Interview by Lester Margolies
Author: King, Martin Luther, Jr.
Date: March 22, 1961?
Location: Atlanta, Ga.?
Genre: Interview
Topic: Civil Disobedience
Martin Luther King, Jr. - Political and Social Views
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King agreed to a request for an interview with Lester Margolies, a graduate student at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, who was working on his master’s thesis.1 In the interview, which was held in King’s office at Ebenezer, he discusses the importance of the black vote, his role in the controversy over ending desegregation protests in Atlanta, and competition between foreign aid and domestic programs. Calling for a “broader distribution of wealth,” King asserted: “I have strongly supported all of the social welfare legislation that came into being through the Roosevelt era and coming on up, because I think that this is the only way that we can grapple with many of the problems that we face in our nation, particularly this gulf between sometimes superfluous, inordinate wealth and over here abject, deadening poverty.” The following transcript was taken from an audio recording.
[Margolies]: First question: What do you feel will be the general repercussions of this movement on contemporary North American politics and contemporary American thought?
[King]: Well, I’m sure that this movement will have a tremendous impact on both the political structure of our nation as well as the thought. I think, first, to deal with the political side: I’m sure that the whole movement of the Negro, or to put it another way, the whole civil rights struggle will tend to liberalize both political parties to a degree, because the more the Negro secures the ballot, the more the Democratic Party, for instance, will have to break away from the Southern Dixiecrats and move more in line with its basic principles. And I think, to a degree, the more this movement goes on, the more it will break down the coalition in Congress between right-wing Northern Republicans and Southern Dixiecrats, which in the long run will make for a greater liberal bent and more progressive legislation in several areas.
Now, as far as the movement’s influence on contemporary thought: I think it will have a great impact there. For instance, the movement represents certainly a new and creative dimension in the struggle in the United States. In the past, it has been mainly legalistic. And now we see the birth of this new approach, not new approach, but new in America on a mass scale, namely, nonviolent resistance. And I’m sure that with this new dimension coming in, more and more people will begin to study the meaning of nonviolent resistance as a philosophy and as a technique of social change. I think also many of the stereotypes concerning the Negro are gradually being removed from the thinking of people because of this movement. They’ve come to see a different type of Negro than the Negro that they had in their minds as a result of these stereotypes that have been set up. So that I’m sure the movement will have a tremendous impact on both the political structure and the thought of our nation.
[Margolies]: Martin, has there been any transition in your thinking since the whole movement began in Montgomery [as you are able to?]?
[King]: Well, not basically. I’m sure that I’ve tried to clarify my thinking on certain issues more as we have moved on with the struggle, but I am still convinced that nonviolence as a philosophy and a method is the most potent weapon available to oppressed people in their struggle for freedom and human dignity. I, in Montgomery, came to see the necessity of carrying out both sides of a truly nonviolent struggle. The one is the protest side, the side of noncooperation with evil. But also there’s the side of the constructive program, which is as important as the side of noncooperation. And I guess, more and more, I have come to see the necessity of this other side, on the one hand, seeking to remove the system of segregation which makes for unjust conditions and discrimination and also for lagging standards within the Negro community. So that, remove the system on the one hand, and work to improve the standards on the other hand, which has in many instances been brought into being as a result of the system itself. But to answer the question in short, I think my thinking is just about the same as that stated in Stride Toward Freedom.2
[Margolies]: OK, Dr. King. You’ve answered this one partially, I think, in the first question. Maybe you can expand on it a bit more. Should the Negro get the ballot? How do you think this would affect policy on the Southern and on the national level?
[King]: Yes, well, as I said, I think it would do a great deal both in this section of the country and on a national level. If it’s true that when Negroes are voting in a particular community, when they are voting to a degree where an impact is palpable, things are better, conditions are better, the climate is much more reasonable, the atmosphere is much more peaceful. Now, I’m convinced that as this continues in various communities across the South, the transition from the segregated to the desegregated society will take place more, much more smoothly because public officials come to see that they must represent all people to get elected, and they need the Negro vote to get elected.
Now, I think the same thing will be true on a national scale: the more Negroes we have voting, the more the Congressmen of the nation, as well as the President and the executive branch of government, will see the necessity of implementing just and right laws that will make for freedom and human dignity for all people. So that I’m sure that the ballot is one of the most significant needs at this hour, and as I said to open, I think one of the most significant steps that the Negro can take is that short walk to the voting booth. It will change many, many conditions.
