The Majority Report with Sam Seder - Martin Luther King Jr. Day Compilation 2026

Episode Date: January 19, 2026

Happy Martin Luther King Day! MR's compilation of MLK-related audio returns! Excerpts include: -A previously unheard speech from MLK on reparations, white economic anxiety and guaranteed income -Dr. King's first TV "interview" from the show "The Open Mind – The New Negro" in 1957, hosted by Professor Richard D. Hefner. -"Beyond Vietnam", the speech delivered on April 4, 1967 at Riverside Church in New York City. -MLK's last speech, "Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution", delivered at the National Cathedral, Washington, D.C., on 31 March 1968. -Walter Cronkite reporting King's assassination in 1968. -Nina Simone performing the song "Why?" live, 3 days following MLK's assassination at the Westbury Music Fair on Long Island in April 1968. 

with Sam Cedar. The destiny of America is always safer in the hands of the people than in the conference rooms of any elite. Sam Cedar. They are unanimous in their hate for me, and I welcome their hatred. We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The majority report with Sam Cedar. Have I got a feeling you think you think you? It is Monday, January 19th, 2026.

My name is Sam Cedar. This is the five-time award-winning majority report. We are broadcasting live to tape steps from the industrially ravaged Gowanus Canal in the heartland of America, downtown Brooklyn, USA. On the program today, it is our special. traditional, I mean, in some very narrow circles, famous Martin Luther King Day compilation that we put out more or less every year. Sometimes it changes over the years. It's changed a little bit. But we do this because, you know, people should take the time to both listen to things that Martin Luther King had to say.

Um, our compilation also tries to give a sense of like, sort of the context in which he operated, you know, to the extent that we can. Um, and, uh, sort of some of the feeling of the emotion that was involved, uh, when he passed. And frankly, uh, we also do this because, uh, particularly in an era like this, we need, uh, as many day off we can get. Um, I'm not going to lie. It feels like it's January 19th.

And I think if you were to do a brain scan and some type of bio assessment of everybody in the office, it would look like January 19th, but like 2043 or something. The point being is that, you know, we do this traditionally, but we particularly needed the day off today. We are living through an era that is not unprecedented in this country or a type of era that is not unprecedented in the country in many ways. In the wake of reconstruction, in the late, in the teens, particularly like the early 1920s, something like, what was it, almost maybe 6% of the country, 100 million people. Six million people card-carrying proud members of the KKK. And, you know, we refer to people like Stephen Miller and the ice people as Nazis and Gestapo like, but they're also very much KKK-like. And, I mean, you know.

Robert Paxton's The Anatomy of Fascism calls the clan the sort of proto-Nazis. Exactly. Like the Nazis were also sort of based on parts, you know, they borrowed from. the KKK. So, you know, your era of fascism isn't always going to look like the past era, identical to the past era of fascism. It's a, there's some growth associated with it. And, but that's what we're living in. You've got the Trump administration, reinstituted or re-hired or, I guess, desuspended a guy who was caught, you know, to the Texas Immigration Office, who is caught saying that migrants are all animals,

they all need to be deported, et cetera, et cetera. This happened last week. We are in one of those eras. There are unique parts about it, and that is the massive amount of funding and the sort of like how it's been edified in the context of our government and not institutionalized in a way that is out and proud in a way that I don't think we've seen. You know, Johnson was no great shakes when it came to race relations. But I don't know that we've ever seen something so naked as we're seeing now in terms of the government, you know, funding this stuff.

And in the coming days, Chuck Schumer has the ability, theoretically, to leverage that funding. But we will see. but in the meantime we need our inspiration where we can get it we have um i think it's five different segments one is a speech from m lk that um since the time i've been doing this podcast over the past of 15 16 years now uh this speech was previously unheard of at least in this you know in the you know, since he was killed. It was released and we play it in. It is a speech on reparations.

It's a speech on white economic anxiety and guaranteed income. It shows that the king that we get today very often sanitized and in some ways ghettoized to address. only like racial, specifically racial issues, as opposed to a broader program of economic and social justice. After that, King's first interview, as it were, from the show, The Open Mind, the New Negro, it was entitled. This was in 1957.

It was hosted by Professor Richard D. Hefner. you know obviously some of this is sort of like it was a little offensive these days you'll also notice that like the level of of of of um discourse on television was quite different in those days um then a speech delivered at uh in april of 1967 at riverside church just up the road here in new york city entitled beyond vietnam you obviously would was active in fighting against the U.S. involvement in Vietnam, but also, you know, talking about the implications here. And then his last speech, remaining awake through a great revolution, delivered at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., in March of 1968, March 31st. Then Walter Cronkite reporting King's assassination in 1968. Sort of the 60s version of Tony Docapul, who would both sides it, I'm sure, in that era. And of course, King was biased and didn't both sides it, both sides of the story.

People angry on both sides. There was people angry on both sides. We need to live with each other. You know, how much did, you know, King contribute to, you know, making them do this, that type of thing. Walter Cronkite just to give you a sense of, and, you know, I don't know how many people in this country what the population was in 68, probably around 200 some odd million. I would be surprised if anything less than a third. watched that broadcast live less you know so we're talking tens of millions of people and then finally Nina Simone performing the song why she performed it live three days following MLK's assassination at the

at a Westbury music fair on Long Island that's in April of 1968 um this is a good thing to to sit down with your kids and listen to uh I make my kids listen to listen to it each year. But it's also, it's good to just keep in your mind. You know, too often we, you know, there's a lot of this sort of like you watch a 60 second clip on, on TV about Martin Luther King and that's it. And it just gets a pack. What a Republican, how a Republican interprets his.

Exactly. Dreams. We'll be back alive tomorrow. Hang in there. Stay safe. Go talk to your neighbor. start your network because if they're not there

now they will be soon see tomorrow so we suffer from a comity of the spirit which stands in glaring contrast to our scientific and technological abundance

the problem is my friends that we have learned to fly the air like birds and we have learned to swim the seas like fish and yet we haven't learned to walk the earth like brothers and sisters racial injustice is still the black man's burden and the white man's shame we have to face the fact on racial discrimination complacent certainly we've made some

strides some progress of slavery through the emancipation proclosure signed by Abraham Lincoln. They discovered the dissonance a now Ux nation of Chicago or Harlem. They've never seen it. To examine our subject today, the new Negro. Your host on the open mind

is Richard D. Hettner, author, and historian. I think it's safe to say that a lot of the Negro in America has throughout our history deeply bothered the conscience of each and every one of us who deeply believes in traditional American principles of democracy

and liberty and justice and freedom. I think this may be a little less true today than ever before, and yet for the larger part of American history, I think we ought to realize that the Negro more or less was in slavery. I think the Negro was more likely to be a slave for the greater part of our history than not. And quite naturally, the attitude of the Negro towards the White, of the White towards the Negro,

and of the Negro towards himself, has been conditioned and tempered and molded in very large part by the fact of the long history of slavery. Besides, I think it's important to remember that slavery as an institution put a premium not upon self-assertiveness and the understanding of one's own human dignity, but upon acquiescence by the Negroeslave. And I think that one can fairly say

that the acquiescence submissive Negroeslave was generally, well, to put it very bluntly, generally safer than the self-assertive Negro, who is conscious of his own human dignity and of the democratic philosophy that is the American heritage. As a matter of fact, I think we could admit that the whole myth

that we have built up about the Old South in which slavery existed, has been a myth in which we see the picture of the happy, acquiescence slave. The Negro is a slave, the Negro who is acquiescence, acquiescent is happy, the Negro who is happy is, by definition,

acquiescence. Negroes are happy because they accept their lot. And think of the movies and the books and the plays and the novels that we read and see about slavery in the Old South. We see the Negro who is acquiescent as happy. The Negro slave who is self-assertive, the looks for his own rights is considered a troublemaker. Even when slavery was brought to an end by the Civil War, it was said that acquiescence and acceptance by the Negro of his lot, well, these were the greater part of wisdom. It was said that the Negro could gain more by submerging his own sense of dignity than by asserting it.

Now, that the Negro would so antagonize others by demanding his own rights that it was better for him to bide his time at each step along the way, wait for something to be given to him rather than demanded as of his own right. Well, men of goodwill, I think both Negro and White cannot deny that to some extent there is validity. But the degree of that extent. To what extent this is true is the question that we must face today. In recent years, they've grown up leaders amongst both Negroes and whites who feel that a just and a wise self-assertiveness is necessary on the part of the Negro.

