00:18
dr. King this church is as good a place
00:23
as any to go back over your commitment
00:26
to the civil rights movement when you
00:29
went out from here into University and
00:32
then you went to Montgomery Alabama and
00:34
started the bus boycotts there what was
00:37
the philosophy of the civil rights
00:38
movement as you saw it then more than
00:41
ten years ago well I would say then the
00:45
philosophy was that we must go all out
00:48
to use legal and nonviolent methods to
00:53
gain full citizenship rights for the
00:58
Negro people of our country of course
01:01
that particular struggle and that
01:04
philosophy is centered on breaking down
01:07
all of the barriers of legal segregation
01:10
so I would say that in that period the
01:14
basic thrust for the gaining of
01:16
citizenship rights for Negroes was to
01:20
end the humiliation surrounding the
01:24
whole system of legal segregation dr.
01:27
king was there something peculiar to the
01:31
place where you started and the kind of
01:33
people you attracted I mean by that
01:35
there was a strong attachment on the
01:37
part of your parishioners in Montgomery
01:40
to the church they were older people
01:42
weren’t they yes I would say by and
01:45
large they were older people who
01:48
participated in the boycott because they
01:51
were the ones using the bus bus more
01:53
than anybody else and Montgomery was a
01:57
community predominantly Church Senate so
02:02
that it was very easy to get to the vast
02:05
majority of Negroes because they were in
02:08
some way connected with a church in the
02:12
community in addition to your commitment
02:16
to the idea of non-violence wasn’t it
02:19
also the only thing you could do the
02:22
white community having the monopoly on
02:24
once that if you had tried violence they
02:27
would have met it with violence it was
02:29
the only device open to you wasn’t it
02:31
well I put it another way that morally I
02:36
was led to non-violence because I felt
02:40
that it was the best moral way to deal
02:44
with the problem we were seeking to
02:46
establish a just society and it was my
02:50
feeling then and it is my feeling now
02:52
that violence is certainly much more
02:58
socially destructive and it creates many
03:01
more social problems than it solves so I
03:05
was led to non-violence for deep moral
03:08
reasons now there is no doubt about the
03:10
fact that in our struggle in Montgomery
03:12
and all over the United States for that
03:14
matter non-violence is also practically
03:18
sound it would just be impractical for
03:21
the Negro to turn to violence he has
03:25
neither the instruments now the
03:27
techniques of violence we about ten or
03:30
eleven percent of the total population
03:32
of the nation and I would say we about
03:35
one-tenth of one percent of the
03:38
firepower so it would just be totally
03:40
impractical and unwise and unrealistic
03:42
for the Negro to think of violence well
03:45
I saw this in the beginning and
03:47
Montgomery but this wasn’t the basic
03:49
reason that I turned to non-violence and
03:53
that I believed in it as a philosophy I
03:55
turned to it because I felt that it was
03:58
the morally excellent way to deal with
04:02
the problem of racial injustice in our
04:04
country is there something about
04:06
non-violence that made it and I used
04:09
that in the past tense that made it more
04:11
useful amongst other Negroes than the
04:14
ghetto Negroes of the north I would say
04:18
there’s anything that makes it more
04:21
useful to southern Negroes I think it is
04:24
true that we’ve had more nonviolent
04:28
movements in the south because
04:31
the problem for many years was more
04:34
crystallized and in a sense more visible
04:38
in the south we didn’t have many civil
04:41
rights activities on a massive scale in
04:44
the north until three or four years ago
04:47
so I would say that we just haven’t had
04:50
a chance to experiment on a broad scale
04:53
with non-violence in the northern ghetto
04:56
I have the feeling that non-violence is
04:58
as applicable and workable in the
05:03
northern ghetto as it is in the South
05:05
now there’s a larger job there the
05:09
frustrations at points are much deeper
05:11
the bitterness is deeper and I think
05:14
that’s because in the South we can see
05:16
pockets of progress here and there we’ve
05:18
really made some strides that are very
05:21
visible and every southern Negro knows
05:23
that he can do things today that he
05:25
couldn’t do four or five years ago where
05:27
and in the North the Negro sees on their
05:30
retrogress and he doesn’t find it as
05:34
easy to get his vision centered on his
05:38
target the target of opposition as he
05:41
does in the south consequently this is
05:44
made for despair and it men appoint