[Margolies]: I hadn’t planned on asking this—perhaps I should, if you can answer it briefly. Do you think there’s any chance of getting the unit system abolished here in Georgia?3
[King]: I think so. I think the signs are very encouraging now. Actually, the last time it went to the Supreme Court, I think the vote was five-four. It was very close; I think it was five-four.4 So that if it goes back to the Supreme Court, I believe we have a greater possibility of getting it changed now than ever before. Now, on the other hand, there are those within the state who are coming to see that it can be changed and that there is a great possibility that it will be changed by the Supreme Court, so that they are seeking to make some changes through the state legislature to save the change that will come from the Supreme Court, which will probably be much greater than they would want. It will certainly be much greater than they would want, so they are trying to get through some immediate change that would at least represent token fair representation and thereby weaken the possibility of getting a decision from the Supreme Court. In any case, I’m convinced that it’s going to be changed in the next few months, either by the Supreme Court or by a legislative act here in the state.
[Margolies]: That’s very encouraging. What are your future plans in the way of a program of action for getting civil rights now?
[King]: Well, I would say that we have, and as you know I’m president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference
[Margolies]: Yeah.
[King]: which is an organization that came into being to serve as a channel through which local protest groups in the South could coordinate their protest activities. And our main interest is that of securing citizenship rights for Negro people through nonviolent means. Now, through the Conference, we have many things in mind, many plans ahead. We plan to intensify our efforts in the area of voter registration, for instance, to try to double the number of Negro registered voters. Out of five million eligible Negro voters in the South, we only have 1,300,000, which means we have a big job to do in that area. Also, we are starting a citizenship training school in the South.5 And this school has as its main purpose training leaders who in turn will train many people within the various communities for citizenship responsibilities. And in cases where there will be various tests given for voters or people attempting to register and vote, we plan to do a great deal in that area.
Now, this is all a part of the constructive program on the side of creative protest. We intend to have as many nonviolent, mass nonviolent direct action programs as we can possibly work out within the course of a year. Now, things have centered on sit-ins at lunch counters in the past few months by the students, but there are still many other areas, as you know, where segregation is a glaring reality. And we are deeply committed to the idea of using mass nonviolent direct action as a technique to remove the barriers of segregation from all of these particular areas where we find segregation—whether it’s in restaurants, theaters, hotels, and so many other areas in the South. Now, along with this, we are intensifying our work in nonviolent institutes because we know that [phone rings], we cannot expect people to do a real [phone rings] job in this area unless they know exactly what they are doing. I’ll have to stop this. [phone rings]
[Margolies]: OK.
[King]: Hello. Hi. [gap in tape]
[Margolies]: Perhaps, along the same lines, you can answer this. What role do you think the boycott, or selective buying, and/or selective buying will have in the nonviolent protests in the future?
[King]: I think it will have a very important role. The buying power of the Negro is a very, very important factor in the whole struggle, and I think now the national or rather the annual income of the Negro collectively is about twenty billion dollars. Now, in any urban area, this is true. South, North and South, it may even be truer in the South, where you have smaller cities, in any urban area, the Negro has enough buying power to make the difference between profit and loss in any, in a particular business. And this can be used very effectively. The refusal to cooperate with a store that lends its support to a system of segregation and discrimination is the logical follow-through of the nonviolent direct action approach. And I think that the economic withdrawal approach will, to a great degree, bring many merchants around—and not only merchants but other agencies around—that would not come around ordinarily.
Now, I’ve seen this—we certainly saw it in Montgomery, in the struggle there. The bus company was ready to give in the first week after the boycott. It was the city commission that refused and held out, but the bus company was ready because they just couldn’t stand the loss that they were facing. And this has been true in most of the sit-in movements where the boycott followed—and I think in most of them, the selective buying program followed the sit-ins. And in most cases, they just haven’t been able to maintain the system of segregation and at the same time sustain the losses that they faced. So that I do think this will be a very, very effective instrument.
[Margolies]: Do you think we ought to be even more concerned with foreign aid than we are now, or should we concentrate more upon the destitute here at home and put less emphasis on the foreign?