There has been merging in our own times a new Negro, a Negro who is aware of his own dignity and know the American tradition of liberty and justice. We want to talk today about that new Negro, about who he is. is and what he is. And our guests are quite expert in the subject. My first guest is the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. of Montgomery, Alabama. Reverend King has been very much involved in the demand by the new Negro for his rights in the Negro bus boycott in Montgomery and in many other instances. My second guest is a jurist. Judge Jay Whedey's Waring, formerly federal judge in South Carolina, the gentleman whose decisions in the area of segregation paved the way in a very

real sense for what became in 1954 the Supreme Court's decision that segregation in our public schools is unconstitutional. The gentleman, suppose we begin this discussion by letting me, well, first ask you, Dr. King, in your estimation what and who is this new Negro? I think I could best answer that question by saying first that the new Negro is a person with a new sense of dignity and destiny, with a new self-respect. Along with that, is this like a fear which once characterized the Negro, this willingness to stand up courageous, for what he feels is just and what he feels he deserves on the basis of the laws of the land. I think also included would be this self-assertive attitude that you just mention,

and all of these factors come together to make what seems to me to be the new Negro. I think also I would like to mention this growing honesty. which characterizes the Negro today. There was a time that the Negro used duplicity, a deception, to rather as a survival technique. Although he didn't particularly like conditions, he said he liked them because he felt that the boss wanted to hear that. But now from the house tops, from the kitchen, from the classrooms,

and from the pulpit. The Negro says in no uncertain terms that he doesn't like the way he's being treated. So at long last, the Negro is telling the truth. And I think this is also one of the basic characteristics of the new Negro. Judge Waring, does this sound like an adequate description of the Negro whom you know today?

Honest Heffner, I think it's excellent. It's an excellent summary. My observation of the Negro, and I'm speaking in generalities, of course, has been that up to recently he's been a half-man or a part-man. And now at last he's waking up to the fact that he's a whole man, that he's an American citizen, and that he is entitled to rights no more, no less, than just the ordinary run of the middle of America. citizen. He's never had that before. He hasn't been allowed to have it. He's been under political domination. He's been under stress. He's been under economic deprivations. He's been a servant, formerly a slave. And now suddenly, I see the idea has come to him that he's really, truly,

a man that can stand upon his own hind legs and tell the truth and say, I want not any special privilege. I don't want any special handout. I don't want to be given anything because the giving idea is all wrong. But I want a chance to become a full man and do my part, be it little or be it big, in the community of our country.

Doesn't this raise the question of tactics? though. You say, you use the word honesty. You feel that honesty is important here too. But as a matter of securing for the Negro his rights, do you feel that this aggressiveness, this self-assertiveness, will get him more in the long run than going along with contemporary opinion and biting his time, taking step by step as he goes? I think it's better to be aggressive at this point. It seems to me that it is both historically and sociologically true that privileged classes do not give up their privileges voluntarily

and they do not give them up without strong resistance and all of the gains that have been made that we have received in the area of civil rights have come about because the Negro stood up courageously for these rights and he was willing to aggressively press on. So I would think that it would be much better in the long run to stand up and be aggressive

with understanding goodwill and with a sense of discipline, yet these things should not be substitutes for pressing on. And with this aggressive attitude, I believe that we will bring the gains or other civil rights into being, much sooner than we were just standing idly by, waiting for these things to be given voluntarily. What about the ill will that's generated by the aggressiveness? Certainly your own experience in Montgomery.

You've been the target of bomb attacks. We've been the target of verbal and other kinds of violence. About the ill will that is generated by aggressiveness? Well, I think that is a necessary phase of the transition. Whenever oppressed people stand up for their rights and rise up against the oppressor, so to speak, the initial response of the oppressor is bitterness. That's true in most cases, I think. And that is what we are now experiencing in individuals. the South is this initial response of bitterness which I hope will be transformed into a more

brotherly attitude we hope that the end will be redemption and reconciliation rather than division but this it seems to me is a necessary phase of the transition from the old order of segregation and discrimination to the new order of freedom and justice And this should not last forever. It's just something that's natural right now. And as soon as we pass out of the shock period into the more creative period of adjustment, I think that bitterness and ill will will pass away.

This sounds in a sense to be, if I may say this, in a sense to be a denial of the judicial process, saying we will work, the judicial process doesn't allow for the violent activity, the aggressiveness. And it means, in a sense, stepping outside, not outside the law, but outside that slow step-by-step process that has been going on in the courts. Do you think, for instance, that the courts would have been moved to action that would have taken the place of your boycott in Montgomery had you not acted?

Do you think there could be a substitute for that kind of action? I think not. I think it was necessary to do it. I think it was, the time was right, and I don't think that could have been a substitute at that particular time. Do you think that the judicial structure... Mr. Huffler, I want to say something on that. I think undoubtedly the action that Mr. King and his friends took in Montgomery

was fine, necessary, and effective. Remember, the courts don't go out as an executive branch of the government should and do things for you. The court declares what your rights are. And the court says to you, you're an American citizen. Now, of course, if you are scared and hide in the closet and don't exercise the rights of American citizens, the court can't send around and say you've got to do it. The courts have declared the rights, and I think that the Supreme Court decision of May 17, 1954,

was the greatest thing that's happened in this country in many, many decades. And I think that it declared, it declared in effect that segregation, legal segregation, segregation by law is illegal and not a part of the American system. And all the people, the big people and the little people throughout this land, have awakened to the fact that they have a right. Now remember this, it's not a matter of giving. giving rights. Rights aren't given.

The right to vote isn't given to you. It's yours, and it belongs to you. And the Negro people are beginning to realize that they are ordinary human beings and American citizens, and they have these rights. And the courts have told them soon. Now, it's up to them to move out. They haven't got to go out with guns and bombs and beannis,

but they've got to go out with determination and courage and steadfastness, like this man, Luther King, has done, and say, here am I, and I stand here on my rights. And it's good at the veil, it's got to be veal, and it can't be beaten if we have enough of them who are steadfast enough. When they begin to compromise and sell out on principle, then they're gone. That's a matter of strategy is to keep a complete solid front. There may be tactics as to whether you want to make bus cases first or school cases or railroad cases or things of that kind. Those are minor details, but the strategy is you must never surrender any of the rights of gain and you must look forward to the attainment of full equality.

Well, I know that's your strategy. What about future tactics? Where do you go from here? Well, that's a pretty difficult question to answer at this point, since in Montgomery we have not worked out any future plans, that is, in any chronological order. We are suddenly committed to work and press on until segregation is non-existent in Montgomery and all over the south. We are committed to fully equality and doing away with injustice wherever we find it. But as to the next move, I don't have the answer for that because we have not worked that out at this point. We, I guess, have been so involved in the bus situation until we have not had the real time to sit down and think about the next move.

But in a general sense, we are committed to achieving first-class citizenship in every area of life in Montgomery and throughout the southern community. Well, to what extent, this is a question that has occurred to me, I wanted to what extent the judicial decision of May 1954 stimulated a greater feeling of self-respect amongst Negroes and intensified in them a willingness to assert their demands? I think it had a tremendous impact and influence on the Negro and bringing about this new self-respect. I think it certainly is one of the major factors, not the only. I think several other forces and historical circumstances must be brought into the picture,

the fact that circumstances made it necessary for the Negro to travel more so that his rural plantation background was gradually supplanted by a more urban industrial life. Illiteracy was gradually passing away in with the growth of the cultural life of the Negro. That brought about new self-respect and economic growth and also the tremendous impact of the world situation with people all over the world seeking freedom from colonial powers and imperialism, these things all came together. And then with the decision of May 17, 1954, we gained the culminating point.

That, it seems to me, was the final point which came to bring all of these things together. And that gave this new Negro a new self-respect. which we see all over the south and all over the nation today. Well, if this was a final point, in a sense, a culminating point, why do you ask now for another act on a national level, an act, let's say, on the part of the president, for a speech in the south? Why is this so important? Hasn't enough steps been made up to this point to enable you to carry the ball from here on?

