Interview by Inter-American University Students and Faculty
Author: King, Martin Luther, Jr.
Date: February 14, 1962?
Location: San Germán, Puerto Rico
Genre: Interview
Topic: Martin Luther King, Jr. - Political and Social Views
Martin Luther King, Jr. - Travels
Nonviolence
Voter registration
Details
In a 22 October 1959 letter, Robert Brank Fulton, a professor of religion and philosophy at Inter-American University (IAU) in Puerto Rico, invited King to the island to give a series of lectures.1 After initially agreeing to speak in Puerto Rico in 1961, King had to reschedule for early 1962 due to SCLC commitments and the birth of his third child.2 Sponsored by the IAU and the Puerto Rico chapter of the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR), the four-day speaking tour included an appearance on a local television program and an engagement at the University of Puerto Rico in Río Piedras. In the following question and answer session after delivering “Non-Violence and Racial Justice” at the IAU in Puerto Rico, King discusses the struggle to end nuclear proliferation, racial prejudice, and segregation in all aspects of American life.3 For King, the basis of success in any of these movements lies in the philosophy of nonviolence because of its “persistence.” Although it may not produce an instantaneous victory, the nonviolent approach “leaves an aftermath of brotherhood,” says King, whereas violence “always leaves an aftermath of bitterness.”4 Due to the poor quality of the audio recording, the questions from the audience could not be heard; only King’s answers are transcribed below.
[King]: I frankly didn’t know that this situation existed with reference to soldiers. This is new to me. I would certainly feel that if this existed any soldier would have the kind of redress, or would have the possibility of appealing to higher authorities in the nation so that that particular situation could be changed. I don’t think, for instance, the federal government could stand to have these conditions existing, and I’m pretty sure that the federal government would go out, all out to protect soldiers more than that.5 I mean, with conditions existing like this, it would be not only injurious to the soldiers involved but also to the image of the nation. So, I am sure that if they once existed, these conditions do not exist as much at this time. As you know, there’s also a pretty—I would say, generally speaking, the armed forces of the United States have been integrated. And I mean, this includes all branches of the service, so that along with the integration that has taken place, I’m sure that other conditions have been changed and other conditions have been rectified where unjust conditions existed.6
[King]: Well, I would say that many things must be done to meet the Russian threat. Many things must be done to meet the whole threat of atomic and nuclear annihilation. Now, I must say that I’m not optimistic about getting any whole nation in the world—certainly not the United States, or any other nation—to disarm unilaterally. I think that we have to be realistic enough to know that this will not be, even though there may be a good case for advocating this. But when we come down to the practical realism of the situation, this probably won’t happen. Consequently, we must work through channels such as the United Nations to bring about disarmament, to bring about suspension of nuclear tests, and this means that there must be a greater willingness to negotiate on the part of the nations of the world.7
Now, the other thing that I would say here is that somehow the conscience of the world must be aroused on this issue—the conscience of the United States as well as the conscience of Russia. And I think that there is a great deal that can be done through individuals through peace movements to arouse the conscience of the world. This has already been done in some parts of the world. It has been done a great deal in England through Lord Russell and others.8 It’s been done in the United States and in other places of the world.9 This attempt to say through civil disobedience if necessary that survival must be a foremost concern, and that if we consider, rather, if we feel that we have a right to survive, then we must find some alternative to war. So that I think nonviolence can work in bringing about disarmament. And in this kind of disarmament, we would certainly think of disarming the whole world, and I think we must continue to pursue this path of peaceful negotiation so that the whole world can be disarmed. And a sort of international police power would be set up through the United Nations, but as far as the continuation of the arms race and as far as continuation of nuclear tests which can only serve to poison the atmosphere with radioactive fallout, all of this should come to an end.
[King]: [recording interrupted] definitely think the continued existence of racial segregation or racial discrimination in the United States is doing a great deal to tarnish the image of the United States in the eyes of the world. I have seen this in many instances as I have traveled around the world, whether it’s in Europe or in South America or in Africa or Asia. There’s always a great concern about the problem of racial injustice in the United States, and there’s always the statement that if the United States doesn’t solve this problem, and if it doesn’t solve it in a hurry, it will certainly be relegated not only to a second rate political power but relegated in terms of its moral force and its moral power and that it will fail to be a moral voice in the world. So that there can be no gainsaying of the fact that it is hurting the reputation of the United States.10 However, I think the hopeful thing is, I think the hopeful sign is the fact that although the problem is there, and no one can deny it, there are numerous people working passionately to get rid of it and to change the situation. And I think that this will probably continue to grow so that there’s an awareness of the problem and a new determination to solve it.
