{"id":9815,"date":"2021-01-18T13:30:00","date_gmt":"2021-01-18T13:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/?p=151320"},"modified":"2021-01-18T13:30:00","modified_gmt":"2021-01-18T13:30:00","slug":"mlk-day-special-dr-martin-luther-king-jr-in-his-own-words","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/01\/18\/mlk-day-special-dr-martin-luther-king-jr-in-his-own-words\/","title":{"rendered":"MLK Day Special: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in His Own Words"},"content":{"rendered":"
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This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.<\/p>\n

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AMY<\/span> GOODMAN<\/span>:<\/strong> Today is a federal holiday that honors Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He was born January 15th, 1929. He was assassinated April 4th, 1968, at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. He was just 39 years old.<\/p>\n

While Dr. King is primarily remembered as a civil rights leader, he also championed the cause of the poor, organizing the Poor People\u2019s Campaign to address issues of economic justice. And Dr. King was a fierce critic of U.S. foreign policy and the Vietnam War.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeyond Vietnam\u201d was the speech he delivered at New York\u2019s Riverside Church on April 4th, 1967, a year to the day before he was assassinated. In it, Dr. King called the United States \u201cthe greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.\u201d Life<\/em> magazine called the speech \u201cdemagogic slander that sounded like a script for Radio Hanoi.\u201d The Washington Post<\/em> said King, quote, \u201cdiminished his usefulness to his cause, his country, his people,\u201d unquote. Well, today we let you decide. We play an excerpt of Dr. King\u2019s speech, \u201cBeyond Vietnam.\u201d<\/p>\n

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REV<\/span>. MARTIN<\/span> LUTHER<\/span> KING<\/span> JR.:<\/strong> After 1954, they watched us conspire with Diem to prevent elections which could have surely brought Ho Chi Minh to power over the united Vietnam, and they realized they had been betrayed again. When we ask why they do not leap to negotiate, these things must be remembered.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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Also, it must be clear that the leaders of Hanoi considered the presence of American troops in support of the Diem regime to have been the initial military breach of the Geneva Agreements concerning foreign troops. And they remind us that they did not begin to send troops in large numbers and even supplies into the South, until American forces had moved into the tens of thousands.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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Hanoi remembers how our leaders refused to tell us the truth about the earlier North Vietnamese overtures for peace, how the president claimed that none existed when they had clearly been made. Ho Chi Minh has watched as America has spoken of 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 the bombing and shelling and mining we are doing are 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 8,000 miles away from its shores.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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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 and to understand the arguments of those who are called \u201cenemy,\u201d I am as deeply concerned about our own troops there as anything else, for it occurs to me that what we are submitting them to in Vietnam is not simply the brutalizing process that goes on in any war where armies face each other and seek to destroy. We are adding 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. Before long, they must know that their government has sent them into a struggle among Vietnamese, and the more sophisticated surely realize that we are on the side of the wealthy and the secure, while we create a hell for the poor.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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Somehow this madness must cease. We must stop now. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. I speak for the poor of America, who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home and death and corruption in Vietnam. 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, to the leaders of our own nation: The great initiative in this war is ours; the initiative to stop it must be ours.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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This is the message of the great Buddhist leaders of Vietnam. Recently one of them wrote these words, and I quote: \u201cEach day the war goes on, the hatred increases in the heart of the Vietnamese and in 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 are 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,\u201d unquote.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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If we continue, there will be no doubt in my mind and in the mind of the world that we have no honorable intentions in Vietnam. If we do not stop our war against the people of Vietnam immediately, the world will be left with no other alternative than to see this as some horrible, clumsy and deadly game we have decided to play.