Well, I think it's necessary for all of the forces possible to be working to implement and enforce the decisions that are handed down by the courts. And so often in the area of civil rights, it seems that the judicial branch of the government is fighting the battle alone. And we feel that the executive and legislative branches of the government have a basic responsibility. And at points, these branches have been all too silent and all too stagnant in their moves to implement and enforce the decisions. With the popularity of the president and his tremendous power and influence, just a word from him could do a great deal to ease the situation, calm emotions, and give southern white liberals something to stand on if it is nothing but something to quote. The southern white liberal stands in a pretty difficult position

because he does not have anywhere to turn for emotional security, is similar to what hate groups. I mean the things that other groups have to turn to, the hate organizations, so to speak. But with a word from the President of the United States with his power and influence, it would give a little more courage and backbone to the white liberals in the South

who are willing to be allies in the struggle with the Negro for first-class citizenship. To what extent, let me ask you this question, Judge Waring. Are white southerners willing to be allies in the Battle of the New Negro? That's a very hard question to answer. There are very, very few that are willing to come out in the open and say so. There are a great many, in my opinion, who would be glad if they are made to do it. I think that there are lots of people

I sometimes use the expression that the little boy with a dirty face won't go and wash it but if you grab him by the neck and scrubber's face he then boasts he's got the cleanest face and the gang and I think there are many of the people in the self and I saw many of them

and my experience was that officially I was quite heated and condemned because I had I'd expressed my views to what I thought the laws of land were. And I got a lot of telephone messages and anonymous letters

saying they agreed with me, but they couldn't tell me why or how or who they were. And those people want to be freed. But the overall picture of the politicians, no politician in itself

is good as they have come out and take this position of his own volition. But if the President of the United States tells himself, he's going to fall in line. And if we can get the top executive people to take action, we'll get somewhere. Remember this now. The Supreme Court has laid down the law and said what's constitutionally. Now, that's important.

That's most important. It's the biggest thing that's ever happened. But it's got to be activated. It's got to be worked out. And the executive department has got to... Nepali it and work it and enforce it. And the legislative department should give the executive department more power to work and enforce these laws. You feel that action then you do too.

Feel that action has to be taken on this level. Oh, yes, very definitely. Let me ask again, though, about the feelings of Southern whites. How do you evaluate? Have you had to give a progress report? How would you evaluate the battle you fought over this past year? terms of southern feelings, terms of northern white feelings too. Well, I think we have seen,

we've been able to see mixed emotions at this point. For instance, from a national point of view, looking all over the nation, we have had tremendous response and real genuine sympathy from many, many white persons, and naturally we've had the... sympathy of migraves, but many, many white persons of goodwill all over the nation has given moral support and a great deal of encouragement, and that has been very encouraging to us in the

struggle. Now, in the south, I guess the lines are more closely drawn. You find, on the one hand, a group more determined now than ever before because it is a last-ditch struggle. to do anything, even if it means using violence, to block all of the intentions and the desires of the Negroes to achieve first-class citizenship. But there are also others who have expressed sympathy. There are white southerners, even in Montgomery, who have been quite sympathetic.

As Judge Waring just said, sometimes these people, because of fear, refused to say anything about it. They stand back because of fear of economic, social, and political reprisals, but there is a silent sympathy. We have seen a great deal of that in Montgomery. So that it's two sides, this side where you get the negative response,

the other side where you have the positive response, and I have seen both. And I think as time goes on, the negative side will get smaller and smaller. and those who are willing to be open-minded and accept the trends of the ages will grow into a majority group other than a minority. We don't feel that there'll be any violent reaction than over a long-range point of view to the progress that has been made. No, I don't.

I think the violence will be temporary. Maybe I don't say it will end tomorrow. We will go through some more for the next few months. So, but I think once we are always, we are over the shock period. That shock will be absorbed and southerners will come to the point of seeing that the best thing to do is to sit down

and work out these problems and do it in a very Christian spirit. I think the violence that we are undergoing now is indicative of the fact that the die-hearts realize that they are on their standing at the dying, point, that is the system is at its dying point, and that this is a last way to try to hold on

to the old order. Mr. Tavna, all great reforms have periods of trouble. Gandhi was murdered. Jesus was crucified, and you find that most great reforms have certain periods of stress and distress. Now, just one last point I want to make when we speak of the law, it's terribly important that we bring these cases and have a declaration of law

and action by Congress and action by the executive. Because now, up to the time of the Supreme Court's decision, segregation was legal. And segregation, even people of goodwill in the South, said that the law says we have to keep these people settled. For instance, it has been illegal for me to ride in a bus with Mr. King here. Now, I don't want a law that says I've got to ride with him or he's got to ride with me, but I don't want a law that says I can't sit in the seat with him.

And we've broken that, and that's an enormous advance. And we've got to do it on every stage right down the line. The Congress of the United States, I believe, I've been very cynical and skeptical about it. that I'm beginning to believe they're going to do a little something this time. And if they do a little something, they haven't done anything in 75 years. If they do a little something this time, they'll do a little more next year, and the President of the United States and the officials in the administration will begin to see that if Congress is moving, it's good politics to move,

and that will have a great motivating profit on the national. national picture. I think we are going forward, we are going forward inexorably. We've got to win. That's a question whether we could have been in the short time or a long time. I'm for the short term. How do you project this into the immediate future? Well, when I think of the question of progress in the area of race relations, I prefer to be realistic, and when I say that, I mean I try to look at it, not from the, pessimistic point of view or the optimistic but rather from the realistic point of view. I think we've come a long, long way, but we have a long, long way to go.

But it seems to me that if we will press on with determination, moral, courage, and yet wise restraint and calm reasonableness, in a few years we will reach the goal. I have a great deal of faith and the future and the outcome. I am not despairing. And I'm sure as long as we have men like you, we can all have. Thank you so much. Mr. Chairman King, Judge Waring. Next week we'll give a summary report of civil rights over the past year. Gentlemen, I think that it went very, very nice.

WRCA has just presented the open month. Seems that will be discussed tonight by turning out in such large number. I also want to say that I consider it a great honor to share this program. Dr. Bennett, Dr. Cominger, and Rabbi Heschel, some of the distinguished leaders and personalities of our nation. And of course, it's always good to come back to Riverside, church. Over the last eight, I've had the privilege of preaching here almost every year in that period to come to this great church and this great quote. I come to this magnificent house of worship tonight because my conscience leaves me no other choice.

This meeting because I'm in deepest agreement with the aims and work of the organization which has brought us together, clergy and lay and concerned about Vietnam. Now, the recent statements of your executive committee are the sentiments of my own part, and I found my meaning line. And silence is betrayed. That time has the truth of these words is beyond, but the mission to which they call us is the most difficult one. even when pressed by the demands of inner truth easily assumed the task of opposing their government's policy especially in time of war nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty

against all that has been one's own bosom and in the surrounding world is at hand the same as perplexing as they often do in the case of this dreadful conflict, we are always on the verge of... But we must... Some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling is often a vocation of agony. But we must speak.

We must speak with all... ...to our limited vision. But we must speak. and we must in our nation's history that a significant number of its religious leaders have chosen to move

beyond the prophesying of smooth patriotism to the high grounds of a firm descent based upon the mandates of conscience and the reading of history. Perhaps a new spirit is rising among us.

If it is, let us trace its movements and pray that our own inner being may be sensitive to its guidance, for we are deeply in need of a new wave beyond the darkness that seems so close around. Over the past two years, as I have moved to break the betrayal of speak from the burnings of my own as I have come to the destruction of Vietnam. Many quick persons have questioned me about the wisdom of my path. At the heart of their concerns, the square as far as peace and civil rights don't mix, they say.

Aren't you hurting the cause of your people, they ask? And when I hear them, such questions mean that the inquiries have not really known me, my commitment or my call. Indeed, their questions suggest that they do not know the world, In the light of its understanding, I deem it of signal and importance to try to state clearly, and I trust precisely why I believe that the path from Dexter Avenue Baptist Church,

the church in Montgomery, Alabama, where I began my pastor, leads clearly to this sanctuary tonight. I come to this platform tonight to make a passionate plea to my belief. This speech is not addressed to Hanoi or to the National Liberation Front. It is not addressed to China or to Russia. Nor is it an attempt to overlook the ambiguity of the total situation and the need for a collective solution to the tragedy of Vietnam. While they both may have be suspicious of the good faith in the United States, life and history

is eloquent testimony to the fact that conflicts are never resolved without trustful give and take on both sides tonight however I wish not to speak with Hanoi but rather to

since I'm a creature by calling I suppose it is not surprising that I have is about set between the war and war it seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor through the poverty program. There were experiments, hopes, new beginning.

Then came the builder. And I watched this program, broken and illisory, as if it was some idle and political plaything of a society gone mad. I knew that America was the necessary fund its poor, so long as the adventures like Vietnam continue to draw men and skills and money. like some demand destructive suction too.

So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such. Perhaps a more tragic recognition of reality took place and it became clear to make the hopes of the poor at home. It was sending their sons and their brothers to fight and to die in extraordinary a population

we were taking the black young men for society and sending East Asia which they had not found in South West Georgia and East Pau.