[King]: Well, I would say first that I don’t quite agree that laws represent a sort of organized violence. Now, it is quite true that there have been persons who believed in nonviolence very firmly who were anarchists. Thoreau, Henry David Thoreau was an anarchist at points.11 Tolstoy was an anarchist at points.12 I don’t happen to be an anarchist. I believe that the state serves a vital purpose. I believe that we must have laws to regulate behavior, and this is why I think that some persons who believe in nonviolent resistance have been over-optimistic concerning human nature, and they could see the goodness in man but not the evil. And I live with the idea that man is neither innately good or innately bad, but he has potentialities for both. And because he has potentialities for evil, it is necessary to have the kind of restraining agencies that you have through the state and through laws that, as I said, serve to maintain order in society and to regulate behavior. So that I don’t think this is organized violence at any point. I think laws only serve the purpose to maintain a degree of order within society.
Now, the second point is that I can’t see that nonviolent resistance, when one is committed to it, represents a sort of psychological violence. You do not seek to demoralize the opponent. You do not seek to injure the opponent. Your ultimate aim is, as I said earlier, to win his friendship and understanding and to convert him. And even if he is hurt in the process, this is not your intention. If you are engaged in a boycott, for instance, it may mean that the man will get put out of business, but this is certainly not your intention. Your intention is to put justice in business and not to put this man out of business, and you’re seeking to create a moral balance in society, which will help that man as well as it will help those who are in the struggle to break it down.
I happen to believe that segregation hurts the white man as well as it hurts the Negro, and that when we fight to get rid of segregation, we are fighting not merely for the Negro, but we are fighting to free the soul of the white man. So, I don’t think of nonviolent resistance as psychological violence, first, because it avoids physical violence, and, second, because the intent is always to create the beloved community. The intent is to make a better situation for all of the people involved, not just a better situation for yourself but a better situation for that opponent who is also misguided and who often has this system set up, and he follows it because he’s been taught that way. So, I think it must always be interpreted in terms of intent, and this is the only way that we can really deal with this, deal with the problem of which you termed “psychological violence.” I believe that nonviolent resistance represents nonviolence in spirit as well as nonviolence in physical terms.
[King]: I would say, first, that there is no doubt about the fact that nonviolence is based on the theory that you are able to carry on a movement when you have a potential ally in the conscience of your opponent. There is no doubt about that. Second, I must admit that I think this method does work better in a situation where you have democratic processes, where you have freedom of press, where you have freedom of assembly. Even, I don’t think there’s anywhere—I just left Mississippi last week, and that’s, and I was in the Mississippi Delta trying to recruit people to engage in a extended voter registration campaign. And even there, which is the most difficult state in the United States in race relations, we had public meetings. I addressed three or four public meetings, and nothing stopped that.13 So that even in the most difficult places, we can at least have meetings, and we can at least organize. Wherein in South Africa, Chief Lutuli couldn’t call a meeting, a mass meeting, next week and have it.14 And I can assure you that it would be much more difficult to organize a nonviolent movement in such a situation than in a country where you do have some commitment to democracy. I think also that it is true that when you have a condition that is not a totalitarian one, you are able to do more in nonviolence.
