Statement on Nonviolence at Pool Hall
Author: King, Martin Luther, Jr.; Abernathy, Ralph; Jones, Charles
Date: July 26, 1962?
Location: Albany, Ga.
Genre: Film
Topic: Albany Movement
Nonviolence
Details
After King’s announcement of a day of penance on demonstrations in Albany, he and representatives from SCLC and SNCC spent the afternoon walking the streets of Albany’s predominately African American district of Harlem, talking to locals about the previous night’s violence and garnering support for a nonviolent movement.1 At Dick’s Pool Room, King warns that violence is “what our opposition would like to see” and insists that “all we need is the very power of our souls and our commitment and our determination to be free.”2 The following transcript is arranged for clarity from several individual clips taken from film recordings of the event.
[King]: [recording interrupted] as you know we are in the mid—[recording interrupted] great movement here in Albany and we—why don’t you come on over.
[Unidentified people]: Come on up. Come on in. Come on up fellas. Come on in. Come on here. Come on up in here please. You, too, come on in [and?] tell everyone to come on in. Come on in the door. Good.
[King]: And as I was saying, we are in the midst of a great movement here in Albany, and we want and solicit the support of everybody in this community—all of the Negro citizens and even white citizens of goodwill who join with us. And as you know we have had our demonstrations and marches, making it very clear that we will no longer accept segregation and discrimination. And the one thing about this movement is that it’s a nonviolent movement. [Spectators:] (Go ahead, brother) It’s been that way from the very beginning. [gap in film]
…
[King]: Now as you know—maybe you’ve heard—last night some violence broke out. There was some bottle throwing. In fact, a policeman was injured, an automobile was cut—that is the top of a convertible automobile and maybe some other things. Now, we know that nothing can hurt our movement more than this kind of performance. [gap in film]
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[King]: [recording interrupted] exactly what our opposition would like to see, and they will use this to defeat all of our efforts. And in order for our movement to continue to be a great movement and continue to be based on our great Christian heritage, based on love and nonviolence, we will have to keep it peaceful. Now, we come to you because we know that you meet people, and you have friends, and you know people, and we want you to talk with your friends and, and everybody that you come in contact with about this movement and urge them to be nonviolent and, and not to throw bottles or not to do anything that would keep our demonstration from being peaceful. And I know that if we do this, we are destined to win this struggle. [gap in film]
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[King]: [words inaudible] for us to all of the people that you come in contact with—all of your friends—and we will continue to stress it as we get around the city.
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[King]: We want thousands of people to be involved in our movement and demonstrations. And it is marvelous to see the number of people who have already been willing to go to jail in this great movement. And we want others to go by the hundreds, but above all we want it to be nonviolent. We’re not going to hate anybody; we don’t need to do that. We don’t need our guns; we don’t need any ammunition. All we need is the very power of our souls and our commitment and our determination to be free. [gap in film]
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[King]: [recording interrupted] two mass meetings, one at Shiloh and one at Mount Zion—right in front of Shiloh—and we invite you to come to the mass meetings and be with us in these sessions and these discussions and get this over also to your friends and to your relatives. Thank you so much for giving us these few minutes.3 And thank you [recording interrupted]
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[King]: [recording interrupted] first of all be in the movement, for we need every one of you, and we need the support, and we are all together in this—in a common struggle for freedom and human dignity. And God bless you as the days unfold. Thank you so much. Okay.
[Charles Jones]: We want to talk specifically [words inaudible]. Obviously, last night, the city and the state [words inaudible]—4
[King]: Alright. [laughter]
[Jones]: —provoked some violence on our part because Pritchett never has come down this far with all those men. You know it, and I know it too. And this was an attempt to get some of you to do exactly what you did last night, so that if this happens again, or at any point we are engaged in action, do—don’t throw anything. The most important thing is our nonviolent demonstration that’s going downtown, so don’t give the city or the state the opportunity of saying to the country, “You see, here’s what we mean. These Negroes are violent. They want to destroy, they want to have mob action,” and if we don’t control this, each of us, each of you, then we give them the opportunity to say it. You understand this matter truly—that there are some people last night just got a little out of hand. So let’s keep this word going around and keep—if this happens again, make sure you tell the person next to you, or anybody who’s gathered like that, just to constrain themselves and hold themselves and don’t hit back—don’t throw back regardless of what happens, alright?
