disobedience. We must never forget that everything that Hitler did in Germany was legal in quotes. It was illegal to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler’s Germany and I believe firmly if I had lived there with my present attitude I would have broken that law. Everything that Chief Lutuli’s doing in South Africa is against the law and certainly what is more in line with civil disobedience than the Boston Tea Party, so that even this nation came into being to an extent through civil disobedience.³¹ [applause]

[Cullen]: What is your frank appraisal of President Kennedy’s civil rights efforts? Specifically, is he moving ahead fast enough?

[King]: It is very difficult to give a yes or no answer to this question. I would say first that President Kennedy is friendly to civil rights. The new administration I feel has done much more than the predecessor administration in civil rights. I would say that the new administration has created a climate of concern for civil rights and as I said in my talk I think the Justice Department has moved in a very forthright manner in the sensitive area of voter registration.

On the other hand, there are some things to be desired. The fact that the president has not signed an executive order eliminating discrimination in federally assisted housing, the fact that the president has not taken a vigorous stand for civil rights legislation means that there is still a great deal to be done and I must honestly say that I do not think the president has yet given the kind of leadership in this area that the enormity of the problem demands.³²

[Cullen]: Do you feel that the news media have generally been fair in their treat­ment of your activities?

[King]: Yes, I do. I think generally the press has been very fair. Now this would not apply to the press as a, I mean all of the press because we have the Southern press and some of the Southern papers are fair and objective in their reporting and in their editorials. On the other hand, we know that some are very unfair and some stand in the way of progress. But when we look at the picture as a whole, I would say that the press has done a good job in objective, clear, meaningful reporting.

[Cullen]: How do you explain the growing competition between race relations organizations? Is it because many groups want to take credit for imminent victories or does it represent a philosophical split that will retard progress?

[King]: I do not think we have a great deal of competition and disunity as we often feel, as is said so often. I think we do have many approaches coming into being, some new and I feel creative approaches. There is no one lane road that leads to the city of freedom. I think there are several avenues but they are all moving the same way. Some may move down the lane of litigation and stressing legislation, some may move down the lane of nonviolent direct action, some may move down the lane of emphasizing education and research and preparing the Negro to face the challenges of a highly urbanized society. But it is all moving, they are all moving in the same direction, all toward this city, so to speak, of integration and first-class citizenship. I think what we have at this point is the fact that these new methods are coming into being and we are at the point where we are trying to bring them together as supple­ments rather than substituting for something else. And the differences are minor, I feel. They are human differences but there is no basic disunity in the Negro struggle and in the organizations guiding and leading this struggle. I think at bottom we are all moving the same way and we are all moving toward the same goal.³³

[Cullen]: How much do you owe to Mr. Gandhi in your philosophy and tech­nique? How well does nonviolence work here? I might say that’s an Indian correspon­dent, asked that question.

[King]: Well I would say I owe a great deal to Mahatma Gandhi for my own commitment to nonviolence. I would say that we gained the operational technique for this movement from the great movement that took place in India. Now of course there are differences and we recognize these differences. We are in a different cul­tural situation, the Indian people constituted a numerical majority seeking to gain freedom in a situation where a numerical minority ruled wherein in the United States we are a numerical minority. Also there’s a distinction between integration and independence. On the one hand, a foreign invader is being driven out, in America we are seeking to gain freedom within a situation where we will have to live with the same people the minute we get that freedom. And so there are differences but I think the basic philosophy itself, the basic method is the same and that is that it is possible to stand up against an unjust system, resist it with determination, and yet not stoop to violence and hatred in the process.

[Cullen]: Do you feel that passive resistance could be effective against a Communist state or is it only possible against nations such as the U.S. and Britain?

[King]: There can be no gainsaying of the fact that passive resistance works bet­ter in a situation where you have a potential ally in the conscience of your opponent. It works better in a democratic situation where you have the freedom of the press and freedom of speech and assembly. Or it’s much more difficult to organize a passive resistance movement in a totalitarian situation.