But after saying this, I think we must go to the other side and say that we have no empirical evidence that nonviolence cannot work in these situations that are extremely difficult. I would only say that there was never any organized mass nonviolent movement against Hitler. We must make a distinction between nonresistance and nonviolent resistance, and it may well be that if there had ever been a mass nonviolent organized campaign against Hitler, the casualty list would have been less. This is speculation, naturally. I cannot say, because it’s impossible to know, but I think this is a real possibility that if there had been an organized nonviolent movement and a nonviolent movement resisting the inhuman and brutal and vicious methods being used by Hitler, the casualty list may have been less. In South Africa, the only movement that has worked—when I say “that has worked,” I mean the only movement that has brought the government to its knees—has been a nonviolent direct action mass movement. A few years ago, they had a bus boycott in South Africa, and this was so effective that the government had to give in. So, that it has worked already in South Africa.15 And I think as difficult as it is, it wouldn’t be as easy as it would in some parts of the United States, but as difficult as it is [recording interrupted]
Here again, we have an extremely difficult situation, with a statement being made at points, at least Lenin said on one occasion that any method, violence, deceit, lying, or any other method is justifiable in order to bring about the end of the classless society.16 Now, whenever you get this idea and this kind of ethical relativism, certainly it is more difficult to grapple with the problem there with nonviolence than in a situation where that idea doesn’t emerge. But I submit to you that the people in Russia have consciences, I believe. I think that there are some people who live in Russia, who I think they love their children, and I think they respond to some of the same human things that other human beings respond to. And I think sometimes we overplay the goodness and the conscience of the British and the Southerners in the United States. I think some of them are mighty bad and mighty misguided. And the difference is that in Russia, I believe firmly that they are under the power of a system that I totally disagree with in terms of its philosophical structure and in terms of its moral projection. But the people themselves, they have consciences that can be aroused, and I think we must always see this—that maybe we’ve gone too far in thinking that other people have had good consciences and that all of the people in Russia are bad people. And I think that there are people of conscience in Russia, and that conscience can be aroused even though at points they are under an evil and a vicious system. I think someone. Yes.
[King]: I think the problem, as I’ve said so often, is a national problem and is not just a sectional problem. It is a problem facing the whole nation. It may be more conspicuous, more glaring in the South than in the North, but it certainly exists in its subtle forms all over the country. Therefore, every citizen of the United States should be concerned about getting rid of segregation and discrimination, because injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. And no person who lives inside the United States can be considered an outsider. Therefore, I have welcomed Northerners in the movement, and I think it helps to make it clear to those who live in the South and those who live in the North that the problem is a national problem, and it must be a concern of every citizen.17
Now, certainly I don’t think the Northern help in the struggle should be a substitute for the determination of Southerners themselves, for I am convinced that the more people in the South that you get to rise up, the more you are able to refute the idea that Negroes like segregation. This is what many of the Southern politicians say: that Negroes really like segregation and that it’s only the agitators that stir them up, but basically they are content.18 Now, the only way this can be refuted is through the people in the situation to engage in a determined, forthright way in the movement that is taking place. So that I would say that it is necessary to have Southerners themselves, as you had in the lunch counter sit-ins, to make it crystal clear that they do not like segregation. But on the other hand, I think it is good to have people from all sections of the country rising up and supporting the movement so that it is clear all over the nation that this is a problem, which must be the concern of every citizen of the nation.
[King]: Why, I quite agree that you do have that third man, and at points maybe this third man is to be criticized even more than those who are brutal and those who are vocal in their opposition. I think I said somewhere today that it may well be that we will have to repent in this generation not merely for the loud words of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the so-called good people. I have been disappointed in many instances with the Christian church. I’ve been disappointed with many ministers in particular and the church in general. It may be that the church has been a little slow on this point, because it didn’t read or didn’t translate or didn’t quite understand some biblical passages. There is a passage in the New Testament which talks about the light of the world, and many have felt that this could at least apply to the church—that the church should be the light of the world.19 But I think many of the preachers and Christians feel that this meant the taillight instead of the headlight. [laughter] So, I guess they’ve kind of misinterpreted the Bible. But it is true that the church has often been the taillight.
I remember last year in Atlanta when the schools were getting ready to be integrated. The church announced, the bishop, the Catholic bishop announced that the Catholic schools, the parochial schools would be integrated after the public schools are successfully integrated.20 So that was the taillight again. The same thing happened in New Orleans. Archbishop Rummel announced back in ’55 that they would integrate the parochial schools there. And there was a great deal of pressure and opposition, which led to a retreat. And finally, last year it was said that they would wait a while to see how the public school integration worked out and then the church schools would be integrated.21 And of course, I don’t even need to talk about many of my fellow Protestants because they haven’t even had the idea in mind of starting at all. [laughter]
But this is disappointing, and I think that the failure of the church in this period to be a great moral voice is certainly one of the tragedies of this whole period. And I think it would be one of the tragedies of history if a future [given?], a future historian is able to look back and cry out in the history books that the Christian church proved to be the bulwark, the last bulwark of segregated power in the United States. This would be a great tragedy. I think though that there is a new awareness, at least a new nagging of consciousness on the part of many ministers and many Christians. They are coming to realize that the church has failed to stand out in its witness at this point, and many are trying to do something about it. So, there is a ray of hope even amid the fact that, amid the darkness and the fact that they have not stood out in the past.