So we have been repeatedly faced with the curled and they kill and moved to seek them together in the same schools. So we watched

them in brutal solid burning the huts of the poor village, but we realize that they were hardly I cannot be silent in the face of such cruel manipulation of the poor. My third reason moves to an even deeper level of awareness, before it grows out of my experience in the ghettos of the north, especially in the last three summers. As I have walked among the district,

rejected and angry young men. I have told that social change meaningfully through not. But they ask, what about Vietnam? They ask doses of violence to solve its problem to bring about the changes it wanted.

Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed and together without having first spoken clearly to the greatest prevail of violence in the world today, my own government. For the sake of those boys,

for the sake of this government, for the sake of the hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent. For those who ask the question of you a civil rights leader, and thereby mean to exclude from the movement of peace. I have this further answer.

In 1957, when a group of us formed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, we chose as our motto to save the soul of America. We could not limit our vision to certain rights for black people, but instead affirmed

the conviction that America would never be free, a save from itself, until the descendants of its slaves loose completely from the shackles they still wear. In a way, we were agreeing with Langston Jews, that black box who had ridden early, now it should be incandescently clear that no one who has any concern for the integrity in life of America today can ignore the if America's soul becomes totally plausible. Part of the autopsy must read Vietnam.

It can never be saved so long as it destroys people's hopes of men the world over. So it is that those of us who are yet determined that American descent, working for the health, as if the weight of such a commitment to the life and health of America, another burden of responsibility was placed upon me in 1954. And I cannot forget that the Nobel Peace Prize was a mission to work hard. to work hard, but even if it were not present to the ministry of Jesus Christ. To me, the relationship of this ministry to the making of peace is so obvious that I sometimes marvel at those who ask me why I'm speaking against me.

Could it be that they do not know that the good news was meant for all men, for communism, capitalist, for that children and ours for black and black. for white, for revolutionary and conservative. And they have forgotten that my ministry is in obedience to the one who loved his enemy so fully that he died for them. What then can I say to the be it come, to Castro, to Mao, as a faithful minister of this one, and I threatened them with death,

must I not share with them my life? finally as I tried to explain to you and for myself the role that leads from Montgomery to this place I would have offered all if I simply said that I must be true to my conviction that I share with all men the calling to be a son of the living god beyond the calling of race a nation a free is this vocation of sonship and brotherhood because I believe that the father is deeply concerned, especially for his suffering and helpless and outcast children,

I come tonight to speak for them. This, I believe, to be the privilege and the burden of all of us who deem our agencies and loyalties, which are broader and deeper than nationalism, and which go beyond our nation's self-defined goals and positions for those that can make these humans any less our brother. And as I, and such within myself, a ways to understand and respond in compassion. My mind, I speak now not of the soldiers of each side, not of the ideologies of the liberation front,

not of the haunting inside of gone, but simply of the people who have. been living under the curse of war for almost three continuous decades now I think of them too because it is clear to me that there will be no meaningful solution there until some attempt is made to know them and hear that broken crime they must see Americans as strange liberates these people to claim their own independence in 1954 In 1945, brother, after a combined French and Japanese occupation, and before the Communist Revolution in China, they were led by Ho Chi men. Even though they quoted the American Declaration of Independence in their own documented freedom, we refused to recognize them. instead we decided to support France in its re-conquest of a farm parliament.

Our government felt in that the Vietnamese people were not ready for independents. We again fell victim to the deadly Western Arabs that has poisoned the international atmosphere for so long. With that tragic decision, we rejected a revolutionary government seeking self-determination. And a government that had been established not by China, from whom the Vietnamese have no great love, but by clearly indigenous forces that included some countries. For the peasants, this new government meant real land reform, one of the most important needs in their lives. For nine years following 1945, for nine years we vigorously supported the French, and their abortive effort to recolonize Vietnam.

Before the end of the war, we were meeting 80% of the French war costs. Even before the French were defeated at the Indian food, they began to despair of their reckless action, but we did not. We encouraged them with our huge financial and military supplies to continue the war even after they had moved. would be paying off attempt at the colonization. After the French were defeated,

it looked as if independence and land reform would come again through the Geneva Agreement. Then stared back in the United States determined that whole should not unify. The peasants

watched the vicious modern dictates. Our chosen man, premed the end. The peasants watched and cringed as DM Ruthness and rooted out all opposition. For did their

excursionist La discuss reunification with the north. Peasants watched as all of this was presided over by United States entrance, then by

increasing numbers of United States troops who came to have quell the insurgency that DM's methods had aroused. The M. was overthrown. they may have been happy, but the long line, especially, the only, as we increased our true

commitments in support of governments which were singularly corrupt in F and without popular support, all the while the people were at our legalities and received irregular promises of peace and democracy and land reform. Now they languish under our bombs and consider us not that, fellow being released the real enemy. They move sadly in the concentration camps where minimal social needs are around in there. They know be destroyed by all the bombs. So they go primarily women and children in the age. They watch as we poison their water. As we kill a million acres of their crops, they must weep as the bulldozer destroy the precious trees. They wandered into the hospitals with at least 20 casualties

from American firepower for one Vietan inflicted injury. So far we may have killed a million of them, mostly children. They wander into the towns and see thousands of the children, homeless, without clothes, running the packs on the streets like animals. They see the children degraded by our soldiers as they beg for food. They see the children selling their sisters to our soldiers, soliciting for their mothers. What do the presidents think if we allow ourselves with the landlords and as we refuse to put any action into our many words

concerning land reform? What do they think as we test out our latest weapons on them, just as the Germans tested out new medicine and new torches in the concentration camps of Europe, where the roots of the independent Vietnam claimed to be built. Is it among these borescence one? We have destroyed their two most cherished institutions, the family and the village. We have destroyed their land and their crops. We have cooperated in Christians.

in the oppression of the nation's only non-communist revolutionary political force, the unified Buddhist church. We have supported the enemies of the peasants of Saigon. We have corrupted their women, children, kill their men. Now that is little left to be able. Soon the only solid, solid physical foundations remaining will be found that our military base. and in the concrete of the concentration camps we call 45 hamlets.

The peasants may well wonder if we can for such thoughts, speak for them, and raise the questions they cannot raise. These two are brothers. Perhaps a more difficult, but no less necessary task, is to speak to those who have been designated as our enemies. What are the National Liberation Front? Liberation Front, that strangely anonymous group we call the DC of Communists. What must they think of the United States of America?

And they realize an crude give DM which helped to bring them into being as a resistance group in the South. What did they think of our condoning the violence, which led to their own taking up the law? how can they believe in our integrity when now we speak of aggression from the north as if there were nothing more essential to the war how can they trust us and charge them with violence every new weapon of death into their land surely we must understand their feelings

even if we do not condone their actions surely we must see that the men we support it press them to their violence surely we must see that our own computerized plans and destruction simply dwarfed their greatest tax. How do they judge us when our officials know that their membership is less than 25% communist and yet insist on giving them the blanket name? What must they be thinking when they know that we are aware of major sections of Vietnam and yet we appear ready to allow national elections in which this highly organized political parallel government will not have a harm.

They ask he can speak of free elections when the Saigon press is censored and controlled by the military hunter. And they're surely right to wonder what kind of new government we plan to help spawn without them. the only party in real touch with the peasants. They question our political goals and they deny the reality of a peace settlement from which they will be excluded. Their questions are frighteningly relevant. Is our nation planning to build on political myth again

and then show it up from the power of new violence? Here there is a true meaning and value of compassion and non-violence when it helps us to see the enemy's point of view, to hear his questions, to know his assessment of ourselves. For from his view, we may indeed see the basic weaknesses of our own condition. If we are mature,

we may learn and grow in profit from the wisdom of the brothers who are called the opposition, so too with Hanoi, in the north, but understandable mistrust to speak for them is to explain this lack of confidence in Western words

and especially their mistrust of American intentions now. In Hanoi are the men who led the nation to independence against the Japanese and the French, the men who sought membership in the French Commonwealth

and were betrayed by the weakness of Paris and the willfulness of the colonial arms, It was a second struggle against French domination at tremendous cost. Then were persuaded to give up the land they controlled between the 13th and 17th parallel as a temporary measure at Geneva. After 1954, they watched us from spy with DM to prevent elections which could have still have brought Ho Chi men to power over to United Vietnam.