On the other hand, we have no empirical evidence that this method cannot work in a situation where you have a totalitarian regime reigning. It has not been tried on a massive scale in situations like that and I still feel that it is a possibility even though it is more difficult. Certainly it is more difficult to have a passive resistance movement in South Africa than it is in the United States but one of the only success­ful movements in South Africa on the part of the Africans was a passive resistance movement when they had the bus boycott back in 1956 or 7. And it actually brought the government to its knees so that even in a situation as difficult as South Africa, passive resistance has worked.³⁴ And I believe that although it is more difficult, it may work in a situation where you have a totalitarian regime.

[Cullen]: To what extent have you been helped by progress in Africa?

[King]: I think we’ve been helped a great deal by the progress in Africa. Certainly no one can ignore what has taken place in Africa and we are sensitive not only, when I say we I mean we as a nation, are sensitive to world opinion, we are concerned about this and the rolling tide of world opinion has helped I believe in our struggle. And I think the new determination of the African people, the new sense of dignity in a real sense has given to the Negro a new sense of dignity and a new sense of, a new determination. So in short I think we have been helped a great deal by what is taking place in Africa today.

[Cullen]: Well, along that line Doctor, how do you feel [cough] about the totalitar­ian regimes in Ghana and Guinea?

[King]: I think it is all too easy to oversimplify this point, oversimplify the prob­lem and to make certain accusations that may not be valid if one takes a look at the whole situation. I will take Ghana first. I’m sure President Nkrumah has made some mistakes. On the other hand I think we will have to see the problems that he has con­fronted. It is not an easy thing to lift a nation from a tribal tradition into a democratic thrust without having problems and it may well be that if there had not been a strong leader in Ghana like Mr. Nkrumah we would have many of the same problems there that we had in the Congo for he confronted something of the same problem. Where you had Katanga province in the Congo, you had the Ashanti tribe in Ghana and the same problem could have developed if there had not been strong leadership.³⁵ I am not justifying any mistakes that have been made, I am simply saying that there are two sides and I think we have to see the problems that these men confront as they attempt to lead their nations on in the modern world.

[Cullen]: [cough] What do you think of the Black Muslim Movement?

[King]: Well it’s only natural that I would disagree with the basic philosophy of this movement. I have said on many occasions that I firmly believe that black supremacy is as dangerous as white supremacy. I also feel that there are certain points in the movement that are unrealistic such as the attempt to separate rather than integrate and the whole talk about moving out to certain new areas and getting a certain area set aside for the Negro to live in separation. This I would disagree with because I believe in integration. On the other hand, I must affirm this movement did not come into being out of thin air. It is symptomatic of the deeper unrest, the frustrations, and the discontent of Negro people. In other words, some conditions brought the movement here and while on the one hand it is necessary to condemn the philosophy and disagree with it, I think it is just as important for people of good­will to work to remove the conditions that brought this movement into being. And so I’m not as worried about the Muslim movement as I am about these conditions that brought it here for as long as we have the conditions of social isolation and economic deprivation, discrimination in so many areas, movements like this will spring up. So it is at once a challenge to all people of goodwill to seek to remove the conditions that brought it into being.

[Cullen]: [cough] Before I ask the final question, Doctor, I’d like to present to you with our certificate of appreciation and a copy of Shrdlu, fifty-years history of the Press Club.³⁶ [cough] Now for the final question. Your Albany, Georgia, appearance on T.V. was very exuberant and your audience rose to great excitement. Today your appearance is subdued and restrained. Do you have a split personality? [laughter]

[King]: Well I guess I’m trying to be a strong man. One great French philoso­pher said, “no man can be strong unless he bines, combines in his character antith­eses strongly marked.”³⁷ I guess the strong man must be militant and moderate. But in all seriousness I don’t think I have a split personality. In Albany, Georgia, I am in a different situation and we are in the midst of a great struggle and a great move­ment there and the conditions are altogether different. Here, I am in the National Press Club in the capital of the nation and I’m sure that my analysis of the problem and my attempt to get over certain ideas would be totally different from Albany. For in Albany, I’m seeking to develop certain decisions and I think there is a difference here between getting a lecture over and getting something else over. The dominant point in a lecture is the subject to be explained but the dominant point in a speech in the civil rights movement where you’re trying to arouse people is the object to be attained and pleading with people to make a decision for a great cause and a great movement. But basically my approach is always the same in philosophy and that is that we must adhere to nonviolence to the core and I believe that through this approach we will be able to transform not only…