05:46
cynicism a feeling that you can’t win
05:49
and it simply means that we’ve got to
05:52
develop in the mouth a massive job of
05:56
organization and mobilizing forces and
05:59
resources to deal with the problem and
06:01
there have been ghettos of the north
06:02
just as we’ve done it in the south when
06:05
the south particularly in Alabama you
06:07
had visible villains Jim Clark Bull
06:11
Connor cattle prods police dogs but in
06:15
the North you don’t have those visible
06:16
villains isn’t it hard to get your
06:20
people aroused and directed it’s
06:22
something that isn’t visible well that’s
06:25
exactly right and this is what I was
06:27
saying when I said it’s harder to see
06:29
your target in the South in the
06:32
nonviolent movement we were aided always
06:36
the whole by the brutality of our
06:38
opponent it isn’t the same way in the
06:41
north the other thing is that you don’t
06:44
have legal segregation in the north as
06:47
you do in the south so it is much more
06:50
difficult to get people to see exactly
06:52
what you’re doing but it isn’t an
06:56
impossible job it’s it’s a hard it’s a
06:59
tedious job at times to get people to be
07:03
aroused from their apathetic slumbers
07:06
but I still feel that Negroes in the
07:09
north can be motivated just as they were
07:13
motivated in the south and I think it’s
07:15
time goes on with the growing economic
07:18
deprivation in the Negro community it
07:21
will even be easier because people will
07:23
come deceive and not only is something
07:26
wrong in general but something is wrong
07:28
in particular in their own economic and
07:32
housing situations what is it
07:36
I mean how do you find it it’s very
07:37
subtle in the north is it not it’s
07:40
subtle but it’s becoming much more
07:42
visible anybody can see that the schools
07:46
are more segregated in the north today
07:49
than they were in 1954 when the Supreme
07:51
Court rendered its decision declaring
07:53
segregation unconstitutional anybody can
07:57
look around the ghetto and see the
07:59
ghetto schools are predominantly
08:01
segregated and devoid of quality anyone
08:04
who moves through a major ghetto of our
08:07
country will see the housing conditions
08:09
people don’t have to be reminded that
08:12
they are forced to live in slums and
08:15
many instances and they often
08:17
rat-infested vermin feel slums and they
08:21
didn’t too hard to see the exploitation
08:23
that the Negro confronting the ghetto
08:25
where he is forced to pay more for less
08:29
and constantly trying to make ends meet
08:32
but because of either no job as a result
08:35
of unemployment our job that is so
08:40
economically unprofitable that the
08:43
person can make
08:44
I mean and I think they see all of these
08:46
things and more and more they are coming
08:49
to see them because before the people of
08:53
the North were looking to the south and
08:55
they supported the struggles of the
08:57
south now they are coming to see that
08:59
their problems are very real and they’ve
09:02
got organized to grapple with them
09:04
was there something hypocritical about
09:06
the fact that the South existed in the
09:09
North could point the finger and then
09:11
when the civil rights acts were passed
09:13
in the early 60s you couldn’t point the
09:16
finger anymore well there was no doubt
09:18
about the hypocrisy of large segments of
09:22
the nation on the whole question of
09:24
racial equality I think the best example
09:27
is that many of the senators from the
09:31
north and the West and congressmen
09:34
generally who voted for civil rights
09:36
legislation in 6 to 4 and even 6 to 5 of
09:40
the voting rights bill refused last year
09:43
to vote for civil rights legislation
09:46
because it dealt with an issue
09:49
applicable to the north the whole
09:51
housing question and this it seems to me
09:55
was the greatest expression of the
09:57
hypocrisy of many of our citizens and
10:01
many of the senators and congressmen of
10:04
the nul but isn’t that part of the
10:06
dilemma now that people knew that
10:09
Negroes were being being denied what was
10:11
guaranteed to them by the Constitution
10:13
by the fact that they were citizens of
10:15
this country then when they were given
10:17
those rights do you feel the white
10:18
community said well we’ve given them all
10:21
that we have now it’s up to them well I
10:25
think the dilemma is much deeper and I
10:27
think one during this period of
10:30
transition has to be very honest with
10:33
America and honesty impels me to admit
10:36
that America has broad races elements
10:41
still alive racism is still existing in
10:45
American society in many areas of the
10:48
society northern South and the other
10:51
thing is
10:52
that there has never been a single solid