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[King]: Here’s just a word from Dr. Abernathy—Dr. Ralph Abernathy.
[Abernathy]: [recording interrupted] challenging you this afternoon to select this strong, powerful weapon of love and of nonviolence, but continue to press for your rights. If new demonstrations are called for then we expect every Negro in house to join in these demonstrations. If they become necessary, we expect you to [follow through?] and come on and march with us in the demonstration. But as we march, we want to march in love with hate toward nobody and remember whenever anything happens, as it did last night, then you bring shame and disgrace upon the leaders. I don’t mean you do it, but I mean whoever threw the bottles on last night or cut the top of this automobile was not helping the cause, whatsoever, because Mr. Pritchett has trained his men [recording interrupted]
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[Abernathy]: [gap in film] I want to say this because so often it is difficult for us to understand the meaning of nonviolence, and I don’t want anybody here today to go away with the impression that we are making an appeal to you to slacken up in the struggle, or to stop resisting this evil system of segregation. In fact, we’re making an appeal to you to fight more now and in the future than in—than you have in the past. Nonviolence is the way for the strong, and not for the weak. It takes a strong man to be a nonviolent man.
1. According to surveillance conducted by two Albany police officers, Ralph Abernathy and SNCC representatives Charles Jones and Charles Sherrod accompanied King on stops at a shoe shine parlor, a cleaners, a drug store, and a bar in addition to the pool hall. They also held two impromptu meetings on street corners (Laurie Pritchett, Bill Manley, and J. Ed. Friend, Statement of police officers concerning activities of Martin Luther King, Jr., 25 July 1962).
2. Jones reportedly accused Chief Pritchett of provoking the violence and paying individuals to throw rocks and bottles (Pritchett, et al., Statement of police officers).
3. At a mass meeting that evening, marking the end of the self-imposed penance period, six hundred people heard William G. Anderson announce a resumption of demonstrations in order to teach the city’s government a “lesson” (“Albany, Ga., Negroes Warned to Expect New Violence,” New York Times, 27 July 1962). On 27 July, King and twenty-seven others, including Abernathy and Anderson, were arrested during multiple prayer demonstrations in front of Albany’s city hall (Claude Sitton, “Dr. King Is Jailed Again at Prayer Rally in Georgia,” New York Times, 28 July 1962). The Albany Movement held mass meetings on the evening of King’s arrest and on 28 July (Sitton, “Dr. King Is Jailed Again,” 28 July 1962; Sitton, “Negro Lawyer Is Beaten, 37 Arrested in Albany, Ga.,” New York Times, 29 July 1962).
4. Joseph Charles Jones (1937– ), born in Chester, South Carolina, received a B.A. (1958) from Johnson C. Smith University and a J.D. (1966) from Howard University School of Law. While enrolled at Johnson C. Smith Theological Seminary, Jones led students in sit-in demonstrations in downtown Charlotte, North Carolina. As a founding member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in 1960, Jones left theological seminary to become director of the organization’s voter registration program. The following year, he participated in the 1961 Freedom Rides and the desegregation and voter registration campaigns in McComb, Mississippi, and Albany, Georgia. In 1965 Jones became project director for the Prince George County Anti-Poverty Project in Washington, D.C., followed by a two-year post as chairman and executive director of the Action Coordinating Committee to End Segregation in the Suburbs (ACCESS).
Source: WSB-TV-GU, WSB-TV Newsfilm Collection, Walter J. Brown Media Archive & Peabody Awards Collection, University of Georgia Libraries, Athens, Ga.