To John F. Kennedy
Author: King, Martin Luther, Jr.
Date: August 2, 1962
Location: Albany, Ga.
Genre: Letter
Topic: Albany Movement
Little Rock School Crisis, 1957
Martin Luther King, Jr. - Arrests
Details
From the jail in Albany, Georgia, King thanks President Kennedy for his recent statement chastising Albany city officials for refusing to negotiate with Albany Movement leaders.1
the president
the white house
dear mr president,
gratified by directness of your statement to albany crisis. rev abernathy and i earnestly hope you will continue to use the great moral influence of your office to help this crucial situtation. there is no need for another little rock here2
martin luther king jr.
1. In response to a reporter’s question regarding the situation in Albany, Kennedy said: “Let me say that I find it wholly inexplicable why the City Council of Albany will not sit down with the citizens of Albany, who may be Negroes, and attempt to secure them, in a peaceful way, their rights. The United States Government is involved in sitting down at Geneva with the Soviet Union. I can’t understand why the government of Albany, City Council of Albany, cannot do the same for American citizens. We are going to attempt, as we have in the past, to try to provide a satisfactory solution and protection of the constitutional rights of the people of Albany, and will continue to do so” (Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: John F. Kennedy, 1962 [Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1963], pp. 592–593).
2. King refers to President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s use of federal troops to integrate Arkansas’s Little Rock Central High School in September 1957. For more on the integration of Central High, see note 1, King to Eisenhower, 25 September 1957, in Papers 4:278.
Source: JFKWHCSF-MBJFK, John F. Kennedy Presidential Papers, White House Central Subject Files, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, Boston, Mass.