[Cullen]: [cough]

[King]: …Albany, Georgia, but the whole of our nation and move on toward that great goal of brotherhood under the fatherhood of God. [applause]

^1. The National Press Club was founded by Graham Nichol, a reporter at the Washington Times, who in March 1908 brought together thirty-two reporters to start a club as a meeting place for editors and reporters. In 1932 the club introduced a luncheon format featuring newsworthy individuals from around the world invited to address the club’s members. Edward W. Scripps, chairman of the club’s speakers committee, tentatively scheduled King to appear on 25 June, but southern members objected, claiming that King was an “extremist,” resulting in an indefinite postponement of King’s appearance. King was not aware of the dissention within the NPC and was instead told that a scheduling conflict made his appearance “unfavorable” (Edward W. Scripps to King, 1 June 1962; Dan Day, “Capital Spotlight,”  Baltimore Afro-American, 23 June 1962; and Scripps to King, 20 June 1962). Club president George Cullen (1901–1980) extended a formal invitation to King on 3 July 1962. At King’s request, Harry Wachtel of the Gandhi Society, Theodore Kheel of the Lawyers Advisory Committee, and James Nabrit, president of Howard University, accompanied him to the event.

^2. Senator Philip Hart (D-MI) inserted King’s speech in the Congressional Record (U.S. Congress, Senate, Congressional Record, 87th Cong., 2nd sess., 1962, Vol. 108, pt. 2, 14247–14249).

^3. An article in Jet expressed concern about how King would perform on the “grueling questions” from a “crack press corps.” Would he be “alert, quick minded on his feet?” After King’s appearance, Jet quoted a veteran reporter as saying: “He’s not to be denied. He ranks among the best who’ve come here” (“Rev. King at National Press Club Breaks Racial Precedent,” Jet, 2 August 1962, pp. 6–7).

^4. For more on King’s arrest and release from jail, see Press release, King and Abernathy Choose Jail Time over Fine, 10 July 1962, pp. 510–511 in this volume.

^5. “Another Landmark In Race Relations?,” Atlanta Constitution, 16 July 1962.

^6. After being released from jail, King joked that “this is one time that I’m out of jail and I’m not happy to be out” (King, Press conference following release from Albany Jail, 12 July 1962).

^7. Victor Hugo, The History of a Crime: Deposition of a Witness (New York: P. F. Collier & Son, 1877), p. 429.

^8. A draft of this address, which King deposited at Boston University [MLKP-MBU], included the following sentence: “Many areas of the South are retreating to a position which will permit a handful of Negroes to attend all-white schools or the employment in lily-white factories of one Negro to a thousand white employees.”

^9. King’s draft [MLKP-MBU] included an additional sentence: “Day after day the South is receiving new multi-million dollar industries.”

^10. King’s draft [MLKP-MBU] included two additional sentences: “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. An executive order completely transformed the armed services.”

^11. In Gayle v. Browder (352 U.S. 903 [1956]), the Supreme Court affirmed an earlier ruling outlaw­ing segregation in the Montgomery, Alabama, bus system. Morgan v. Virginia (328 U.S. 373 [1946]) and Boynton v. Virginia (364 U.S. 454 [1960]) made segregation in interstate travel illegal by integrating not only buses, but bus terminals, restaurants, and restrooms as well. Brown v. Board of Education (1954) desegregated schools.

^12. John Oxenham, “In Christ There Is No East or West” (1908). In an address to the Women’s Society of Riverside Church, Helen Kenyon, former moderator of the General Council of the Congregational Christian Churches, called eleven o’clock on Sunday mornings the “most segregated time” in the coun­try (“Worship Hour Found Time of Segregation,” New York Times, 4 November 1952; see also Robert J. McCracken, “Discrimination—The Shame of Sunday Morning,” The Pulpit 26, no. 2 [February 1955]: 4–5). King’s draft [MLKP-MBU] included this additional phrase: “And the Sunday School is the most segregated school of the week.”

^13. King’s draft [MLKP-MBU] included this additional phrase: “And actually integrating their congregation.”