[King]: Well, one would have to go into the whole idea, and I guess this can lead to a long philosophical debate—the whole idea of who is religious and who isn’t religious. And there have been people who believe firmly in nonviolence who consider themselves atheist. There are still people who are strong believers in nonviolence who don’t believe in God in the same sense that other people believe in. Even Gandhi did not believe in a personal God in the sense that a theist would believe in a personal God. The whole Hindu tradition has believed more in an impersonal absolute, an impersonal Brahman.22 And I think it goes into this whole idea of who is religious. But there have been people and there are people today—I read a book the other day, The Conquest of Violence, written by a woman who contends that this philosophy of nonviolence has relevance to the world beyond the religious side of it, because it is the first answer to the problem that I have discussed earlier: means and ends. And she says in the beginning, in the preface of the book, that she is a humanist and that there was so much that she couldn’t accept that Gandhi taught, but the one thing she could accept was nonviolence as a practical technique to grapple with a social situation and to solve the problem which nobody else has solved on such a great level as Gandhi, namely, the problem of means and ends.23
I do think, though, that while it is possible for a nonreligious person to believe in nonviolence as a technique and as a passing strategy, in order for a person to really believe in nonviolence as a way of life, he must have some religious orientation. I believe that if it is to become more than just a passing technique to be used in a particular social situation for the moment, if it is to become a way of life, a creed, so that it touches the individual in his everyday life and in his every attitude, then I do believe that it is necessary to have some religious orientation.
[King]: I quite agree with you that prejudice is at the center of this thing, and that when we move into the realm of prejudice, we are moving into the realm of emotional problems. I think at points in this whole struggle, we are grappling with a sort of mass psychosis, a mass neurosis or whatever we want to call it. People are caught up in a system that they really can’t explain. They don’t know how they got there. It’s irrational and all of that. Now, I think it is necessary to understand this in analyzing the problem, and I think it is true that in understanding this, it can help bring about a broader understanding, and I think this is what nonviolence does in its deeper dimensions. It is that understanding goodwill.
On the other hand, I don’t think it should lead one to the point of retreating and not trying to change certain conditions. In other words, it would not be fair to say to oppressed people that you should wait and just patiently accept injustice until all of the oppressors have their prejudices removed. I think it’s necessary to work to help to move these prejudices, and one of the ways to do it is to get rid of the system itself. I believe firmly that the only way we’re going to get rid of some of the fears in the white South concerning desegregation is to present them with desegregation.
I was reading the other day of a psychiatrist who had this little boy to come to him. The mother brought a little boy who had had a series of bad dreams about a bear who just tried to attack him every night. And every night he had a nightmare about this bear. And so the psychiatrist got the little boy and said, “Now, that bear really likes you, and he wants to play with you.” He said, “Now, tonight when he comes back, and he’s coming back tonight, when he comes back,” he says, “put your arms around him, and he’s going to like you and you’ll like him.” And he went on, and his bad dream that night, and the bear came, and he embraced the bear, and the bear embraced him, and he didn’t dream about the bear anymore. And if I could use the analogy here, there are many people who have fears in our nation concerning integration, and the only way they’re going to get rid of these fears is to be presented with the fact that they will have to accept it. And sometimes I think just a shock is necessary, the shock method is necessary, the shock treatment is necessary to get people back to reality when there are emotional problems. There has to be occasionally a sort of creative shock in society in order to get people back to reality.24
So that I think we must work on these two levels. I think there must be that understanding goodwill.