They realized they had been betrayed. again. And we ask why they do not need to negotiate, these things must be remembered. Also, in support of the DM regime, to have been the initial military breaches of the Geneva agreements concerning foreign troops. They remind us that they did not begin to send troops in large numbers and even supplies into the South, until the American forces had moved into the tens of China. And nor remembers how our leaders refused to tell us the truth about the earlier North Vietnamese overtures for peace, how the president claimed that not existed when they had clearly

been made. Fortune men has watched as America has spoken to peace and built up its forces. And now he has surely heard the increasing international rumors. of American plans for an invasion of the North. He knows of bombing and shelling and mining we are doing a part of traditional pre-invasion strategy. Perhaps only his sense of humor and of irony can save him

when he hears the most powerful nation of the world speaking of aggression as it drops thousands of bombs on a poor, weak nation more than 800, or other 8,000 miles away from his shoulder. At this point I should make it clear that while I have tried in these last few minutes to give a voice to the voiceless in Vietnam to understand to argue that what we are submitting them to in Vietnam

is not simply the brutalizing process that goes on and seeks to destroy we add in cynicism to the process of death for they must know after the short period there that none of the things we claim to be fighting for are really involved for a lot to send them into a struggle of sophisticated, and to secure while we must cease. We must stop now.

I speak as a child of the suffering. I speak for those whose land is, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subversed. I speak for the poor of America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes and homes and death. I speak as a citizen of the world for the world as it stands aghast

at the path we have taken. I speak as one who loves America through the leaders of our own nation. The great initiative in this war is ours. The initiative to stop it must be ours. This is the message

of the great Buddhist leaders of Vietnam. Recently one of them wrote these words and I quote, each day the war goes on the hatred increases and the heart

to be in the meets and the hearts of those of humanitarian instinct. The Americans are forcing even their friends into becoming their enemies.

It is curious that the Americans who calculate so carefully on the possibilities of military victory do not realize that in the process they incurring deep psychological and political defeat. The image of America will never again be the image of revolution, freedom and democracy, but the image of violence and militarism, unquote, we continue, there will be no doubt in my mind, and in the mind of the world

that we have no honorable intentions into Vietnam. We do not stop our war against the people of Vietnam immediately. The world would be left with no other alternative than to see this as some horrible, clumsy and deadly game we have decided to play. The world now demands a maturity of America that we may not be able to achieve.

It demands that we admit that we have been wrong from the beginning of our attention in Vietnam, that we have been detrimental to the life of the Vietnamese people. Situation is one in which we must be ready to turn sharply from our present ways. In order to atone for our sins, and errors in Vietnam, we should take the initiative in bringing a halt to this tragic war.

I would like to suggest five hundred free things that our government should begin the long and difficult process of extricating ourselves from this nightmarish conflict. Number one, end all bombing in North and South Vietnam. Number two, declare a unilateral ceasefire in the hope that such action

will create the atmosphere for negotiations. Three, take immediate steps to prevent other battlegrounds in Southeast Asia by curtailing our military builder in Thailand and our interference in Laos. Four, realistically accept the fact that the National Liberation Front has substantial support in South Vietnam and must thereby play a role in any meaningful negotiations and any future Vietnam government. Five set a date that we will remove all foreign troops from Vietnam in accordance with the

1954 Geneva Agreement. Then we must make what reparation. We must provide the nation, making it available in this country if necessary. Have a continuing to disengage itself from a disgraceful commitment. We must continue to raise our voices. If our nation persists in its perverse ways in Vietnam, none. We must be prepared to match actions with words by seeking out every created method of protest possible. As we counsel young men concerning military service, we must clarify and challenge them

of conscientious objection. It is to say that this is a path, and I recommend it to all as conscience is objective, is to survive its own following. Every man of human, he may, convictions must decide on the protest that best suits his convictions but we must all throw something and sending us all off on what in some circles has become a popular crusade against the war in Vietnam I say we must enter that struggle but I was an even more disturbed the war is but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit. We ignore

for the next generation. They will be concerned about Thailand and Cambodia. They will be concerned about Mozambique and South. We will be marching for these in a dozen other names and attending rallies without end.

Unless that is a significant and profound change in American life and policy as sons of the living God. In 1950s, 27, extensive American official overseas said that it seemed to him that our nation was on the wrong side of the world during the past King. He emerged, which has now justified the presence of U.S. military advisors in Venezuela. This need to maintain social stability for our investment accounts for the counter-revolutionary action of American forces in Guatemala.

It tells why American helicopters are being used against guerrillas in Cambodia, and why American napalm and green beret forces have already been active against rebels in Peru. It is with such activity in mind that the words of the late John F. Kennedy come back to haunt us. Five years ago, he said, those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution in everything. Increasingly, by... This is a role our nation has taken. A peaceful revolution impossible by refusing to give up the privileges

and the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investments. I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift, from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society

when machines and computers, profit motives, and property rights are considered more important than people. The giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered. A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question

the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand, we are called to play the Good Samaritan on Lysh Roadside. That will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on Lice Highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar.

It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. As we'll soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast with indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West, invest in huge sums of money in Asia, Africa and South America, only to take the profits out. No concern for the social's betterment of the country. and say this is not just. It will look at our lives with the land of genocide of South Americans say,

this is not just. Western Arabs are feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just. True revolution of values will lay hand on the world order and say of war. This way of settling differences is not just. business of burning human beings with napal, filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of people's normal, singing men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged cannot be reconciled

with wisdom, justice, and love, a nation that continues year after year to see. spend more money on military expense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death. There's nothing except a tragic death wish. To prevent us from the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war. There is nothing to keep us from molding a calcitrant status quo with bruised hands until we have fashioned it into a brotherhood. This kind of positive revolution of values is our best defense against communism. Communism will never be defeated by the use of atomic bombs of nuclear weapons.

Let us not join those who shall war and through their misguided passions, urge the United States to relinquish its participation in the United Nations. These are days which demand wise restraint and calm, reason, We must not engage in a negative anti-communism, but rather in a positive thrust for democracy. Communism is to take offensive action in behalf of justice. We must, with positive action, seek to remove those conditions of poverty and security and injustice, which are the fertile soil in which the seed of communism grows and develops. these are revolutionary time

all over the globe men are revolting against old systems of exploitation and oppression and out of the wounds of the frail world new systems of justice and equality of being born shirtless and bathed people of the land arising up as never before

people who've said in darkness have seen a great light We in the West must support these revolutions. It is a sad fact that because of comfort complacency, a morbid fear of communism, and our proneness to adjust to injustice, the Western nations that initiated so much of the revolutionary spirit of the modern world, have now become the arch anti-revolutionaries. This has driven many to feel that only Marxism

has a revolutionary spirit. Therefore, communism is a judgment against our failure to make democracy real and follow through on the revolutions that we initiate. Our own hope today lies in our ability to recapture the evolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility

of poverty, racism, and militarism. this powerful commitment we shall bold to challenge the status quo and unjust mores thereby speak the day when every valley shall be exalted and every mountain and heels shall be made low yes crooked shall be made straight

and the rough place is plain genuine revolution of values means in the final analysis that our lawyers must become ecumenical or other than section every nation must now develop an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in their individual societies. This called for a worldwide fellowship that lifts neighborly concerned beyond one's tribe, race, class, and nation is in reality of call an unconditional love for all men. This oft-mis interpreted concepts so readily dismissed by the niches of the world as a weak and cowardly

has now become an absolute necessity for the survival of man. When I speak of love, I'm not speaking of some sentimental and weak response. I'm not speaking of that force which is just emotional boss. I'm speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as a the supreme unifying principle of life, love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality. This Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Buddhist belief about ultimate reality. It's beautifully summed up in the first epistle of St. John. Let us love one another. Yes.

The love is God. Yes. And everyone that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. he that loveeth not Lord not God for God is love if we love one another God dwell in us and his love is

perfected in us let us hope that this spirit will become the order of the day we can no longer afford to worship the God of hate about it the history of nature history is cluttered with the records

of nations and individuals that pursues his self-defeating path of hate as Arnold Honda says, love is the ultimate force that makes for the saving choice of life and good against the damned choice of death and evil. Therefore, the first hope in our inventory must be the hope that love is going to have the last word, unquote. With the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today, we are confronted with the fierce, urgency of now.

In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, that is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing

bare, naked, and dejective with a lost opportunity. The tithing... We may cry out desperately for time to pause and rushes on over the bleached bones and jumble residues of numerous civilizations, written the pathetic words too late.

That is an invisible book of life that faithfully records our vigilance or our neglect. Omar Kayam's right to move in finger rights and having written moves on. We still have a choice today. Nonviolent for existence, a violent for annihilation, indecision to action.