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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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 adventure in Vietnam, that we have been detrimental to the life of the Vietnamese people. The situation is one in which we must be ready to turn sharply from our present ways.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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In order to atone for our sins and errors in Vietnam, we should take the initiative in bringing a halt to this tragic war and set a date that we will remove all foreign troops from Vietnam in accordance with the 1954 Geneva Agreement.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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Part of our ongoing \u2014 part of our ongoing commitment might well express itself in an offer to grant asylum to any Vietnamese who fears for his life under the new regime, which included the Liberation Front. Then we must make what reparations we can for the damage we have done. We must provide the medical aid that is badly needed, making it available in this country, if necessary.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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Meanwhile \u2014 meanwhile, we in the churches and synagogues have a continuing task: While we urge our government to disengage itself from a disgraceful commitment, we must continue to raise our voices and our lives if our nation persists in its perverse ways in Vietnam. We must be prepared to match actions with words by seeking out every creative method of protest possible.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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These are the times for real choices and not false ones. We are at the moment when our lives must be placed on the line if our nation is to survive its own folly. Every man of humane convictions must decide on the protest that best suits his convictions, but we must all protest.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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Now, there is something seductively tempting about stopping there 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 wish to go on now to say something even more disturbing. The war in Vietnam is but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit, and if we ignore this sobering reality \u2014 and if we ignore this sobering reality, we will find ourselves organizing clergy and laymen concerned committees for the next generation. They will be concerned about Guatemala and Peru. They will be concerned about Thailand and Cambodia. They will be concerned about Mozambique and South Africa. We will be marching for these and a dozen other names and attending rallies without end, unless there is a significant and profound change in American life and policy. So such thoughts take us beyond Vietnam, but not beyond our calling as sons of the living God.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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In 1957, a sensitive American official overseas said that it seemed to him that our nation was on the wrong side of a world revolution. During the past 10 years, we have seen emerge a pattern of suppression, which has now justified the presence of U.S. military \u201cadvisers\u201d in Venezuela. This need to maintain social stability for our investments accounts for the counterrevolutionary 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, \u201cThose who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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Increasingly, by choice or by accident, this is the role our nation has taken, the role of those who make peaceful revolution impossible by refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investments.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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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 \u2014 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.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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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 life\u2019s roadside, but 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 life\u2019s highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth with righteous indignation. It will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say, \u201cThis is not just.\u201d It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of South America and say, \u201cThis is not just.\u201d The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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A true revolution of values will lay a hand on the world order and say of war, \u201cThis way of settling differences is not just.\u201d This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation\u2019s homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending 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 spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this revolution of values. There is nothing, except a tragic death wish, to prevent us from reordering our priorities, so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