[King]: Well, I think it’s a both-and, not an either-or. I think we must be greatly concerned about foreign aid. Now, on the one hand, there are those who would say we ought to be concerned about foreign aid because Communism is a potent force in the world, and in order to compete with the Communists, we need to do this. And there is no doubt about the fact that if we go all out in foreign aid, it will help us prestige-wise in the world. But I don’t think this is the reason it should be done. I think it should be done because it is morally right to do it and because of the interdependent structure of mankind. We can’t live alone, independently of our neighbors, whether they are in other countries close by or the countries a long ways off; we must live together. And actually, we are not secure unless all of the nations of the world are secure. We are tied in a sort of inescapable network of mutuality. And therefore I think we must do it because it is right and because we are interdependent, and whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.
Now, some of the problems in other countries are much greater than the problems in our own country. My travels in Africa, Asia, and South America have revealed to me that poverty is so great in these countries, many of the countries in these particular continents that it cannot be dealt with other than through the aid and the support and the backing of some of the nations of the world that have the resources.6 And I think we should go all out to increase our foreign aid, and I don’t mean military aid alone here. I think sometimes we have spent far too much money establishing military bases around the world rather than bases of genuine concern and understanding.
So I would strongly favor that, while strongly favoring all of the social welfare and economic approaches that are being used and advocated in our country to lift the standards of those who are deprived of the basic necessities of life. I have strongly supported all of the social welfare legislation that came into being through the Roosevelt era and coming on up, because I think that this is the only way that we can grapple with many of the problems that we face in our nation, particularly this gulf between sometimes superfluous, inordinate wealth and over here abject, deadening poverty. And while I don’t advocate a socialistic economy, I do think there are some things that we must do that will make for a broader distribution of wealth. And therefore I think that as far as dealing with this problem is concerned, we must be concerned about foreign aid and also dealing with our own problems here in the nation, so [phone buzzes] it’s both-and rather than either-or. [someone enters and speaks to King]
[King]: OK. Tell him. OK, I’ll be ready in about ten more minutes.
[Margolies]: Well, I think that at the rate we’re going, ten minutes may just be enough time, Doctor. You just answered another question that I had for you on the next collection.
[King]: Oh, is that so?
[Margolies]: That’s what I was getting at anyway. I wanted your basic approach. A Negro sociologist not too long ago pointed out that, in quotes, “Many Negro leaders, while affiliated with Republican party organizations, have been forced to take into consideration the fact that the interests of the Negro man [phone rings] have been with the liberal program of the Democratic Party.”7 Can you comment on that?
[King]: Yes, I think that that is true. Is the implication here that the Negro masses have supported the Democratic Party or that the Democratic Party has had a, is better, so to speak, for the Negro in lifting his economic—
[Margolies]: Yes, I think the second one is more. The policies they’ve advocated
[King]: Yes.
[Margolies]: I think, would tend more to be better
[King]: Yes.
[Margolies]: for the Negro masses
[King]: Yes.
[Margolies]: It’s liberal.
[King]: Yes. Well, I think that’s quite true. There’s no doubt in my mind about that. But, and this isn’t, I’m not taking a partisan point of view here, because I have not, I’m not a registered Democrat at all. But I do think the policies of the Democratic Party have been—certainly on economic questions and on social welfare questions, the policies have been much better for the Negro. Now, I don’t approve, naturally, of the schizophrenic character of the Democratic Party, where you get a true liberalism in one area and then you come to the South and get the very conservative element of the Democratic Party. And this I’m very much concerned about when we think of the fact that the major committees are in the hands of Southerners, and they often block very aggressive legislation in various areas. But on the whole, when we look at the Democratic Party as a whole and its basic philosophy, it has advocated policies that are more helpful to not only the Negro but to the common man in general. And I’m sure this is the reason that the vast majority of Negroes still vote the Democratic ticket because of its policies in this area. [phone rings]
[Margolies]: Do you have to get that?
[King]: No, she answers that.
[Margolies]: In regards to this recent agreement, I found it difficult to believe as was reported that you said that this is something that we can live with.8 Would you like to comment on that for me? This can be on or off the record; I don’t care.
[King]: Well, I never made a comment pro [phone buzzes] or con on the agreement.
[Margolies]: Oh, I see. I thought that it was understood that some had reported that— [someone enters and speaks to King]
[King]: Well, I guess we’ll have to make it at 3:30. All right.