We must find new ways to speak for peace and Vietnam and justice throughout the developing world, a world that borders on our door and shameful corridors of time, deserved for those who possess tolerant, might without more than strength without sight. Now let us begin. Now let us for a new world. This is the calling of the sons of God, and our brothers wait for our brothers wait for our children eagerly for our response. Shall we say the arms

are too great? Shall we tell them the struggle is too hard? Will our message that the forces of American life militate against their rival as poor men and we send our

deepest regrets? Will there be another message of long hope, of solidarity with their yearns, of commitment to their cause, whatever the cost, The choice is ours. Though we might prefer it other,

we must choose in this crucial moment of human history. That noble bard of yesterday, James Russell Lord elephant, mischief, once to every man and nation comes a moment to decide in the strife of truth and falsehood for the good or evil side, some great cause, God's new Messiah, often eats the gloom of light And the choice goes by forever Twix that darkness

Though the cause of evil prosper Yet this truth alone is strong Though her fortune be the scaffold And upon the throne be wrong Yet that scatheal swayes the future Behind the them unknown standeth God within the shadow keeping watch above his own. We will only make the right choice

to transform this pending cosmic elegy into a creative storm of peace. Right choice. In discourse of our world into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood, we will but make the right choice. We will be able to speed up the day all over America and all over the world

when justice will roll and righteousness like a mighty stream. Delighted I am to be here this morning. The opportunity of standing in this very great and significant pulpit. It is always a rich and rewarding experience to take a brief break from our day-to-day demands in the struggle for freedom and human dignity. and discuss the issues involved in that struggle with concerned friends of goodwill all over our nation. Certainment is always a deep and meaningful experience to be in a worship service,

and so for many reasons I'm happy to be here today. I'd like to use as a subject from which to preach this morning, remaining awake revolution. The text in the book of Revelation. There are two passages there that I would like to quote. It's in the 16th chapter of that book. The whole farm of things are passed away. I'm sure that most of you have read that a resting little story from the pin of Washington Irvin, entitled Rip Van Winkle. The one thing that we usually remember about the story is that Rip Van Winkle slept 20 years. But that is another point in that little story that is almost always completely overlooked.

It was a sign in the end, from which Rip went up in the mountain for his long sleep. And Rib Van Winkle went up in the mountain, and the sign had a picture of King George III of England. When he came down, 20 years later the sign had a picture of George Washington, the first president of the United States. And Rip Van Winkle looked up at the picture of George Washington, but in looking at the picture he was amazed. He was completely lost. He knew not who he was. And this reveals to us that the most striking thing about the story of Rip Van Winkle is not merely that Rip

slept 20 years, but that he slept through a revolution. While he was peacefully snoring up in the mountain, a revolution was taken place. that at points were chains of course of history, and Rip knew nothing about it. He was asleep. Yes, he slept through a revolution. One of the great liabilities of life is that all too many people find themselves living amid a great period of social change, and yet they failed to develop the new attitude. tunes, the new mental responses that the new situation demands, and they end up sleeping through a revolution. There can be no gain saying of the fact that the great revolution has taken place in the world today, in the sense it is a triple revolution.

That is a technological revolution with the impact of automation and cyber nation. Then that is a revolution in weaponry with the emergence of atomic and nuclear weapons of warfare. Then that is a human rights revolution with the freedom explosion that has taken place all over the world. Yes, we do live in a period where changes are taking place. And that is still the voice crying through the vista of time, saying, the whole, I make all things new. The former things are passed away. Now, whenever anything new comes into history brings with it new challenges and new opportunities.

And I would like to deal with the challenges that we face today as a result of this triple revolution that has taken place in the world today. First, we are challenged to develop a world perspective. No individual can live alone. No nation can live alone. And anyone who feels that he can live alone is sleeping through a revolution. The world in which we live is geographically one. The challenge that we face today is to make it one in terms of brotherhood. Now it's true that the geographical oneness of this age has coming to be into a large extent through modern man's scientific ingenuity.

Modern man, through his scientific genius, has been able to dwarf distance and place time in chains. Our jet planes have compressed into minutes, distances at once took weeks and even months. All of this tells us that our world is a neighborhood. through our scientific and technological genius. We have made of this world a neighborhood, and yet we have not had the ethical commitment to make of it a brotherhood. But somehow and in some way we've got to do this, we must all learn to live together As brothers, or we will all perish together as fools.

We are tied together in the single garment of destiny, caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, and whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. For some strange reason, I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, And you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the way God's universe is made. This is the way it is structured. John Don caught it years ago and placed it in graphic terms. No man is an island in tithe itself.

Every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. And he goes on toward end to say any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee. We must see this, believe this, and live by it if we are to remain awake through a great revolution. Secondly, we are challenged to eradicate the last vestiges of racial injustice. justice from our nation.

I must say this morning that racial injustice is still the black man's burden and the white man's shame. It is an unhappy truth that racism is a way of life for the vast majority of white Americans, spoken and unspoken, acknowledged and denied, subtle, and sometimes not so subtle, the disease of racism permeates and poisons a whole body polity. And I can see nothing more urgent than for America to work passionately and unrelittingly. To get rid of the disease of racism, something positive must be done. Everyone must share in the guilt as individuals and as institutions.

The government must certainly share the guilt. Individuals must share the guilt. Even the church must share the guilt. We must face the sad fact. At 11 o'clock on Sunday morning when we stand to sing, in Christ there is no east nor west. We stand in the most segregated hour of America. The hour has come for everybody and for all institutions of the public sector and the private sector to work to get rid of racism. Now, if we are to do it, we must honestly admit certain things and get rid of certain myths

that have constantly been disseminated all over our nation. One is the myth of time. It is a notion that only time can solve the problem of racial injustice, and there are those who often sincerely say to the Negro and his allies in the white community, why don't you slow up? pushing things so fast. Only time can solve the problem. And if you will just be nice and patient and continue to pray in a hundred or two hundred years, the problem will work itself out. Well, that is an answer to that myth. And it is, the time is neutral. It can be

used either constructively or destructively. I'm sorry to say this morning that I am absolutely convinced that the forces of ill will in our nation, the extreme rightness of our nation, the people on the wrong side, have used time much more effectively than the forces of goodwill. And it may well be that we will have to repent in this generation, not merely for the vitriolic words and the violent actions of the bad people. But for the appalling silence and indifference of the good people who sit around and say, wait on time. Somewhere we must come to see that human progress never rolls in on the wheels of inevitability.

It comes through the tireless efforts and the persistent work of dedicated individuals who are willing to be co-workers with God. And without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the primitive forces of social stagnation. So we must help time and realize that the time is always right, to do right. Now that is another myth that still gets around. It is a kind of over-reliance on the boot. strap philosophy. And there are those who still feel that if the Negro is to rise out of poverty, if the

Negro is to rise out of slum conditions, if he is to rise out of discrimination and segregation, he must do it all by himself. And so they say the Negro must lift himself by his own bootstraps. never stopped to realize that no other ethnic group has been a slave on American soil. The people who say this never stopped to realize that the nation made the black man's color a stigma. But beyond this, they never stopped to realize the debt that they owe a people who were kept in slave for 244 years. In 1863, they were kept in slave for 244 years. The Negro was told that he was free as a result of the Emancipation Proclamation being signed

by Abraham Lincoln, but he was not given any land to make that freedom meaningful. It was something like keeping a person in prison for a number of years and suddenly discovering that person is not guilty of the crime for which he was convicted. And you just go up to him and say, now you are free. But you don't give him any bus fare to get to town. You don't give him any money to get some clothes to put on his back or to get on his feet again in life. Every code of jurisprudence would rise up against this. And yet this is the very thing.

thing that our nation did to the black man. It simply said you're free, and it left them there penniless, illiterate, not knowing what to do. And the irony of it all is that at the same time that the nation failed to do anything for the black man, through an act of Congress, it was giving away millions of acres of land in the West and the Midwest, which meant to do anything. that it was willing to undergird its white peasants from Europe with an economic floor. But not only did it give the land.

It built land grant colleges to teach them how to farm. Not only that it provided county agents to further their expertise in farming, not only that as the years unfolded, it provided low interest rates so that they could mechanize our farms. And to this day, thousands of the these very persons are receiving millions of dollars in federal subsidies every year not to farm. And these are so often the very people who tell Negroes that they must lift themselves by their own bootstraps. It's all right to tell a man to lift himself by his own bootstraps,

but it is a cruel jest to say to a bootless man that he ought to lift himself by his own bootstraps we must come to see that the roots of racism are very deep in our country and there must be something positive and massive in order to get rid of all of the effects of racism and the tragedies of racial injustice and that is another thing closely related To racism that I would like to mention as another challenge, we are challenged to rid our nation in the world of poverty. Like a monstrous octopus, poverty spreads its nagging prehensile tentacles into hamlets

and villages all over our world. Two-thirds of the peoples of the world go to bed, hungry at night. They're ill-hows, they are ill-nourished, they're shabbily clad. I've seen it in Latin America. I've seen it in Africa. I've seen this poverty in Asia. I remember some years ago, Mrs. King and I journey to that great country known as India, and I never will forget the experience.

