To Ingeborg Teek-Frank
Author: King, Martin Luther, Jr.
Date: December 23, 1959
Location: Montgomery, Ala.?
Genre: Letter
Topic: Martin Luther King, Jr. - Political and Social Views
Nonviolence
Details
On 1 December Teek-Frank wrote King about her interest in Gandhian nonviolence and asked him for his opinion on whether China should be admitted to the United Nations.1
Mrs. Ingeborg Teek-Frank
30 Fifth Avenue
New York 11, New York
Dear Mrs. Frank:
This is just a note to acknowledge receipt of your letter of December 1. It is always good to hear from you. I am deeply grateful to you for enclosing a copy of Gandhi’s Selected Letters.2 You mentioned the book Gandhi’s Letters to a Disciple. Unfortunately, I do not have a copy of this book and I would certainly appreciate it if you could find it for me.3 I am happy to say that I have read most of Gandhi’s works and I have most of them in my library.
Incidentally, I have written a book entitled Stride Toward Freedom. One of the chapters is devoted to my pilgrimage to nonviolence. Here I try to show the Gandhian influence in my thinking. I regret that I sent my last copy out a few days ago. If you are interested, however, you may secure a copy from Harper and Brothers. It was published in September, 1958. I will highly appreciate your comments.
In answer to your question concerning China, I definitely feel that it should be admitted to the United Nations. We will never have an effective United Nations so long as the largest nation in the world is not in it.
Thanks again for your kind letter, and I hope for you a joyous Christmas season and a blessed new year.
Yours very truly,
Martin L. King, Jr.
(Dictated, but not personally signed by Dr. King.)
1. Teek-Frank initiated correspondence with King after receiving a fund-raising letter he wrote on behalf of CORE (Teek-Frank to King, 2 November 1959). In 1971, the United Nations recognized the People’s Republic of China as that nation’s sole representative, displacing the anti-communist government in Taiwan. Ingeborg Teek-Frank (1918- ) published several German-language books, including Schriftwechsel mit beruhmten Personlichkeiten (Correspondence with famous personalities).
2. Gandhi, Selected Letters: First Series (Ahmadabad: Navajivan Publishing House, 1949).
3. Gandhi, Gandhi’s Letters to a Disciple (New York: Harper, 1950). In a 2 November 1960 letter to King, Teek-Frank indicated that she had learned that the book was out of print but offered to lend him her copy the next time he visited New York.
Source: MLKP-MBU, Martin Luther King, Jr., Papers, 1954-1968, Boston University, Boston, Mass.