[Unknown person]: OK.
[King to unknown person]: Darling, maybe we better even make it for later than that. Let me call him, and maybe I’ll have to come by there.
[King to Margolies]: Many misinterpretations have gotten out about the agreement as far as my position is concerned. I never made any statement pro or con. I had my private convictions about it, which I still have, even in the mass meeting, where there was a great deal of disagreement and misunderstanding.9 I came to the rostrum, and my position on it was mainly not to say whether the agreement was right or wrong, but that we had to be united, that the agreement may have some mistakes in it, but there could be something that could do even greater harm and that would be to go out and be inflicted with, the phrase that I used was the “cancerous disease of disunity.”10 So that we must somehow be united, even though we can’t follow a way of uniformity here, because there will be differences.
And I think it was very unfair for, as many people were saying that their leaders had sold out, this wasn’t true. They were grappling with a difficult problem; nobody got any money as some of the people were trying to say.11 It was that they were just in a difficult situation, and they did what they felt was the right thing to do. If I had been there, I would have argued that we shouldn’t have done it till the end. But after they did it, I felt a moral responsibility to at least somehow justify the leaders—not their actions, but at least try to keep the people to a point that they would maintain respect for the leaders and disagree with the agreement, but not say the leaders sold out. Because we go right back to the thing that the Negro has suffered from so long and that is not having any leadership and tearing up, you see, among ourselves, and the whole method of divide and conquer was the thing used.
So, and I never said this is something we can live with. What happened: the press felt that, I think they wanted to settle this thing, and I guess they felt that a lot of people, some people would listen to me, and if they knew they had my weight behind it, it would probably get over better. And naturally they wanted to settle it because they get thousands of dollars a week from Rich’s and Davison’s in advertisements, you see.12 And I know the press willfully put certain statements in my mouth three, on three different occasions. At first, it came out that I signed the agreement. Well, they backed up, and they had to change that. Then the second thing came out was a statement that my father made, and they quoted this as my statement: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Now, this was a statement that my father made for the radio station WGFT.
[Margolies]: Is this the one I listened to?
[King]: That’s the one.
[Margolies]: That’s the one?
[King]: I think that’s the—well, they’ve made two. That’s one. The other one was the statement that I said, “I think the plan is workable,” and I called for full support. Now, that was my father—see, I was out of town.13
[Margolies]: You were in Detroit, isn’t that right?
[King]: That’s right. I was in Detroit.14 But they quoted me as making this statement, you see? And then the other one came out that I think it is something we can live with, which I have never said. So this was all a part of the tragedy of errors in this whole thing.
[Margolies]: All right, let’s get off this. I’m cleared up on it. I was even before I asked it, I think. In regard to civil disobedience, some Southerners now are claiming to be resisting the Supreme Court decision on a strictly ethical basis. How does this position differ with your own nonviolent one?
[King]: First, I haven’t seen any Southerners really resisting it on an ethical basis. But I will say this: if they do, I think they should have a right to do that. If one is committed purely to the legalistic way, through the courts, you must give the opposition the right to appeal, to use the same approach. I mean he uses the same method, he can go to court, he can go up to the Supreme Court. He may lose, or he may win, but you give him that same, he has that same right. I think the same way in a nonviolent campaign: that if you insist that it is right to break what conscience tells you is an unjust law, then you must also give this man over here the right to break an unjust law, a law that conscience tells him is unjust, you see.
[King to unknown person]: Tell him I’ll be out in just a minute.
[King to Margolies]: And the [door closes] only thing that I would say is this: that in breaking that unjust law, the individual must first be nonviolent. He should be peaceful in breaking it, he should have a loving attitude, he shouldn’t be cursing, and he shouldn’t be throwing out all of these vitriolic expressions that we find in New Orleans.15 I don’t think that’s civil disobedience; I think it’s uncivil disobedience.
And third, he must be willing to voluntarily and cheerfully accept the penalty for breaking an unjust law. Now, this is different from evading the law. This is what I think the Southern reactionaries are doing. They are defying the law, which I think is wrong. They are seeking to evade the law, which I think is wrong. But the individual [phone buzzes] who breaks an unjust law, a law which conscience tells him is unjust, and willingly accepts the penalty for it is expressing the highest respect for law. And he’s not an anarchist, you see. He respects law, but he sees that there are two types of laws: there are just laws and there are unjust laws. A just law, from a purely moral point of view, is one that squares with what is morally right and certain basic principles of respect for the dignity and worth of human personality, so that any law that degrades human personality is unjust.
