Stanford
The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute

To Carter Zeleznik

Author: King, Martin Luther, Jr.

Date: November 28, 1961

Location: Atlanta, Ga.?

Genre: Letter

Details

In an 11 September 1961 letter to King, Zeleznik, a clinical psychologist, noted similarities between King’s philosophy of nonviolence and his own “logic of relations” theory.1 He invited King to collaborate; however, King declines, explaining that one day he hopes “to correlate into a philosophy many of the things which experience is now teaching us,” but “my role at present is that of an actionist.”

Dr. Carter Zeleznik
The Jefferson Medical College of Philadelphia
1025 Walnut Street
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Dear Dr. Zeleznik:

First, I would like to apologize for being rather tardy in replying to your letter of recent date. Absence from the city, the accumulation of a large volume of mail, and the many problems incident to moving our offices account for the delay.2

Let me take this opportunity to thank you for shaing with me your article entitled “The Concept of Power in Political Science,” and your thoughts concerning my article.3 I certainly appreciate your views as to the predictability of the forces at work in our midst. I find your views quite stimulating. It will be interesting to test them in my observances of group behavior in our struggle.

At the present time, I don’t see how I could work with you in the ‘logic of rela­tionships’ experiment. It so happens that any bent that I have toward philosophy has been absorbed by the pressures of everyday decisions. Too often we are forced to make existential decisions and then seek a rationale for them in this work. Experiment and reality have become one for us.

I would like to encourage you in these studies. A great deal of thought must go into the work which is involved in persons of different backgrounds living together. It remains for you, in the disciplines of Philosophy and Psychology to point directions for our struggle. This is extremely important, as I am sure you realize. However, my role at present is that of an actionist. There are times when I would prefer it other­wise, and perhaps some day I will be able to correlate into a philosophy many of the things which experience is now teaching us.

I will appreciate being kept abreast of your future work, and look forward to meet­ing you personally sometime in the not too distant future.

Sincerely yours,
Martin Luther King, Jr.

Km

1. Zeleznik (1925–2010), born in Detroit, Michigan, received a B.A. (1948) and an M.A. (1950) from the University of Michigan. After graduating, Zeleznik taught in Ethiopia for several years before joining Jefferson Medical College’s Psychiatry department in 1958. In 1969, he became associate director of Jefferson’s Office of Medical Education. He earned his Ph.D. from University of Pennsylvania in 1978.

2. SCLC had recently relocated their offices to 41 Exchange Place in Atlanta.

3. “The Concept of Power in Political Science,” Il Politico 25 (1960): 875–879. Zeleznik praised King’s 10 September 1961 article “The Time For Freedom Has Come” (pp. 270–278 in this volume; Zeleznik to King, 11 September 1961).

Source: MLKP-MBU, Martin Luther King, Jr., Papers, 1954–1968, Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center, Boston University, Boston, Mass.