10:57
determined commitment of large segments
11:01
of white camara
11:02
America on the whole question of racial
11:05
equality I think we have to see that
11:09
vacillation has always existed
11:11
ambivalence has always existed and this
11:14
to me is the so-called white backlash is
11:16
merely a new name for an old phenomenon
11:19
I see the white backlash is a
11:21
continuation of the same ambivalence and
11:25
vacillation of white america and the
11:27
whole question of racial justice that
11:29
existed since the founding of our nation
11:34
I think the other thing that we must see
11:37
at this time is that many of the people
11:40
who supported us in Selma in Birmingham
11:43
were really outraged about the extremist
11:48
behavior toward Negroes but they were
11:51
not at that moment and they are not now
11:54
committed to genuine equality for
11:57
Negroes it’s much easier to integrate a
12:00
lunch counter than it is to guarantee an
12:02
annual income for instance to get rid of
12:05
poverty for Negroes and all poor people
12:07
it’s much easier to integrate a bus than
12:11
it is to make genuine integration of
12:13
reality and quality education a reality
12:16
in our schools it’s much easier to
12:18
integrate even a public park than it is
12:22
to get rid of slums and I think we are
12:24
in a new era a new phase of the struggle
12:27
where we have moved from a struggle for
12:30
decency which characterized our struggle
12:32
for 10 or 12 years to a struggle for
12:35
genuine equality and this is where we
12:39
are getting the resistance because there
12:40
was never any intention to go this fall
12:44
people were reacting to Bull Connor and
12:46
to Jim Clarke rather than acting in good
12:50
faith for the realization of genuine
12:53
equality do you think white people in
12:56
this country and I’m talking about non
12:59
segregationist people devoid or thinking
13:02
they’re devoid of racism
13:04
do you have any idea of what they want
13:05
the Negro to be in America well it
13:09
depends on the level that we are talking
13:12
here because I think you have to make a
13:14
distinction between the people who are
13:18
genuinely and absolutely committed in
13:20
the white community on the question of
13:22
of racial equality and I must confess
13:25
that I think they are a very small
13:27
minority I think the vast majority of
13:30
white Americans will go but so far it’s
13:35
a kind of installment plan for equality
13:39
and they always looking for an excuse to
13:44
go but so far why are they looking for
13:47
the excuse what is it about the Negro I
13:49
mean every other group that came as an
13:52
immigrant somehow not easily but somehow
13:55
got around it is it just the fact that
13:58
Negroes are black that’s a part of it
14:01
and growing that grows out of something
14:03
else
14:05
you can’t thing if I anything without de
14:10
personalizing that something if you use
14:13
something as a means to an end at that
14:15
moment you make it a thing and you de
14:17
personal eyes it the fact is that the
14:20
Negro was a slave in this country for
14:23
244 years that act that was a willful
14:29
thing that was done de Negro was brought
14:32
he and changed treated in very human
14:34
fashion and this led to the thing if
14:37
occasion of the Negro so he was not
14:40
looked upon as a person he was not
14:42
looked upon as a human being with the
14:44
same status and worth as other human
14:48
beings and the other thing is that human
14:51
beings cannot continue to do wrong
14:53
without eventually rationalizing that
14:57
wrong so slavery was justified morally
15:00
biologically theoretically if
15:03
scientifically everything else and it
15:06
seems to me that white America must see
15:09
that no other ethnic group has been a
15:12
slave on American soil that is one thing
15:17
other immigrant groups have had to face
15:19
the other thing is that the color became
15:23
a stigma American Society made the
15:25
Negroes color a stigma and that can
15:29
never be overlooked so I think these
15:32
things absolutely necessary the other
15:34
thing is that America freed the slaves
15:36
in nineteen I’m in 1863 through the
15:40
Emancipation Proclamation of Abraham
15:43
Lincoln but gave the slaves no land
15:46
nothing in reality and as a matter of
15:49
fact to get started on at the same time
15:52
America was giving away millions of
15:56
acres of land in the West and the
15:58
Midwest which meant that there was a
16:00
willingness to give the white peasants
16:03
from Europe an economic base and yet it
16:06
refused to give its black peasants from
16:08
Africa who came here involuntarily
16:11
in Chains and had worked free for 244
16:14
years any kind of economic base and so
16:17
emancipation for the Negro was really
16:20