But not only that. An unjust law is a law in which the majority imposes upon the minority a code that it does not impose upon itself, that is not binding on itself. It is also a law which the majority imposes on the minority, which that minority had no power in creating or enacting because they don’t have the right to vote in many instances.
So that most of the legislative bodies in the South can make these anti-trespass laws or what have you, I would contend, are not legally elected; the people did not elect them. In Mississippi only twenty thousand Negroes vote over the whole state, and yet they’re about 48 percent of the population. So that this is an unjust law not on the basis of morality but on the basis of just observable facts, you see.
[Margolies]: Dr. King, suppose [phone buzzes] that the Supreme Court had made a decision [door opens] confirming—
[King]: Tell him I’ll have to call him back. [words inaudible]
[Margolies]: Suppose the Supreme Court had made a decision confirming segregation.
[King]: What, you mean, what would I advocate? (Yes, in this case) I would say if the Supreme Court rendered a decision advocating segregation, I would urge people to resist that decision nonviolently. People have resisted the Supreme Court decisions before. In 1857 the Supreme Court rendered the Dred Scott decision.16 This decision was morally wrong. It said in substance that the Negro is not a citizen of the nation, he is merely property. He had no rights that the white man is bound to respect. Now, this was morally wrong. Even the Plessy doctrine of 1896 was morally wrong, I think, and people resisted that decision.17 Most of the resistance was legal, but there has been nonviolent resistance to it. So, I would say, today if the Supreme Court rendered a decision declaring segregation constitutional, I would urge people to resist that decision nonviolently, peacefully, and if necessary to break some law that was set up on the basis of the decision, to accept the consequences and stay in jail in order to arouse the conscience of the community so that the law can be altered.
Now, there is nothing new about civil disobedience, as you well know. I mean, academic freedom, to a degree, is a reality today because Socrates practiced civil disobedience. The early Christians mastered civil disobedience to the point of being thrown before the lions and everything else, refusing to accept certain laws that had come down through the Roman Empire and that they had to worship certain gods that the Roman Empire set up.18 They practiced open civil disobedience. Everything that [Adolf] Hitler did in Germany was “legal,” in quotes.19 Everything that the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was illegal.20 Now, it was legal, I mean illegal to aid and comfort a Jew during the time of Hitler in Germany. If I had lived in Germany I would have openly, I believe, advocated disobeying this and would have urged people to practice civil disobedience. The Boston Tea Party in our own history was a clear cut case of civil disobedience; even, to a degree, the Underground Railroad and the revolt against the Fugitive Slave Law.21
So that it just so happens now, which is a wonderful thing in the United States, that what we find in conscience to be right, we find in fact to be constitutional and this is good. This isn’t true in South Africa, so I would tell the people in South Africa to disobey those laws.22 But what we find in the United States is that we are practicing civil disobedience as far as local laws [down in the South?] are concerned, but we are really practicing civil disobedience to the federal law. We are really just trying to affirm the Constitution. And the question about the Supreme Court is just a hypothetical one because so far the Supreme Court has been consistent in upholding the laws as they relate to the question of integration. So that’s about my answer on the whole question of civil disobedience.
[Margolies]: Well, that’s been extremely illuminating. I don’t know—do we have time for one more?
[King]: Yes, I’ll take—I’ve got to go. I’m late for this other meeting, but I’ll get there.
[Margolies]: Well, OK—make this a quickie. I have a few more questions; I don’t even know which one to ask. How about the coercive tendencies involved in nonviolence? Perhaps you could comment on that. It has coercive aspects [words inaudible].
[King]: Well, that’s a question that would take a little time. Basically, nonviolence says that persuasion is
[Margolies]: Yeah.
[King]: much better than coercion. Now, mainly it’s thinking—when it talks against coercion, it’s certainly thinking mainly of physical coercion, where you use physical violence and physical methods to bring about social change. When we think of persuasion, we’re thinking of peaceful methods, peaceful demonstrations, peaceful picketing, peaceful sit-ins, or what have you, peaceful boycotts to do the job.