It was a marvelous experience to meet and talk with the great leaders of India, and to meet and talk with and speak to thousands and thousands of people all over that vast country. These experiences will remain dear to me as long as the chords of memory shall lengthen. But I say to you this morning, my friends, there were those depressing moments. How can one avoid being depressed when he sees with his own eyes. Evidences of millions of people going to bed hungry at night. How can one avoid being depressed when he sees with his own eyes God's children sleeping on the sidewalks at night?

In Bombay, more than a million people sleep on the sidewalks every night in Calcutta more than 600,000 sleep on the sidewalks every night. They have no beds to sleep in. They have no houses to go in. How can one avoid being depressed? When he discovers that out of India's population of more than 500 million people, some 480 million, make an annual income of less than $90 a year, and most of them have never seen a doctor or dentist, As I noticed these things something within me cried out,

Can we in America stand idly by and not be concerned? And an answer came, oh no, because the destiny of the United States is tied up with the destiny of India and every other nation, and I started thinking of the fact that we spend in America millions of dollars a day to store surplus food, and I said to myself, I know where we can store that food free of charge in the wrinkled stomachs of the millions of God's children all over the world who go to bed hungry at night. Maybe we spent far too much of our national budget establishing military bases around the world

rather than bases of genuine concern and understanding. But not only do we see poverty abroad, I would remind you, and in our own nation, there are about 40 million people who are poverty-stricken. I have seen them here and there. I've seen them in the ghettos of the north. I've seen them in the rural areas of the south. I've seen them in Appalachia. I've just been in the process of touring in many areas of our country, and I must confess

that in some situations I have literally found myself crying. I was in Mark's Mississippi the other day, which is in Quidman County, the poorest county in the United States. I tell you, I saw hundreds of little black boys and black girls. girls, walking the streets with no shoes to wear. I saw their mothers and their fathers trying to carry on a little head start program, but they had no money. The federal government hadn't funded them.

They were trying to carry on, and they raised a little money here and there, trying to get a little food to feed the children, trying to teach them a little something. And I saw mothers and fathers who said to me not only were the unemployed, but they didn't get any kind of income, no age pension, no welfare check or anything. I said, how do you live? They say, well, we go around, go around to the neighbors and ask them for a little something. When the bearer season comes with pig bearers, when the rabbit season comes, we hunt and catch a few rabbits, and that's about it.

I was in Newark and Harlem just this week, and I walked in to the homes of welfare mothers. I saw them in conditions, no, not with wall-to-wall carpet, but wall-to-wall rats and roaches. I stood in an apartment, and this welfare mother said to me the landlord will not repair this place. Here two years he had made a single repair. She pointed out her little boy who was the victim of lead poisoning. She pointed out the walls with all of the ceiling falling through.

She showed me the holes where the rats came in. She said night after night we have to stay awake to keep the rats and the roaches from getting to the children. I said, how much do you pay for this apartment? She said, $125. And I looked and I thought and said to myself, it isn't worth $60. Poor people are forced to pay more for less. Living in conditions day in and day out, where the whole area is constantly drained without being replenished, it becomes a kind of domestic colony.

And the tragedy is so often, these 40 million people are invisible because America is so affluent so rich, because our expressways carry us away from the ghetto, we don't see the poor. Jesus told a parable one day, and he reminded us that a man went to hell because he didn't see the poor. His name was diabetes. He was a rich man. There was a man by the name of Lazarus, who was a poor man, but not only was he poor, he was sick. Sores were all over his body. He was so weak that he could hardly move.

But he managed to get to the gate of diabetes every day, wanting just to have the crumbs that would fall from his table. DiViz did nothing about it. The parable ends saying, Davies went to hell, and there was a fixed gulf now between Lazarus and Davies. And that is nothing in that parable which says that Davies went to hell because he was rich. Jesus never made a universal indictment against all wealth.

It is true that one day a rich young ruler came to him, and he advised him to sell all. But in that instance, Jesus was prescribing individual surgery and not setting forth the universal diagnosis. And if you will look at that parable with all of its symbolism, you will remember that a conversation took place between heaven and hell. And on the other end of that long distance called between heaven and hell was Abraham in heaven. Talking to Davies in hell. Now, Abraham was a very rich man. If you go back to the Old Testament, you see that he was the richest man of his days. So it was not a rich man in hell talking with a poor man in heaven.

It was a little millionaire in hell talking with a multi-millionaire in heaven. Dives didn't go to hell because he was rich. Divees didn't realize that his wealth was his opportunity. It was his opportunity to bridge the Gulf that separated him from his brother, Lazarus. Dives went to hell because he passed by Lazarus every day and he never really saw him. He went to hell because he allowed his brother to become invisible. Davies went to hell because he maximized the minimum and minimized the maximum. Indeed, Davies went to hell because he sought to be a conscientious objector in the war against poverty.

And this can happen to America. The richest nation in the world had nothing wrong with that. This is America's opportunity to help. bridge the Gulf between the haves and the have-nots. The question is whether America will do it. There is nothing new about poverty. What is new is that we now have the techniques and the resources to get rid of poverty. The real question is whether we have the wheel.

In a few weeks, some of us are coming to Washington to see if the wheel is a little bit of still alive or if it is alive in this nation, we're coming to Washington in a poor people's campaign. Yes, we're going to bring the tire, the poor, the huddle masses. We're going to bring those who have known long years of hurt and neglect. We're going to bring those who've come to feel that life is a long and desolate corridor. with no exit sign. We're going to bring children and adults and old people. People who've never seen a doctor or dentists in their lives. We're not coming to engage in any history on a gesture. We're not coming to Tav Washington. We're coming to demand.

The government will address itself to the problem of poverty. We read one day, we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain and alienable rights that among these are life-libert in the pursuit of happiness. But if a man doesn't have a job or an income, he has neither life. nor liberty and the possibility for the pursuit of happiness. He merely exists. We're coming to ask America to be true to the huge promise so renowned that it signed

years ago. We're coming to engage in dramatic, nonviolent action to call attention to the Gulf between promise and fulfillment to make the invisible visible. Why do we do it this way? We do it this way because it is our experience that the nation doesn't move around questions of genuine equality for the poor and for black people until it is confronted massively, dramatically. In terms of direct action, great documents are here to tell us something.

should be done. We met here some years ago in the White House Conference on Civil Rights, and we came out with the same recommendations that we will be demanding in our campaign here, but nothing has been done. The President's Commission on Technology Automation and Economic Progress recommended these things some time ago. Nothing has been done. Even the urban coalition made up of mayors of most of the cities of our country. The leading businessmen have said that these things should be done. Nothing has been done. The Kernan Commission came out with its report just a few days ago and then made specific

recommendations. Nothing has been done. And I submit that nothing will be done until people of goodwill put their bodies and their souls in motion. And it will be the kind of sole force brought into being as a result of this confrontation that I believe will make the difference. Yes, it will be a poor people's campaign. This is a question facing America. Ultimately, a great nation is a compassionate nation. America has not met its obligations and its responsibilities to the poor. One day we will have to stand before the God of history, and we will talk in terms of

things we've done. Yes, we will be able to say we build gargantuan bridges to span the seas. We build gigantic buildings to kiss. disguise. Yes, we made our submarines to penetrate oceanic depths. We brought into being many other things with our scientific and technological power. It seems that I can hear the God of history saying, that was not enough. But I was hungry, and you fed me not. I was naked and He clothed me not, out of a decent sanitary house to live in, and ye provided no shelter for me, and consequently you cannot enter the kingdom of greatness.

If ye do it unto the least of these, my brethren, ye do it. Under me, that's a question facing America today. And I want to say one other challenge that we face simply that we must find an alternative to war and bloodshed. Anyone who feels, and there are still a lot of people who feel that way, that war can solve the social problems facing mankind is sleeping through a revolution. President Kennedy said on one occasion, mankind must put an end to war. A war will put an end to mankind. The world must hear this.

I pray God that America will hear this before it is too late, because today we are fighting a war. I'm convinced that it is one of the most unjust wars that has ever been fought in the history of the world. Our involvement in the war in Vietnam has torn up the Geneva Accord. It has strengthened the military, industrial complex. has strengthened the forces of reaction in our nation, it has put us against the self-determination of the vast majority of Vietnamese people and put us in a position of protecting a corrupt regime that is stacked against the poor. It has played havoc with our domestic destinies. This day we are spending $500,000 to kill every Vietnam country.

soldier every time we kill one we spend about five hundred thousand dollars while we spend only fifty three dollars a year for every person characterized this poverty-stricken in the so-called poverty program which is not even a good skirmish against poverty not only that it has put us in a position of appearing to the world as an arrogant nation here we are ten thousand miles away from home fighting for the so-called freedom of the Vietnamese people when we've not even put our own house in order. And we force young black men and young white men to fight and kill in brutal solidarity.