freedom to hung it was freedom to the
16:22
winds and rains of heaven it was freedom
16:25
without food heed a land to cultivate
16:27
and therefore was freedom and famine at
16:29
the same time and when white Americans
16:31
tell the Negro to lift himself by his
16:33
own bootstraps they don’t owe they don’t
16:36
look over the legacy of slavery and
16:39
segregation I believe we ought to do all
16:42
we can and seek to lift ourselves by our
16:45
bootstraps but it’s a cruel jest to say
16:48
to a bootless man that he ought to lift
16:50
himself by his own bootstraps and many
16:52
negroes by the thousands and millions
16:54
have been left bootless as a result of
16:58
all of these years of oppression and as
17:00
a result of a society that deliberately
17:03
made his color of stigma and something
17:06
worthless and degrading apart from
17:09
wanting to live better which all of us
17:11
want to do to raise one’s children in a
17:14
better way to be better
17:17
does the Negro in America know what he
17:19
wants to be I’m convinced that almost
17:25
every Negro in this country other than
17:26
those who have been
17:28
so scarred by the system that they’ve
17:30
become pathological in the process and
17:33
we all have to battle with pathology
17:35
nobody really knows what it means to be
17:38
a negro unless one can really experience
17:41
it and I know we all have to battle with
17:44
this constant drain of a feeling of
17:47
nobody nice but in spite of this I think
17:51
the vast majority of Negroes in this
17:53
country know that they want to be people
17:57
they want to be men they want equality
18:00
period it just boils down to that and we
18:03
haven’t been able to be people we
18:05
haven’t been men because of all of the
18:09
conditions that we’ve lived with and the
18:12
syndrome of deprivation surrounding
18:15
conditions rather than housing in the
18:18
economic area or in schools in the
18:22
vicious credit practices that we face in
18:24
the ghetto and all of the problems of
18:27
closed doors and constant defeats but in
18:31
spite of all this I think we all know
18:33
basically that we want to be men we want
18:37
to be persons judged not on the basis of
18:41
the color of our skin but on the basis
18:43
of the content of our character but you
18:46
know that many young Negroes don’t want
18:48
anything that smacks of the American
18:51
white middle class but do they want
18:54
something that smacks of whatever is the
18:57
black middle class or do they just not
18:59
want bourgeois values which after all
19:01
the basis of this democracy well I think
19:04
we have to see what they are saying I
19:09
would be the first to agree that
19:13
integration does not mean giving up
19:16
everything that has an afro-american
19:21
taint so to speak a background I think
19:25
there are certain unique things within
19:28
any culture and certain cultural
19:30
patterns that when you get to the
19:33
process of amalgamation can really lift
19:37
the whole culture and it seems to me
19:39
that integration at its best
19:42
is the opportunity to participate in the
19:45
beauty of diversity I think the other
19:48
thing that we’ve got to see is that
19:51
these young people are saying that there
19:55
must be a revolution of values in our
19:58
country as Jimmy Baldwin said on one
20:01
occasion what advantage is there in
20:03
being integrated into a burning house
20:05
and I feel that there is a need for a
20:09
revolution of values in America because
20:13
some of the values that presently exists
20:16
are certainly out of line with the
20:19
values and the idealistic structure that
20:24
brought our nation into being
20:26
unfortunately we haven’t been true to
20:27
these own ideals and many of the values
20:29
of so called white middle-class
20:33
scientist society of values that need to
20:37
be reviewed and re-evaluated and in a
20:40
real sense they need to be changed so I
20:42
think the young people in the Negro
20:44
community who were raising these
20:46
questions are raising some very profound
20:48
questions about our total society in
20:51
other words they are saying that there
20:53
must be a restructuring of the
20:56
architecture of our society where values
21:00
are concerned and with this I would
21:02
agree with so in the quest for
21:03
integration I think we can offer our
21:06
whole nation something because there are
21:08
three evils in our nation it’s not only
21:10
racism but economic exploitation of
21:14
poverty would be one and then militarism
21:16
and I think in a sense and in a very
21:19
real sense these three are tied
21:20
inextricably together and we aren’t
21:22
going to get rid of one without getting
21:24
rid of the other we you stood in the
21:26
Lincoln Memorial that day in August 63
21:30