On the other hand, I think we must continue to work to remove the conditions so that it will be easier for the people to get rid of the prejudices. It is true that, as I’ve said this morning, laws cannot change attitudes maybe, but they can certainly control the external effects of bad internal attitudes. It is true, I know, in many situations that laws have made it easier for people to rise out of their prejudices. In Montgomery, Alabama, the buses are now integrated, and I’m sure that the people who struggled against integration as we struggled to bring about bus integration felt that they couldn’t live with it. But now the buses are integrated and they go on and ride them, and they discovered that the sun still got up that next morning after the buses were integrated and things are moving on fine. And the fact itself helped to do something, and I think the more we can present the facts to people, even though it’s painful in the beginning, the more they will change. Just as certain laws had to come into being in the United States to rectify certain unjust business practices, I’m sure that the people today have changed their attitudes concerning these very things that were once done, because the law helped to create the situation where attitudes could be changed much easier than they could with the continued existence of the system itself.25
[King]: I don’t know if you’re speaking of, you’re thinking of any specific religion at this point. I think it is true that some religions contend that they have the answer. I think in a sense all religions would have certain contentions to make at this point. I would say this: that I’m a Christian, and as a Christian I believe in the saving power of Jesus Christ for instance, but my Christianity has not led me to the point of believing that God has limited his revelation to Christianity. I think that God has revealed himself in some way in all religions, and even though I believe that Jesus Christ represents the most unique revelation of God, I believe firmly that God has revealed himself in other religions, and he has not left himself without a witness.26 And there are other sheep that are not of this fold, even the Christian fold.27 So that I’m not so narrow as to say that only within Christianity do you have ultimate truth. I would say that there are truths revealed in the other great religions of the world. Now, I’m sure that there are some people who would disagree with me at this point. There are many people who would, but I would hold the theory and the idea that there is an aspect of God’s revelation in all religions.
[King]: Let me start off by saying that I think you’ve raised a very serious question and one of the real questions that one who is committed to nonviolence has to face whether there is that moral feeling or conscience that can be appealed to.
The initial response of the oppressor when oppressed people rise up is bitterness whether you use violence or nonviolence. The initial response is bitterness. I don’t think the people in Montgomery, Alabama, or in Jackson, Mississippi, or in Albany, Georgia, just to mention some examples—I don’t think they were inspired at all by the fact that the Negroes were using nonviolence when the movement first started.28 I think their initial reaction was bitterness.
Prime Minister Nehru said he never saw the British officials more angry than when they first turned the other cheek. That’s when they would beat them a little more, because sometimes this can arouse the guilt feeling more than anything else, and there are two ways that we respond to guilt feelings.29 One is to try to repent and to change our ways and allow this guilt to so arouse the conscience that we really try to get better and make a right about [face?]. On the other hand, the guilt feeling can cause the individual to try to drown that sense of guilt by engaging even more in the guilt-evoking act. And I have seen this in so many instances. I believe that many of the people in any struggle—whether it’s in the white South of the United States or in other places, many of the people who use violence are really fighting offensive guilt, and they are trying to drown that sense of guilt by engaging more in the very act which brought it into being.
Now, after saying this though, I do feel that if there is a persistence in nonviolence, it does eventually get over. It does eventually arouse the conscience. It does eventually appeal to that moral sense. It doesn’t do it overnight. It doesn’t do it the next week. But if one continues, if the group continues, I do feel that it eventually gets over. And I think the virtue of it is that it leaves an aftermath of brotherhood, of reconciliation, wherein violence always leaves an aftermath of bitterness.
If I can give an example on a large scale, I think that one of the beautiful things is the kind of friendship that exists today between the British and the Indian people. I never will forget when I was in India a few years ago. We were having dinner with Prime Minister Nehru, and two of the visitors that night, two of the persons who had dinner with us were, one was Lady Mountbatten and the other was the daughter. Now, Lord Mountbatten was the viceroy, I believe, of India when India received its independence.30 But now there is a level of friendship and understanding. They are having dinner with Prime Minister Nehru, and there is this level of friendship and understanding that would not have been there if that had been won through violence. So that they didn’t have the problem of spending the next hundred years getting rid of the bitterness that came into being as a result of the situation. So, this is the first thing that I would say.
The second point is that while it may be true that groups and people that have used nonviolence have not been in the position of controlling the agencies of violence, I don’t necessarily feel that they have been the weak people. Gandhi use to say that if one has to choose between cowardice and violence, it is better to fight, because cowardice is on a lower moral level than violence.31 And I quite agree with Gandhi. If one is nonviolent merely because he doesn’t have the weapons of violence or because he’s afraid, he isn’t truly nonviolent. And this was something that was taught over and over again by Gandhi, and we could say well he was rationalizing, because they really didn’t have the weapon and they really didn’t have the know-how, the techniques of violence. But I think there was a deep commitment to nonviolence and all of its dimensions. And I believe the same thing in our struggle today: that we should not use it merely because we don’t have the instruments of violence, but we must follow this method because it is the method of the strong.