And yet when they come back home, they can't hardly live on the same block together. The judgment of God is upon us today. And we could go right down the line and see that something must be done and something must be done quickly. We have alienated ourselves from other nations, so we end up morally and politically isolated in the world. There's not a single major ally to the United States of America that would dare send a troop to be at norm, and so the only friends that we have now that a few client nations like Taiwan, Thailand, South Korea, and a few others. This is where we are.

Mankind must put an end to war. A war will put an end to mankind. The best way to start is to put an end to the war in Vietnam because if it continues. We will inevitably come to the point of confronting China, which could lead the whole world, nuclear annihilation. It is no longer a choice, my friends, between violence and nonviolence. It is either non-violence and non-existence and the alternative to disarmament, the alternative to a greater suspension of nuclear tests, the alternative to strengthening the United Nations and thereby disarming the whole world. May well be a civilization plunged into the abyss

of annihilation, and our earthly habitat will be transformed into an in in in in ineliority. inferno that even the mind of Dante could not imagine. This is why I felt the need, raising my voice against that war, and working wherever I can to rouse the conscience of our nation on it. I remember so well when I first took a stand against the war in Vietnam, the critics took me on and they had their say in the most negative and sometimes most vicious way. One day a newsman came to me and said, Dr. King, don't you think you're going to have to stop now opposing the war and move more in line with the administration's policy?

Because I understand it has hurt the budget of your organization and people who once respect you have lost respect. who once respected you have lost respect for you? Don't you feel that you really got to change your position? I looked at him and I had to say, sir, I'm sorry you don't know me. I'm not a consensus leader. I do not determine what is right and wrong by looking at the budget of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

about taking a sort of gallopole of the majority opinion. Ultimately, a genuine leader is not a such for consensus, but a mold of consensus. On some positions, expedient, a cowardice asks, the question is expedient. And then expediency comes along and asks a question, is it politic? Vanity asks the question, is it popular?

And conscience asks, the question. And is it right? And there comes the time when one must take a position that is neither safe, not politic, not popular, but he must do it because conscience tells him it is right. And I believe today that that is a need for all people of goodwill to come with a massive act of conscience. And say, in the words of the old Negro spiritual, we will, ain't going to steady war, no more. This is the challenge facing modern man.

Let me close by saying that we have difficult days ahead in the struggle for justice and peace, but I will not yield to a politic of despair. I'm going to maintain hope. As we come to Washington in this campaign, the car are stacked against us. This time we will really confront a goliah. God granted, we will be that David of truth set out against the goliad of injustice, the goliad of neglect, the goliah of refusing to deal with the problems, and go on with the determination to make America, The truly great America that it is called to be, I say to you that our goal is freedom,

and I believe we are going to get there. Because however much she strays away from it, the goal of America is freedom. Abused and scorn, though we may be as a people, our destiny is tied up in the destiny of America. Before the Pilgrim fathers landed at Plymouth, we were here. Before death was an etched across the pages of history, the majestic words of the Declaration of Independence, we were here. Before the beautiful words of the star-spangled banner were written, we were here. For more than two centuries, our forebears labored here without wages.

They made cotton king, and they built the homes of their masters in the midst of the most humiliating and oppressive conditions. And yet out of a bottomless vitality, they continue to grow and develop. If the inexpressible cruelties of slavery couldn't stop us, the opposition that we now face will surely fail. We're going to win our freedom because both the sacred heritage of our nation and the eternal will of the Almighty God are embodied in our echoing demands. or however dark it is, however deep the angry feelings are and the violent explosions are, I can

still sing, we shall overcome. We shall overcome because the Ark of the Moral Universe is long but it bends toward justice. We shall overcome because Carlisle is right. No lie can live forever. We shall overcome because William Cullen Bryant is right. Truth, Christ, earth will rise again. We shall overcome, because James Russell Lord is right, as we were singing earlier today, truth forever on the scaffold, wrong forever on the throne, yet that scaffold sways the

future. And behind the dim unknown standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own. With this faith, we will be able to you out of the mounting of despair to stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. Thank God for John. Who sentries to go out on a lonely, obscure island called Patmos, caught vision of the new Jerusalem descending out of heaven from God? Who heard a voice saying, behold, I make all things new? Farmer things have passed away.

God grant that we will be participants in this newness and this magnificent development. If we will but do it, we will bring about a new day of justice and brotherhood in peace. And that day the morning stars will sing together, and the sons of God will shout for joy. God bless you. Direct from our newsroom in Washington, in color. This is the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite, and Russ Hodge in Memphis, Tennessee, Dan Rather in New York, Bernard Calvin, Saigon,

Marvin Calvin, Wellington, New Zealand, and Bert Quint in Kaysan, South Vietnam. Good evening. Dr. Martin Luther King, the apostle of non-violence in the Civil Rights Movement, has been shot to death in Memphis, Tennessee. Place have issued an all-points bulletin for a one, well-dressed young white man seen running from the scene. Officers also reportedly chased and

fired on a radio-equipped car containing two white men. Dr. King was standing on the balcony of a second-floor hotel room tonight when, according to an companion, a shot was fired from across the street. In the friend's words, the bullet exploded in his face. Police, who have been keeping a close watch over the Nobel Peace Prize winner because of Memphis' turbulent racial situations were on the scene almost immediately. They rushed the 39-year-old Negro leader to a hospital where he died of a bullet wound in the neck. Police said they found a high-powered hunting rifle about a block from the hotel, but it was not immediately identified as the murder weapon.

Mayor Henry Loeb has reinstated the dusk to dawn curfew he imposed on the city last week when a march led by Dr. King erupted in violence. Governor Buford Ellington has called out 4,000 National Guardsmen. And police report that the murder has touched off sporadic acts of violence. violence in a Negro section of the city. In a nationwide television address, President Johnson expressed the nation's shock. America is shocked and saddened by the brutal slaying tonight of Dr. Martin Luther King. I ask every citizen to reject the blind violence that has struck Dr. King, who lived by nonviolence. Dr. King. Dr. King had received by nonviolence. Dr. King, at

returned to Memphis only yesterday, determined to prove that he could lead a peaceful mass march in support of striking sanitation workers, most of whom are Negroes. Dr. King had this to say last night about the situation in Memphis. Maybe I could understand the denial of certain basic First Amendment privileges because they haven't committed themselves to that, over there. But somewhere I read of the freedom of assembly, somewhere I'm. read of the freedom of speech somewhere I read of the freedom of press somewhere I read that the greatness of America is the right to protest far right there was shock in Harlem tonight when word of Dr. King's murder reached the nation's largest

Negro community men women and children poured into the streets they appeared days many were crime a young Negro said dr. King didn't really have to go back to Memphis. Maybe he wanted to prove something. We want to do a tune written for today for this hour for Dr. Martin Luther King. We've stayed before that. The whole program is dedicated to his memory, but this tune is written about him and for him and so. We had yesterday to learn it, and so we'll see. Once upon this planet lived a man preaching love, and freedom far his fellow man. He was dreaming of the day.

Peace would come to earth to stay. And he spread this message off the land. Turn the other cheek. He'd plead. Love thy neighbor was his creed. Humiliation death. He did not drive in his mind. Did not hide.

It's hard to think of this great man. Well, the murders never. What do they ever hope to gain? For us all His modern Just died And then It seemed

It was for equality It was not his way Oh, change Don't you know How we got to react Nobody will pray But he had seen the mountain top He could not stop

Seen The mountains Death Even at that one moment That you know what life is If you have to die This was last year, and she was a diff. She had her favorite song, and then Langston Hughes left us,

Cold Train left us, Otis Redding left us. You can go on. Do you realize how many we have lost? When it really gets down to reality, doesn't it? Not a performance. Not my performance, not like crap. But really, something else. We've lost a lot of them.

in the last two years. But we have remaining monk, miles. Do you know? I love you too. And of course, for those that we have left, we're thankful, but we can't afford any more losses. Oh, no. Oh, my God.

They're shooting us down one by one. Don't forget that. because they are killing us one by one well all I have to say is that those of us who know how to protect those

of us that we love stand by them and stay close to them and I say that if there'd been a couple more a little closer to Dr. King he wouldn't have got it You know, really, just a little closer to them. Stay there. Stay there. We can't afford anymore. He had to sing, mountain top, and he knew he could not stop.