^14. In his essay “The New Negro,” Alain LeRoy Locke noted a psychological shift in the black com­munity “from social disillusionment to race pride, from the sense of social debt to the responsibilities of social contribution, and offsetting the necessary working and commonsense acceptance of restricted conditions, the belief in ultimate esteem and recognition.” The end result, Locke argued, is that “the Negro to-day wishes to be known for what he is,” not the “sick man of American Democracy” (Locke, “The New Negro,” in The New Negro: An Interpretation, ed. Alain Locke [New York: Albert and Charles Boni, 1925], p. 11).

^15. Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527) was an Italian philosopher best known for his contribution to political theory.

^16. Robert J. McCracken, 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.’”

^17. In King’s draft [MLKP-MBU], this sentence was followed by: “It distorts the personality and scars the soul.”

^18. King’s draft [MLKP-MBU] included the following sentences: “I feel that this way of nonviolence is vital because it is the only way to re-establish the broken community. It is the method which seeks to implement the just law by appealing to the conscience of the great decent majority who through blind­ness, fear, pride, or irrationality have allowed their consciences to sleep.”

^19. King included a similar discussion of the fundamentals of nonviolent resistance in his 1958 book Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story (New York: Harper & Row, 1958), p. 216.

^20. This paragraph in King’s draft [MLKP-MBU] was slightly different: “This approach to the prob­lem is not without precedent. We have the magnificent example of Gandhi who challenged the might of the British empire and won independence. for his people by using only the weapons of truth, noninjury, courage and soul force. Today we have the noble example of thousands of Negro students who have courageously challenged the principalities of segregation. For all of these months they have moved in a uniquely meaningful orbit imparting light and heat to distant satellites. Through their nonviolent, disciplined and courageous efforts they have been able to bring about integration at lunch counters in more than 150 cities of the south. One day all of America will be proud of their achievements.”

^21. After meeting with King and other SCLC members in April 1962, Attorney General Robert Kennedy promised action to address evidence of widespread discrimination in the voter registration process (SCLC, Press release, “Attorney General promises S.C.L.C. immediate attention to voting irregu­larities,” 11 April 1962).

^22. Signed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower on 6 May 1960, the law empowered Federal judges to appoint referees to register voters after the Department of Justice proved qualified citizens were denied the right to vote in some communities in the South.

^23. An English philosopher and sociologist, Spencer (1820–1903) applied evolutionary theory to society, arguing that the most successful and happy societies were those that celebrated equal freedom and valued morality and justice.

^24. King’s draft [MLKP-MBU] included an additional sentence: “Yet we are not passively waiting for a deliverance to come from others moved by their pity for us.”

^25. On a draft deposited at Atlanta University Center [MCMLK-RWWL], King handwrote an alterna­tive ending: “With this faith and determination we will continue to work for a great America. With this faith we will go on to make not only a stride toward freedom, but a stride into freedom. With this faith we will be able to carve a tunnel of hope through the mountain of despair. With this faith we will be able to transform the jankling discord of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood, every man will be men all over the land will and men all over this vast land will ‘do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with their God;’ and every man will respect the dignity and worthy of human personality. When this is realized men everywhere will know that America is the truely the land of the free and the home of the brave.”

^26. Edward Graham, pastor of Mount Zion Baptist Church in Miami, Florida, and Donald Van Koughnet, lawyer for the Franklin Savings and Loan Association, solicited King’s assistance in securing a charter from the Federal Home Loan Bank Board (Graham to King, 20 July 1961; Van Koughnet to King, 9 August 1961). After allegations of misconduct were levied against King by the Roosevelt Savings and Loan Association, a group also competing for a charter, King defended his intervention: “The call I made to Mr. McMurray was nothing more than a character recommendation, something I am called on to do every week. There never was anything secret or furtive about the call. My motivating interest has been, and still is, broadening the economic strength of the Negro through the pooling of our financial resources. I stand on the record” (SCLC, Press release, “Dr. King invites investigation,” 28 June 1962). During a 5 July press conference, President Kennedy acknowledged that the White House was looking into the case, but did not have any conclusive information regarding illegal conduct (Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: John F. Kennedy, 1962 [Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1963], pp. 542–543). A Washington, D.C., district court judge halted the issuance of a charter to the Franklin Savings and Loan Association pending further investigation into King’s role; however, by the time of King’s address at the Press Club he had been cleared of any wrongdoing (“Court Bars Permit to S&L Firm Using Dr. King’s Support,” Washington Post, 20 July 1962; “Dr. King Faces Ga. Sentence,”  Baltimore Afro-American, 14 July 1962). In October 1962, following the conclusion of the federal inves­tigation, Roosevelt Savings and Loan dropped its suit against the Federal Savings and Loan Board (“Firm Drops Suit Linking Dr. King,” Baltimore Afro-American, 6 October 1962).

