To Audrey V. Mizer
Author: King, Martin Luther, Jr.
Date: December 29, 1961
Location: Atlanta, Ga.?
Genre: Letter
Topic: Martin Luther King, Jr. - Political and Social Views
Details
During a Q&A session following a speech at the Freedom Forum on 9 October in Schenectady, New York, King called for the United Nations (UN) to admit the People’s Republic of China (PRC).1 In a 3 December 1961 letter to King, Mizer, a realtor from Coshocton, Ohio, disagreed with King, claiming that China was starving its people in order to produce enough heroin “to drug the world.”2 Defending his comment, King insists he does not endorse China’s human rights abuses but points out the “realistic recognition” that universal disarmament is unlikely if China remains outside the UN. King adds: “It is an old saying that one can better watch his enemy at close range.”
Mrs. Audrey V. Mizer
170 Park Avenue
Coshocton, Ohio
Dear Mrs. Mizer:
I have just come across your letter raising some questions concerning my position on admitting Red China to the United Nations. Let me assure you that my advocacy of admitting Red China to the U.N. is not to be construed as endorsement of the many brutal and vicious things done by the government of China. It simply grows out of my realistic recognition of the fact that disarmament will be meaningless as long as the largest nation in the world is not somehow brought under the scrutiny of the agency of disarmament. It is an old saying that one can better watch his enemy at close range. Therefore, it is my contention that we will only be able to deal with the inhuman and brutal methods of the government of Communist China by bringing it to the point where it has to sit down and negotiate with the nations of the world.
I know this is a very touchy subject and one packed with emotional content. But I do think sonner or later we must think through this problem in a very sober and realistic manner.
Very sincerely yours,
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Km
1. “U.S. Negro Urges UN Seat for Peking,” Christian Science Monitor, 11 October 1961. The Freedom Forum hosted notable lecturers to spur interest in contemporary civic and educational topics. King had earlier expressed similar sentiments about China in a letter to supporter Ingeborg Teek-Frank (23 December 1959 in Papers 5:346–347). In 1971, the United States recognized the PRC as China’s sole representative.
2. Mizer referenced a Christian Economics article inserted in the Congressional Record by Ohio congresswoman Frances Bolton (Lawrence Sullivan, “Dope—Red China’s Secret Weapon,” 13 December 1960, in U.S. Congress, House, Congressional Record, 87th Cong., 1st sess., 1961, Vol. 107, pt. 2, 2272–2273). Audrey Virginia Mizer (1890–1968) was born in Bakersville, Ohio. She became the first woman realtor in the town, serving as vice president of the local district’s realtors association and also on the state’s Real Estate Board of Examiners. Mizer was also a charter member with the local Young Women’s Christian Association and the Business and Professional Women’s Club.
Source: MLKJP-GAMK, Martin Luther King, Jr. Papers (Series I–IV), Martin Luther King, Jr., Center for Nonviolent Social Change, Inc., Atlanta, Ga.