AMY<\/span> GOODMAN<\/span>:<\/strong> Dr. Martin Luther King, April 4th, 1967, at Riverside Church in New York, explaining why he opposed the war in Vietnam. We\u2019ll come back to his speech in a minute.<\/p>\n

[break]<\/p>\n

AMY<\/span> GOODMAN<\/span>:<\/strong> Mahalia Jackson, \u201cTake My Hand, Precious Lord,\u201d Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s favorite song. This is Democracy Now!<\/em>, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report<\/em>. I’m Amy Goodman, as we return to Dr. Martin Luther King\u2019s speech \u201cBeyond Vietnam.\u201d He gave this speech April 4th, 1967, a year to the day before he was assassinated. He was speaking at Riverside Church in New York.<\/p>\n

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REV<\/span>. MARTIN<\/span> LUTHER<\/span> KING<\/span> JR.:<\/strong> These are revolutionary times. All over the globe men are revolting against old systems of exploitation and oppression, and out of the wombs of a frail world new systems of justice and equality are being born. The shirtless and barefoot people of the land are rising up as never before. \u201cThe people who sat in darkness have seen a great light.\u201d We in the West must support these revolutions.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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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 initiated. Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism and militarism. With this powerful commitment, we shall boldly challenge the status quo and unjust mores and thereby speed the day when \u201cevery valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight and the rough places plain.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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A genuine revolution of values means, in the final analysis, that our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Every nation must now develop an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in their individual societies.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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This call for a worldwide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one\u2019s tribe, race, class and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing and unconditional love for all mankind. This oft-misunderstood, this oft-misinterpreted concept, so readily dismissed by the Nietzsches of the world as a weak and cowardly force, has now become an absolute necessity for the survival of man.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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When I speak of love, I am not speaking of some sentimental and weak response, I am not speaking of that force which is just emotional bosh. I\u2019m speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as 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 is beautifully summed up in the First Epistle of Saint John: \u201cLet us love one another; for love is God and everyone that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. If we love one another God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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Let us hope that this spirit will become the order of the day. We can no longer afford to worship the god of hate or bow before the altar of retaliation. The oceans of history are made turbulent by the ever-rising tides of hate. History is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path of hate. As Arnold Toynbee says, \u201cLove is the ultimate force that makes for the saving choice of life and good against the damning 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,\u201d unquote.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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We are now faced 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, there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked and dejected with a lost opportunity. The \u201ctide in the affairs of men\u201d does not remain at the flood; it ebbs. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is adamant to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words: \u201cToo late.\u201d There is an invisible book of life that faithfully records our vigilance or our neglect. Omar Khayyam writes, \u201cThe moving finger writes, and having writ moves on\u2026\u201d We still have a choice today: nonviolent coexistence or violent co-annihilation.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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We must move past indecision to action. We must find new ways to speak for peace in Vietnam and justice throughout the developing world, a world that borders on our doors. If we do not act, we shall surely be dragged down the long dark and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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Now let us begin. Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter \u2014 but beautiful \u2014 struggle for a new world. This is the calling of the sons of God, and our brothers wait eagerly for our response. Shall we say the odds are too great? Shall we tell them the struggle is too hard? Will our message be that the forces of American life militate against their arrival as full men, and we send our deepest regrets? Or will there be another message, of longing, of hope, of solidarity with their yearnings, of commitment to their cause, whatever the cost? The choice is ours, and though we might prefer it otherwise, we must choose in this crucial moment of human history.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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As that noble bard of yesterday, James Russell Lowell, eloquently stated:<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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Once to every man and nation
Comes the moment to decide,
In the strife of truth and falsehood,
For the good or evil side;
Some great cause, God\u2019s new Messiah,
Off\u2019ring each the bloom or blight,
And the choice goes by forever
Twixt that darkness and that light.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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Though the cause of evil prosper,
Yet \u2019tis truth alone is strong;
Though her portion be the scaffold,
And upon the throne be wrong:
Yet that scaffold sways the future,
And behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow
Keeping watch above his own.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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And if we will only make the right choice, we will be able to transform this pending cosmic elegy into a creative psalm of peace. If we will make the right choice, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our world into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. If 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 down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

AMY<\/span> GOODMAN<\/span>:<\/strong> Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., April 4th, 1967, speaking at Riverside Church in New York, explaining why he opposed the war in Vietnam, the speech he delivered exactly a year to the day before he was assassinated at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, April 4th, 1968. The night before he died, Dr. King delivered his last major address. He was in Memphis to support striking sanitation workers as he built momentum for a Poor People\u2019s March on Washington. This is some of Dr. King\u2019s last speech, \u201cI\u2019ve Been to the Mountaintop.\u201d<\/p>\n