On the other hand, I know the argument is that even in these so-called peaceful methods, in the boycott approach, you are coercing in the sense that you are withdrawing your economic support in order to make this man do something. Now, I would say there that it’s a matter ultimately of intent. What is your ultimate purpose? Is your purpose to put the man out of business? Or is your purpose to create a situation in which a new relationship, a new relationship of understanding goodwill exists between you, your group, and this particular businessman, and all of the businesses involved? The intention is never to put the man out of business but, as I’ve said so often, to put justice in business. And this becomes, if it’s coercion, it becomes the highest level of moral coercion.
Now, I must frankly say that there is a fine line of distinction here, because I believe that an element of coercion is necessary in life. I mean, I believe that you’ve got to have laws; I’m not an anarchist. For instance, I believe in the intelligent use of police power, so that I think we’ve got to have policemen. I think we’ve got to have a state. I don’t feel that we can ever get by coercion totally because of man’s capacity for evil. I think [phone rings] his capacity for goodness makes persuasion a very powerful instrument, but his [phone rings] inclination for evil makes coercion a necessity. And I don’t throw it out all together. I think [phone rings] the only difference is that I believe in moral, nonviolent coercion and never violent [phone rings] or physical, immoral coercion.
Excuse me. Operator, could that call come back in about a half an hour … in about a half an hour … I’m involved in an interview right now. Yes, yes. It is now two o’clock. Yes. [recording interrupted]
1. Margolies to King, 13 February 1961; Dora E. McDonald to Margolies, 9 March 1961. Lester Margolies (1937– ), born in Brooklyn, New York, received a B.A. (1959) and an M.A. (1961) from Southern Illinois University. While an undergraduate, Margolies participated in efforts to integrate local businesses. His master’s thesis, “The Political Theory of Martin Luther King, Jr.,” was completed in 1961. Afterward, Margolies moved to Berkeley to pursue further graduate study. From 1966 until his retirement in 2002, Margolies taught various political science and constitutional law classes at the high school and college level in Alameda County, California.
2. King published the story of the Montgomery bus boycott in Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story (New York: Harper & Row, 1958).
3. The county unit system in Georgia was established in 1917, when the Georgia legislature passed the Neill Primary Act. The act allocated the vote in state elections by county population, awarding six unit votes to the eight most populous counties, four unit votes to the next thirty most populous counties, and two unit votes to the remaining 121 smallest counties. The candidate receiving a plurality of the popular vote received the entire unit vote from that county, allowing less populated rural counties to equal the votes of larger urban counties. In Gray v. Sanders, 372 U.S. 368 (1963), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the act unconstitutional because “the practical effect of this system is that the vote of each citizen counts for less and less as the population of his county increases.”
4. King refers to the 1950 U.S. Supreme Court case South v. Peters, 339 U.S. 276. The final vote was in favor of the unit system.
5. In late 1960, SCLC was pursuing a partnership with the Highlander Folk School in Monteagle, Tennessee, to establish citizenship training schools across the South. Since 1956, Highlander had conducted educational programs that focused on literacy, teaching constitutional rights, and preparing for voter registration tests. After the State of Tennessee closed Highlander for allegedly violating its tax-exempt status, SCLC used Highlander’s curriculum models to establish its own affiliate citizenship training schools in southern communities (see Memo, “Leadership Training Program and Citizenship Schools,” December 1960–January 1961, pp. 136–138 in this volume).
6. King refers to his travels to Ghana in 1957, India in 1959, South America in early 1960, and Nigeria in November 1960. For more details on King’s travels, see Introductions in Papers 4:7–10 and Papers 5:2–12, 32, 40.
7. Margolies quotes from sociologist E. Franklin Frazier’s 1957 book, Black Bourgeoisie (London: Collier-Macmillan, 1957): “Although many of the middle-class leaders of the Elks have been connected with Republican Party organizations, they have been forced to take into consideration the fact that the interests of the Negro masses have been with the liberal program of the Democratic Party” (pp. 82–83).