I can give an example in my own life. When we started our struggle in Montgomery, Alabama, a few years ago, I had the gun in the house, just as many other people. And I went to my wife one day, and we talked about this thing. I said, “Now, as a leader in the nonviolent movement, I just cannot in all good conscience have a gun in the house. I don’t think I need it, and I don’t want it,” and we discussed it. And I said, “Now, I know that the vast majority of people, Negro people in Montgomery would not follow this, but it is also necessary for a leader to take an absolute position in order to get the followers to take a relative position.” So, I felt it absolutely necessary, and finally, we finally agreed to get rid of the gun. And I haven’t had a gun in my house since then, and I have been less afraid without a gun than I was when I had the gun in the house.32 [laughter] But I do think there is a power that can come within, which causes the individual to engage in a nonviolent movement not because he can’t go in his house and get a gun and come out and shoot somebody. I think there are cases in the United States where Negroes could do pretty well with violence, at least for a few minutes anyway. [laughter] But I think it would defeat the end.
And I think another thing is this: that it is much more difficult in the situation where you’re struggling to bring about integration. You are not—there is difference between integration and independence—you are not driving out a foreign invader, but you’ve got to live the next morning with the very people that you are struggling with at this hour. And there’s a much greater difficulty in grappling with it there. The other thing is that in most places and most situations where you have a struggle for independence, it is a numerical majority struggling in a situation where a numerical minority is there in the political controlling situation, wherein in our struggle in the United States it’s a numerical minority seeking to develop a new relationship and a brotherly relationship with a numerical majority. So that I think in both situations, whether it is a struggle for independence or integration, nonviolence is necessary and workable. But I think it’s even more necessary in a situation where you’re working for integration.
[Moderator]: Dr. King has been most generous with his time, certainly most inspiring, and we’re extremely grateful. He will speak again tomorrow morning at 9:30 in this auditorium, and all are invited.33 I should also like to say that there will be an informal gathering at Casa Maria after this meeting, and you are invited to come up and meet Dr. King. This message is for university students and for learners of all ages. Thank you very much. [applause]
1. Fulton first invited King to Puerto Rico in October 1958, but the civil rights leader declined because he was still recuperating from surgery following a near fatal stabbing in New York a month earlier (Fulton to King, 18 October 1958; Maude L. Ballou to Fulton, 29 November 1958). For more on King’s September 1958 stabbing, see Introduction in Papers 4:34–35.
2. King to Fulton, 5 October 1960.
3. In addition to the addresses at Inter-American University, King also spoke at the Evangelical Seminary of Puerto Rico in Río Piedras, at the University of Puerto Rico’s Mayagüez campus, and at a public meeting in Río Piedras (Inter-American University, Program, “Toward a World of Understanding,” 12 February–15 February 1962; King, Nonviolence and Racial Justice, Address delivered at Inter-American University, 14 February 1962; King, “The Future of Integration,” Address delivered at Inter-American University, 14 February 1962; King, Stride Toward Freedom, Address delivered at Inter-American University, 15 February 1962).
4. Local FOR chairman Lillian Pope assessed the impact of King’s Puerto Rico trip: “Apparently you deepened the thinking of many people here, and made many give serious consideration for the first time to the merits of non-violent direct action as a technique and as a philosophy” (Pope to King, 4 March 1962). Fulton concurred, noting that the topics of many of his students’ term papers echoed the themes of King’s addresses (Fulton to King, 15 May 1962).
5. In a June 1961 memo, the Defense Department restated their assurance of “equal treatment for all members of the Armed Forces without regard to race, creed or color” (Roswell Gilpatric, “Memo to the Secretary of the Army, the Secretary of the Navy, and the Secretary of the Air Force,” 19 June 1961).
6. Although President Truman desegregated all branches of the armed forces in 1948, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights accused the Defense Department in 1961 of not providing servicemen with legal assistance for civil cases confronting racial discrimination. The study also found that segregation and discrimination still existed throughout the military, including in the National Guard, the reserve units, the officer training programs, and military academies (“Report on discrimination by the federal government,” 29 August 1961).
7. Charged in its founding charter with addressing arms regulation, the United Nations General Assembly brought representatives of the United States, Canada, Britain, France, and the Soviet Union together to discuss nuclear disarmament in February 1955. After being unable to bring about a ban on the use of nuclear weapons, however, the General Assembly voted unanimously four years later to empower a previously established ten-nation committee to resolve the issue, including the United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union. The three countries would sign a partial test ban treaty on 5 August 1963.