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REV<\/span>. MARTIN<\/span> LUTHER<\/span> KING<\/span> JR.:<\/strong> And you know, if I were standing at the beginning of time, with the possibility of taking a kind of general and panoramic view of the whole of human history up to now, and the Almighty said to me, \u201cMartin Luther King, which age would you like to live in?\u201d I would take my mental flight by Egypt, and I would watch God\u2019s children in their magnificent trek from the dark dungeons of Egypt through \u2014 or rather across the Red Sea, through the wilderness on toward the promised land. And in spite of its magnificence, I wouldn\u2019t stop there.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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I would move on by Greece and take my mind to Mount Olympus. And I would see Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, Euripides and Aristophanes assembled around the Parthenon. And I would watch them around the Parthenon as they discussed the great and eternal issues of reality. But I wouldn\u2019t stop there.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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I would go on, even to the great heyday of the Roman Empire, and I would see developments around there, through various emperors and leaders. But I wouldn\u2019t stop there.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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I would even come up to the day of the Renaissance and get a quick picture of all that the Renaissance did for the cultural and aesthetic life of man. But I wouldn\u2019t stop there.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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I would even go by the way that the man for whom I am named had his habitat. And I would watch Martin Luther as he tacked his 95 theses on the door at the church of Wittenberg. But I wouldn\u2019t stop there.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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I would come on up even to 1863 and watch a vacillating president by the name of Abraham Lincoln finally come to the conclusion that he had to sign the Emancipation Proclamation. But I wouldn\u2019t stop there.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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I would even come up to the early ’30s and see a man grappling with the problems of the bankruptcy of his nation and come with an eloquent cry that we have nothing to fear but fear itself. But I wouldn’t stop there.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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Strangely enough, I would turn to the Almighty and say, \u201cIf you allow me to live just a few years in the second half of the 20th century, I will be happy.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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Now that\u2019s a strange statement to make, because the world is all messed up. The nation is sick. Trouble is in the land, confusion all around. That\u2019s a strange statement. But I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough can you see the stars. And I see God working in this period of the 20th century in a way that men, in some strange way, are responding.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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Something is happening in our world. The masses of people are rising up. And wherever they are assembled today, whether they are in Johannesburg, South Africa; Nairobi, Kenya; Accra, Ghana; New York City; Atlanta, Georgia; Jackson, Mississippi; or Memphis, Tennessee, the cry is always the same: \u201cWe want to be free!\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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And another reason that I\u2019m happy to live in this period is that we have been forced to a point where we are going to have to grapple with the problems that men have been trying to grapple with through history, but the demands didn\u2019t force them to do it. Survival demands that we grapple with them. Men, for years now, have been talking about war and peace. But now no longer can they just talk about it. It is no longer a choice between violence and nonviolence in this world; it\u2019s nonviolence or nonexistence. That is where we are today.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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And also in the human rights revolution, if something isn\u2019t done, and done in a hurry, to bring the colored peoples of the world out of their long years of poverty, their long years of hurt and neglect, the whole world is doomed. Now, I\u2019m just happy that God has allowed me to live in this period to see what is unfolding. And I\u2019m happy that he\u2019s allowed me to be in Memphis.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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I can remember \u2014 I can remember when Negroes were just going around, as Ralph has said, so often scratching where they didn\u2019t itch and laughing when they were not tickled. But that day is all over. We mean business now, and we are determined to gain our rightful place in God\u2019s world.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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And that\u2019s all this whole thing is about. We aren\u2019t engaged in any negative protest and in any negative arguments with anybody. We are saying that we are determined to be men. We are determined to be people. We are saying \u2014 we are saying that we are God\u2019s children. And if we are God\u2019s children, we don\u2019t have to live like we are forced to live.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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Now, what does all of this mean in this great period of history? It means that we\u2019ve got to stay together. We\u2019ve got to stay together and maintain unity. You know, whenever Pharaoh wanted to prolong the period of slavery in Egypt, he had a favorite, favorite formula for doing it. What was that? He kept the slaves fighting among themselves. But whenever the slaves get together, something happens in Pharaoh\u2019s court, and he cannot hold the slaves in slavery. When the slaves get together, that\u2019s the beginning of getting out of slavery.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

AMY<\/span> GOODMAN<\/span>:<\/strong> Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., April 3rd, 1968, the night before he was assassinated. We\u2019ll come back to this speech in Memphis, Tennessee, in a minute.<\/p>\n

[break]<\/p>\n

AMY<\/span> GOODMAN<\/span>:<\/strong> Nina Simone singing \u201cWhy? (The King of Love Is Dead).\u201d This is_Democracy Now!_, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report<\/em>. I\u2019m Amy Goodman, as we continue with Dr. Martin Luther King\u2019s speech the night before he was assassinated. It was April 3rd, 1968, a rainy night in Memphis, Tennessee.<\/p>\n