8. Margolies refers to the Atlanta lunch counter desegregation agreement of 6 March 1961. Although King did not sign the agreement, news reports indicated that he called the plan “workable and urged its support” (Bruce Galphin, “Negroes Agree to End Sit-Ins,” Atlanta Constitution, 8 March 1961). In March 1960, sit-ins and boycotts of segregated lunch counters in downtown Atlanta prompted many department and drug stores to close. Members of the Atlanta Chamber of Commerce and the Student-Adult Liaison Committee that had been supporting the protest agreed to call an end to demonstrations in exchange for the timely desegregation of downtown Atlanta; in the meantime, the lunch counters would be allowed to reopen on a segregated basis (Galphin, “Negroes Agree to End Sit-Ins,” 8 March 1961).
9. On 10 March 1961, the Student-Adult Liaison Committee held a mass meeting of an estimated 1,500 people at Warren Memorial Methodist Church in Atlanta to discuss the agreement. Student protesters criticized the lack of a specific date for lunch counter desegregation and the fact that segregated facilities would remain open until after Atlanta school desegregation was completed in the fall. Despite assurances from the Student-Adult Liaison Committee that desegregation of downtown facilities would take place, many students repudiated the adult leaders, including Martin Luther King, Sr. (Claude Sitton, “Negroes to Keep Atlanta Boycott,” New York Times, 11 March 1961; Sitton, “Atlanta Accord Arouses Dispute,” New York Times, 12 March 1961).
10. Before the hostile crowd, King pleaded with student protesters: “Calm reasonableness is need [sic], along with mutual trust and mutual respect. No greater tragedy could befall the Negro in Atlanta now … than to be inflicted with the Cancerous disease of disunity. Misunderstanding there will be, but disunity there must never be” (“Adult-Youth Liaison Committee Meets Tuesday,” Atlanta Daily World, 12 March 1961).
11. The Associated Negro Press reported that students felt they had been “sold down the river” by the agreement (Press release, “Martin Luther King calms uprising over Atlanta agreement; Students claim they were ‘sold down the river’ in ‘deal,’” 13 March 1961).
12. Both Davison’s and Rich’s had been targets of boycotts and sit-in demonstrations. Despite previous refusals, both stores joined in the settlement (“Atlanta Stores to Drop Jim-Crow Policy,” Chicago Daily Defender, 8 March 1961).
13. Articles in the Atlanta Constitution and Atlanta Journal erroneously reported that King had endorsed the agreement; however, another news source indicated that his father Martin Luther King, Sr., one of the signers of the agreement, said the deal was “workable” (Galphin, “Negroes Agree to End Sit-Ins,” 8 March 1961; Margaret Shannon, “Sit-in Cases Stand Despite Accord,” Atlanta Journal, 8 March 1961; and “Clarification Mass Meeting at Warren Church Tonight,” Atlanta Daily World, 10 March 1961).
14. In Detroit on 6–7 March, King preached at Central Methodist Church as part of the Detroit Council of Churches’ Noon Lenten Series.
15. King most likely refers to widespread resistance to court-ordered school desegregation in New Orleans.
16. Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (1857).
17. Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896).
18. The earliest official persecution of Christians by the Romans began in the first century A.D. Despite a prevailing culture of religious tolerance, Romans mistrusted Christianity as a dangerous cult. Christians were persecuted for a variety of offenses with punishments that included burning, crucifixion, and being fed to lions and other wild animals.
19. German legislation such as the 1935 Nuremberg Laws divided people into racially based categories which determined their legal rights.
20. On 23 October 1956, Hungarian citizens revolted against the policies of their government, which was backed by the Soviet Union. The revolutionaries quickly established a new democratic government, led by Prime Minister Imre Nagy. On 4 November, a large Soviet force invaded and crushed the resistance, regaining control of the Hungarian state by 7 November.
21. On 16 December 1773, a group of protesters dumped 342 chests of British East India Company tea into Boston Harbor rather than allow it to be off-loaded and sold. The Americans were protesting a tax on tea (taxation without representation) and the alleged monopoly of the East India Company. The Underground Railroad was a network of people that smuggled escaping slaves out of the South and into free states in the North. The 1850 Fugitive Slave Act secured the right of slaveholders to reclaim escaped slaves as lost property and made it illegal for anyone to aid a fugitive slave.
22. King is referring to the system of apartheid in South Africa, which legalized racial segregation and denied full citizenship to nonwhite South Africans. Apartheid remained in effect from 1948 to 1994.
Source: MLKJP-GAMK, Martin Luther King, Jr. Papers (Series I–IV), Martin Luther King, Jr., Center for Nonviolent Social Change, Inc., Atlanta, Ga.