8. On 17–18 September 1961, over 1,300 Britons were arrested in London at a demonstration against nuclear weapons organized by the Committee of 100. In an attempt to prevent the demonstration, five days earlier thirty-two members of the Committee, including founder and president Bertrand Russell, were imprisoned for terms from seven days to two months after refusing to pledge to keep the peace (Drew Middleton, “Bertrand Russell Jailed over Atom Protests,” New York Times, 13 September 1961).
9. For example, in October 1961, thirteen Americans, sponsored by the Committee for Nonviolent Action, completed a ten-month walk for disarmament from San Francisco to Moscow. Although they had hoped to hold a rally at Red Square, the group met with students at Moscow University and shared tea with the wife of Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev (Seymour Topping, “‘West Sobers Up’—According to Moscow,” New York Times, 8 October 1961).
10. Discussing the mobs that attacked the Freedom Riders, Ralph Bunche called them a “discredit to a civilized society” who “give much aid and comfort to our communist detractors” (“Dr. Bunche Supports Freedom Riders,” Baltimore Afro-American, 17 June 1961). Jet magazine reported that news of the violence was “like a shot around the globe” hurting American prestige, a point later reiterated by Edward R. Murrow, director of the United States Information Agency, in testimony to the House Committee on Education and Labor (“Label U.S. Racial Violence ‘Shot Heard ’Round World,’” Jet, 22 June 1961; “Murrow Cites Reaction,” New York Times, 25 June 1961; Report, “A United States Information Agency report summary world-wide reactions to racial incidents in Alabama,” June 1961).
11. In Civil Disobedience, Thoreau argued that a majority will maintain power not because they do what is right, but because they are the strongest. “It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law,” he contended, “so much as for the right. The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right” (Thoreau, Civil Disobedience [Harrington Park, N.J.: 5 x 8 Press, 1942], p. 3).
12. Although he did not agree violence was needed to bring about change, Russian author Leo Tolstoy agreed with anarchists “in the negation of the existing order and in the assertion that, without Authority there could not be worse violence than that of Authority under existing conditions” (“On Anarchy,” 1900).
13. King spent three days making appearances at local churches, schools, and mass meetings in an effort to register voters and recruit demonstrators for a “nonviolent army” (SCLC, Press release, “King’s ‘People to People’ tour sweeps delta,” 21 February 1962). For more on the trip, see King, “People in Action: Pathos and Hope,” 3 March 1962, pp. 419–421 in this volume.
14. Zulu chief Albert Lutuli fought against apartheid as president of the African National Congress in South Africa. Due to his ANC activities, Lutuli was banned by Justice Minister Charles R. Swart from attending any meetings or gatherings in South Africa for five years.
15. For three months in 1957, fifty thousand South Africans chose to walk the twenty-mile round-trip from their segregated homes in the township of Alexandra to their jobs in Johannesburg after the transit company raised the fare twenty-five percent. On 1 April 1957 the city’s chamber of commerce ended the boycott when they agreed to subsidize the price increase by selling vouchers at the previous price of four pence to Alexandra residents (“Bus Strike Ends in South Africa,” New York Times, 2 April 1957).
16. Robert J. McCracken, “What Should Be the Christian Attitude to Communism?,” in 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 1961 District Court judge Irving Kaufman ordered that black students be allowed to transfer out of Lincoln Elementary School after he ruled the New Rochelle, New York, board of education had “deliberately created and maintained the Lincoln School as a racially segregated school” (Taylor et al., v. Board of Education of City School District of City of New Rochelle et al., 195 F. Supp. 231). Later that year the Federal Commission on Civil Rights blamed the Chicago board of education for allowing overcrowding of classrooms and hiring inferior teaching staffs at the city’s predominantly black schools. A group of parents had already filed suit against the board for establishing districts along racial lines (Donald Janson, “School Quarrel Grows in Chicago,” New York Times, 1 October 1961).
18. After a white mob attacked a group of freedom riders arriving in Birmingham, Alabama, Governor John Patterson described the integrationists as “agitators” who journeyed to the state to “deliberately break the law” and who were “looking for trouble” (Bob Ingram, “Patterson Vows Arrest for Integration Testers,” Montgomery Advertiser, 18 May 1961). In the midst of SNCC-led sit-ins and voter registration campaigns in McComb, Mississippi, in October 1961, the mayor, C. H. Douglas, blamed “outside interference” for bringing an end to the city’s eighty-eight years of racial harmony (Claude Sitton, “Hard-Core Segregationist City in Mississippi Is Nearing Crisis,” New York Times, 21 October 1961).