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REV<\/span>. MARTIN<\/span> LUTHER<\/span> KING<\/span> JR.:<\/strong> We aren\u2019t going to let any mace stop us. We are masters in our nonviolent movement in disarming police forces; they don\u2019t know what to do. I\u2019ve seen them so often. I remember in Birmingham, Alabama, when we were in that majestic struggle there, we would move out of the 16th Street Baptist Church day after day; by the hundreds we would move out. And Bull Connor would tell them to send the dogs forth. And they did come. But we just went before the dogs singing, \u201cAin\u2019t gonna let nobody turn me around.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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Bull Connor next would say, \u201cTurn the fire hoses on.\u201d And as I said to you the other night, Bull Connor didn\u2019t know history. He knew a kind of physics that somehow didn\u2019t relate to the transphysics that we knew about. And that was the fact that there was a certain kind of fire that no water could put out. And we went before the fire hoses; we had known water. If we were Baptist or some other denominations, we had been immersed. If we were Methodist and some others, we had been sprinkled. But we knew water. That couldn\u2019t stop us.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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And we just went on before the dogs, and we would look at them; and we\u2019d go on before the water hoses, and we would look at it. And we\u2019d just go on singing, \u201cOver my head I see freedom in the air.\u201d And then we would be thrown in the paddy wagons, and sometimes we were stacked in there like sardines in a can. And they would throw us in, and old Bull would say, \u201cTake \u2019em off.\u201d And they did. And we would just go on in the paddy wagon singing, \u201cWe Shall Overcome.\u201d And every now and then we\u2019d get in jail, and we\u2019d see the jailers looking through the windows, being moved by our prayers and being moved by our words and our songs. And there was a power there which Bull Connor couldn\u2019t adjust to, and so we ended up transforming Bull into a steer, and we won our struggle in Birmingham.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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Now let me say, as I move to my conclusion, that we\u2019ve got to give ourselves to this struggle until the end. Nothing would be more tragic than to stop at this point in Memphis. We\u2019ve got to see it through. And when we have our march, you need to be there. If it means leaving work, if it means leaving school, be there. Be concerned about your brother. You may not be on strike. But either we go up together, or we go down together.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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Let us develop a kind of dangerous unselfishness. One day a man came to Jesus, and he wanted to raise some questions about some vital matters of life. At points he wanted to trick Jesus and show him that he knew a little more than Jesus knew and throw him off base. Now, that question could have easily ended up in a philosophical and theological debate. But Jesus immediately pulled that question from mid-air and placed it on the dangerous curve between Jerusalem and Jericho. And he talked about a certain man, who fell among thieves. You remember that a Levite and a priest passed by on the other side. They didn\u2019t stop to help him. And finally a man of another race came by. He got down from his beast, decided not to be compassionate by proxy. But he got down with him, administered first aid and helped the man in need. Jesus ended up saying this was the good man, this was the great man, because he had the capacity to project the \u201cI\u201d into the \u201cthou\u201d and to be concerned about his brother.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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Now, you know we use our imagination a great deal to try to determine why the priest and the Levite didn\u2019t stop. At times we say they were busy going to a church meeting, an ecclesiastical gathering, and they had to get on down to Jerusalem so they wouldn\u2019t be late for their meeting. At other times we would speculate that there was a religious law that \u201cOne who was engaged in religious ceremonials was not to touch a human body 24 hours before the ceremony.\u201d And every now and then we begin to wonder whether maybe they were not going down to Jerusalem \u2014 or down to Jericho, rather, to organize a Jericho Road Improvement Association. That\u2019s a possibility. Maybe they felt that it was better to deal with the problem from the causal root, rather than to get bogged down with an individual effect.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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But I\u2019m going to tell you what my imagination tells me. It\u2019s possible that those men were afraid. You see, the Jericho road is a dangerous road. I remember when Mrs. King and I were first in Jerusalem. We rented a car and drove from Jerusalem down to Jericho. And as soon as we got on that road, I said to my wife, \u201cI can see why Jesus used this as the setting for his parable.\u201d It\u2019s a winding, meandering road. It\u2019s really conducive for ambushing. You start out in Jerusalem, which is about 1,200 miles \u2014 or rather 1,200 feet above sea level. And by the time you get down to Jericho, 15 or 20 minutes later, you\u2019re about 2,200 feet below sea level. That\u2019s a dangerous road. In the days of Jesus it came to be known as the \u201cBloody Pass.\u201d And, you know, it\u2019s possible that the priest and the Levite looked over that man on the ground and wondered if the robbers were still around. Or it\u2019s possible that they felt that the man on the ground was merely faking, and he was acting like he had been robbed and hurt, in order to seize them over there, lure them there for quick and easy seizure. And so the first question that the priest asked, the first question that the Levite asked was, \u201cIf I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?\u201d But then the Good Samaritan came by. And he reversed the question: \u201cIf I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

That\u2019s the question before you tonight, not \u201cIf I stop to help the sanitation workers, what will happen to my job?\u201d not \u201cIf I stop to help the sanitation workers, what will happen to all of the hours that I usually spend in my office every day and every week as a pastor?\u201d The question is not \u201cIf I stop to help this man in need, what will happen to me?\u201d The question is \u201cIf I do not stop to help the sanitation workers, what will happen to them?\u201d That\u2019s the question.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

You know, several years ago, I was in New York City autographing the first book that I had written. And while sitting there autographing books, a demented black woman came up. The only question I heard from her was \u201cAre you Martin Luther King?\u201d And I was looking down writing, and I said, \u201cYes.\u201d And the next minute I felt something beating on my chest. Before I knew it, I had been stabbed by this demented woman. I was rushed to Harlem Hospital. It was a dark Saturday afternoon. And that blade had gone through, and the x-rays revealed that the tip of the blade was on the edge of my aorta, the main artery. And once that\u2019s punctured, you\u2019re drowned in your own blood; that\u2019s the end of you.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