^27. An April 1962 FBI memo indicated that Levison had written King’s speech for the United Packinghouse Workers of America convention to be held in Minneapolis in May (Special Agent in Charge, New York, N.Y., Memo to J. Edgar Hoover, 12 April 1962, Bureau File 100–106670–43; see also King, Address at the thirteenth constitutional convention of the United Packinghouse Workers of America, 21 May 1962). FBI surveillance of Stanley Levison also indicated that Levison wrote King’s speech for the National Press Club. A copy of King’s National Press Club address was found in Levison’s personal collection (Report, Physical surveillance of Stanley D. Levison, 11 June 1962, Bureau File 100–111180–57/58).

^28. On 25 June, the Supreme Court ruled in Engel v. Vitale (370 U.S. 421 [1962]) that prayer in public schools violated the First Amendment of the Constitution, which prevents Congress from establishing a national religion.

^29. For example, James Francis McIntyre, Archbishop of Los Angeles, criticized the Court’s decision, and Maryland congressman Thomas F. Johnson drafted a constitutional amendment to overturn the rul­ing out of fear it would cause “a marked deterioration of spiritual emphasis” in the country (Alexander Burnham, “Edict Is Called a Setback by Christian Clerics—Rabbis Praise It,” New York Times, 26 June 1962; James E. Clayton, “Wave of Protests Follows Ruling on Prayers in School,” Washington Post, 27 June 1962).

^30. Daniel 3:16–28.

^31. As president of the African National Congress from 1952–1967, Albert Lutuli organized dem­onstrations against the apartheid laws of South Africa including sit-ins at segregated libraries and in rail cars. In response to the 1960 Sharpeville massacre, Lutuli publically burned his pass book which dictated where he could and could not go within the country. King wrote Lutuli a letter of support in 1959 (King to Lutuli, 8 December 1959, in Papers 5:344–345).

^32. For more on King’s assessment of the Kennedy administration, see “Fumbling on the New Frontier,” 3 March 1962, pp. 412–419 in this volume.

^33. At his speech at the NAACP’s Freedom Fund Dinner in July 1962, King addressed disunity among civil rights organizations: “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” (pp. 504–505 in this volume).

^34. Angered over a fare hike for the ride between Johannesburg and the segregated township of Alexandra, an estimated forty to sixty thousand black South Africans conducted a three-month boycott, ending in April 1957 when the Johannesburg Chamber of Commerce agreed to subsidize the price increase.

^35. After Ghana gained its independence in 1957, the state of Katanga, located in the southern por­tion of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, announced its secession from the country on 11 July 1960, sparking a bloody civil war. Kwame Nkrumah, president of Ghana, responded to opposition led by the Ashanti tribe, who clung to their tribal cultures, by exiling members of the opposing party, passing laws eliminating free press, and authorizing the detention of dissenters. In 1957 Nkrumah invited King to attend the independence ceremonies for Ghana (see Introduction in Papers 4:7–10).

^36. National Press Club, Shrdlu: An Affectionate Chronicle (Washington, D.C.: Colortone Press, 1958).

^37. E. Stanley Jones, Mahatma Gandhi: An Interpretation (New York: Abingdon-Cokesbury Press, 1948), p. 17: “A French philosopher once said that ‘no man is strong unless he bears within his character antith­eses strongly marked.’” King annotated a copy of Jones’s book and kept it in his personal library.

Source: MLKEC-INP, Martin Luther King, Jr. Estate Collection.