19. John 8:12: “Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.”
20. Atlanta’s public schools were integrated at the beginning of the 1961 school year, when nine students integrated local high schools. Although the Archdiocese of Atlanta integrated its schools the next fall, those run by the Presbyterian and Episcopal Churches integrated only reluctantly between 1963 and 1966.
21. Calling it “morally wrong and sinful,” Archbishop Joseph Rummel of New Orleans announced his intention to integrate the archdiocese’s school system in February 1956. Faced with protests over the decision, including an appeal to Pope Pius XII to prevent integration, the schools were not integrated until the fall of 1962, four years after the public schools (“Catholics End Segregation at Schools in New Orleans,” New York Times, 28 March 1962).
22. In the Hindu tradition, Brahman represented ultimate reality, and multiple beings were worshipped, including the gods Shiva and Vishnu. In his autobiography, Gandhi admitted that he did not have a deep faith in any god, but rather the “conviction that morality is the basis of things, and that truth is the substance of all morality” (Mahatma Gandhi, An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth [Boston: Beacon Press, 1957], p. 34).
23. A self-described “rationalist and humanist” suspicious of religion and “obscurantist approaches,” Joan V. Bondurant argued it was unnecessary, however, to “subscribe either to the asceticism so characteristic of Gandhi nor to his religious notions in order to understand and to value the central contribution of his technique of non-violent action” (Conquest of Violence: The Gandhian Philosophy of Conflict [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1958], vi–vii).
24. “A little rebellion now and then is a good thing,” Thomas Jefferson wrote, believing it provided “a medicine necessary for the sound health of government” (Jefferson to James Madison, 30 January 1787, in The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 11, ed. Julian P. Boyd, Mina R. Bryan, Fredrick Aandahl [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1955], pp. 92–97).
25. The Sherman Antitrust Act (1890), the Clayton Antitrust Act (1914), and the Federal Trade Commission Act (1914) were all passed with the intent of protecting consumers by eliminating monopolies, price-fixing, and other business agreements designed to lessen competition.
26. Christianity, Judaism, and Islam all draw on the faith of ancient Israel for their foundation and each looks to prophets as responsible for revealing God’s message. Jesus and Muhammad are the main figures in Christianity and Islam, respectively, whereas Judaism recognizes a number of prophets, including Moses and Isaiah.
27. Cf. John 10:16.
28. During the bus boycott in Montgomery, the homes of King and E. D. Nixon were bombed, and city officials charged over eighty leaders of violating an anti-boycotting law. Twenty-seven freedom riders were jailed and charged with breach of the peace when they attempted to integrate the bus terminal in Jackson, Mississippi, on 24 May 1961. In December 1961, over 700 protesters were arrested when the Albany Movement sought to end segregation throughout Albany, Georgia.
29. Nehru believed that the use of nonviolent techniques in the independence movement provided the British “no handle, no grip, no opportunity for forcible suppression” and ultimately led them to open fire on a crowd in Amritsar on 13 April 1919, killing over 300 people (Toward Freedom: The Autobiography of Jawaharlal Nehru [New York: John Day, 1941], p. 70).
30. On 10 February 1959, King dined with Edwina Mountbatten and her daughter Pamela at Nehru’s home in New Delhi. Louis Mountbatten was the viceroy of India when it received its independence on 15 August 1947.
31. “I would rather have India resort to arms in order to defend her honor,” Gandhi wrote, “than that she should in a cowardly manner become or remain a helpless witness to her own dishonor” (“The Doctrine of The Sword,” Young India, 11 August 1920).
32. King recounts this decision in Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story (New York: Harper & Row, 1958), pp. 140–141. According to Bayard Rustin, however, when he and writer Bill Worthy visited King’s house in late February 1956, Worthy nearly sat on a gun lying on a chair, and armed guards almost shot a telegram delivery boy (Rustin, Interview by T. H. Baker, 17 June 1969).
33. “Stride Toward Freedom” would be King’s topic on 15 February.
Source: RBFP-INP, Robert Brank Fulton Papers.