It came out in The New York Times<\/em> the next morning, that if I had merely sneezed, I would have died. Well, about four days later, they allowed me, after the operation, after my chest had been opened and the blade had been taken out, to move around in the wheelchair in the hospital. They allowed me to read some of the mail that came in, and from all over the states and the world, kind letters came in. I read a few, but one of them I will never forget. I had received one from the president and the vice president. I\u2019ve forgotten what those telegrams said. I had received a visit and a letter from the governor of New York, but I\u2019ve forgotten what that letter said. But there was another letter that came from a little girl, a young girl who was a student at the White Plains High School. And I looked at that letter, and I\u2019ll never forget it. It said simply, \u201cDear Dr. King, I am a ninth grade student at the White Plains High School.\u201d And she said, \u201cWhile it should not matter, I would like to mention that I\u2019m a white girl. I read in the paper of your misfortune and of your suffering. And I read that if you had sneezed, you would have died. And I\u2019m simply writing you to say that I\u2019m so happy that you didn\u2019t sneeze.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

And I want to say tonight \u2014 I want to say tonight that I too am happy that I didn\u2019t sneeze, because if I had sneezed, I wouldn\u2019t have been around here in 1960, when students all over the South started sitting in at lunch counters. And I knew that as they were sitting in, they were really standing up for the best in the American dream and taking the whole nation back to those great wells of democracy which were dug deep by the Founding Fathers in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

If I had sneezed, I wouldn\u2019t have been around here in 1961, when we decided to take a ride for freedom and ended segregation in interstate travel.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

If I had sneezed, I wouldn\u2019t have been around here in 1962, when Negroes in Albany, Georgia, decided to straighten their backs up. And whenever men and women straighten their backs up, they are going somewhere, because a man can\u2019t ride your back unless it is bent.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

If I had sneezed \u2014 if I had sneezed, I wouldn\u2019t have been here in 1963, when the black people of Birmingham, Alabama, aroused the conscience of this nation and brought into being the civil rights bill.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

If I had sneezed, I wouldn\u2019t have had a chance later that year, in August, to try to tell America about a dream that I had had.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

If I had sneezed, I wouldn\u2019t have been down in Selma, Alabama, to see the great movement there.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

If I had sneezed, I wouldn\u2019t have been in Memphis to see a community rally around those brothers and sisters who are suffering.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

I\u2019m so happy that I didn\u2019t sneeze.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

And they were telling me \u2014 now, it doesn\u2019t matter now. It really doesn\u2019t matter what happens now. I left Atlanta this morning, and as we got started on the plane, there were six of us. The pilot said over the public address system, \u201cWe are sorry for the delay, but we have Dr. Martin Luther King on the plane. And to be sure that all of the bags were checked and to be sure that nothing would be wrong on the plane, we had to check out everything carefully, and we\u2019ve had the plane protected and guarded all night.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

And then I got into Memphis. And some began to say the threats or talk about the threats that were out, of what would happen to me from some of our sick white brothers. Well, I don\u2019t know what will happen now. We\u2019ve got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn\u2019t matter with me now, because I\u2019ve been to the mountaintop. And I don\u2019t mind.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I\u2019m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God\u2019s will. And he\u2019s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I\u2019ve looked over. And I\u2019ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight that we, as a people, will get to the promised land! And so I\u2019m happy tonight. I\u2019m not worried about anything. I\u2019m not fearing any man! Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

AMY<\/span> GOODMAN<\/span>:<\/strong> Dr. Martin Luther King, speaking April 3rd, 1968. Within 24 hours, he would be dead, assassinated on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel, April 4th, 1968. Today is the federal holiday that honors him.<\/p>\n

That does it for our show. Democracy Now!<\/em> is produced by Mike Burke, Deena Guzder, Nermeen Shaikh, Carla Wills, Tami Woronoff, Libby Rainey, Sam Alcoff, John Hamilton, Robby Karran, Hany Massoud, Charina Nadura, Tey-Marie Astudillo, Adriano Contreras and Mar\u00eda Taracena. Mike Di Filippo and Miguel Nogueira are our engineers. Special thanks to Becca Staley, Julie Crosby, Miriam Barnard, Hugh Gran, David Prude, Vesta Goodarz and Carl Marxer. And to our camera crew, Jon Randolph, Kieran Krug-Meadows, Anna \u00d6zbek and Matt Ealy. I\u2019m Amy Goodman. Thanks so much for joining us.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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