and you said I had a dream did that
21:34
dream envision that you could see a war
21:42
in Asia
21:45
preventing the federal government doing
21:48
for the needless preventing the society
21:50
doing for the Negroes of that what you
21:52
think had to be done no I didn’t
21:55
envision that then I must confess that
21:57
that period was a great period of hope
22:00
for me and I’m sure many others all
22:04
across the nation many of the Negroes
22:07
who had about lost hope saw a solid
22:11
decade of progress in the south and in
22:16
1954 which was I mean six to four
22:20
nineteen six to three nine years after
22:23
the Supreme Court’s decision to be in
22:25
the march on Washington meant a great
22:27
deal it was a high moment a great
22:29
watershed moment but I must confess that
22:33
that dream that I had that day has a
22:35
many points turned into a nightmare now
22:39
I’m not one to lose hope I keep on
22:42
hoping I still have faith in the future
22:45
but I’ve had to analyze many things over
22:49
the last few years and I would say over
22:51
the last few months I’ve gone through a
22:53
lot of souls such an in agonizing
22:56
moments and I’ve come to see that we
22:59
have many more difficult days ahead and
23:02
some of the old optimism was a little
23:06
superficial and now it must be tempered
23:08
with a solid realism and I think the
23:10
realistic fact is that we still have a
23:13
long long way to go and that we are
23:17
involved in a war on Asian soil which if
23:22
not checked and stop and pause in the
23:25
very soul of our nation dr. King even if
23:29
there had not been a war in Asia would
23:32
you still not have had this nightmare
23:34
insofar as the Negro movement for
23:38
equality then touched on two things that
23:40
the white community holds sacred
23:42
their children and the property oh I
23:47
have no doubt that we would have been
23:49
encountered great difficulties great
23:52
problems of resistance if the war had
23:55
not
23:56
been in existence so that I’m not going
23:59
to say that all of our problems will be
24:01
solved at the war in Vietnam has ended
24:03
but I do say that the wall makes it
24:06
infinitely more difficult to deal with
24:09
these problems when a nation becomes
24:13
obsessed with the guns of war it loses
24:19
its social perspective and programs of
24:21
social uplift suffer this is just a fact
24:25
of history so that we do face many more
24:29
difficulties as a result of the war it’s
24:32
much more difficult to really arouse the
24:36
conscience during a time of war notice
24:38
the other day some weeks ago a Negro was
24:40
shot down in Chicago and it was a clear
24:42
case of police brutality that was on
24:46
page 30 of the paper but on page one at
24:49
the top was 708 a Vietcong kill that is
24:53
something about a war like this that
24:56
makes people insensitive it dulls the
24:58
conscience it strengthens the forces of
25:01
reaction and it brings into being
25:04
bitterness and hatred and violence and
25:07
it’s strengthen the military-industrial
25:08
complex of our country
25:10
and it’s made our job much more
25:13
difficult because I think we can go
25:15
along with some programs if we didn’t
25:18
have this war on our hands
25:20
that would cause people to adjust to new
25:25
developments just as they did in the
25:27
south they said they’d never ride the
25:28
bus with us blood would flow in the
25:30
streets they wouldn’t go to school and
25:32
all of these things but when people came
25:34
to see that they had to do it because
25:36
the law insisted they finally adjusted
25:39
and I think white people all over this
25:41
country will adjust once the nation
25:44
makes it clear that in schools and
25:47
housing we’ve got to learn to live
25:50
together as brothers I think the biggest
25:52
problem now is that we got our gains
25:55
over the last 12 years at bargain rates
25:57
so to speak didn’t cost the nation
26:00
anything in fact it helped the economic
26:02
side of the nation to integrate lunch
26:04
counters and public accommodations
26:06
it didn’t cost the nation anything to
26:09
get the right to vote establish and now
26:13
we are confronting issues that cannot be
26:16
solved without costing the nation
26:19
billions of dollars now I think this is
26:21
where we are getting our greatest
26:22
resistance they may put it on many other
26:25
things but we can’t get rid of slums and
26:27
poverty without a cost in donation
26:30
something
MLK Talks ‘New Phase’ Of Civil Rights Struggle, 11 Months Before His Assassination | NBC News
Apr 4, 2018In 1967, at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia, Martin Luther King spoke with NBC News’ Sander Vanocur about the “new phase” of the struggle for “genuine equality.”
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