The words of Dr King...
I'd like to use a subject from which to speak this afternoon,
the Other America.
And I use this subject because there are literally two Americas. One
America is beautiful for situation. And, in a sense, this America is
overflowing with the milk of prosperity and the honey of opportunity.
This America is the habitat of millions of people who have food and
material necessities for their bodies; and culture and education for
their minds; and freedom and human dignity for their spirits. In this
America, millions of people experience every day the opportunity of
having life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in all of their
dimensions. And in this America millions of young people grow up in the
sunlight of opportunity.
But tragically and unfortunately, there is another America. This other
America has a daily ugliness about it that constantly transforms the
ebulliency of hope into the fatigue of despair. In this America millions
of work-starved men walk the streets daily in search for jobs that do
not exist. In this America millions of people find themselves living in
rat-infested, vermin-filled slums. In this America people are poor by
the millions. They find themselves perishing on a lonely island of
poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity.
In a sense, the greatest tragedy of this other America is what it does
to little children. Little children in this other America are forced to
grow up with clouds of inferiority forming every day in their little
mental skies. As we look at this other America, we see it as an arena of
blasted hopes and shattered dreams. Many people of various backgrounds
live in this other America. Some are Mexican Americans, some are Puerto
Ricans, some are Indians, some happen to be from other groups. Millions
of them are Appalachian whites. But probably the largest group in this
other America in proportion to its size in the Population is the
American Negro...
It may well be that shouts of Black Power and riots in Watts and the
Harlems and the other areas, are the consequences of the white backlash
rather than the cause of them. What it is necessary to see is that there
has never been a single solid monistic determined commitment on the
part of the vast majority of white Americans on the whole question of
Civil Rights and on the whole question of racial equality. This is
something that truth impels all men of good will to admit.
It is said on the Statue of Liberty that America is a home of
exiles. It doesn't take us long to realize that America has been
the home of its white exiles from Europe. But it has not evinced
the same kind of maternal care and concern for its black exiles
from Africa. It is no wonder that in one of his sorrow songs, the
Negro could sing out, "
Sometimes I feel like a motherless
child." What great estrangement, what great sense of
rejection caused a people to emerge with such a metaphor as they
looked over their lives.
What I'm trying to get across is that our nation has constantly taken a
positive step forward on the question of racial justice and racial
equality. But over and over again at the same time, it made certain
backward steps. And this has been the persistence of the so called white
backlash...
So these conditions, existence of widespread poverty, slums, and of
tragic conniptions in schools and other areas of life, all of these
things have brought about a great deal of despair, and a great deal of
desperation. A great deal of disappointment and even bitterness in the
Negro communities. And today all of our cities confront huge problems.
All of our cities are potentially powder kegs as a result of the
continued existence of these conditions. Many in moments of anger, many
in moments of deep bitterness engage in riots.
Let me say as I've always said, and I will always continue to say, that
riots are socially destructive and self-defeating. I'm still convinced
that nonviolence is the most potent weapon available to oppressed people
in their struggle for freedom and justice. I feel that violence will
only create more social problems than they will solve. That in a real
sense it is impracticable for the Negro to even think of mounting a
violent revolution in the United States. So I will continue to condemn
riots, and continue to say to my brothers and sisters that this is not
the way. And continue to affirm that there is another way.
But at the same time, it is as necessary for me to be as vigorous in
condemning the conditions which cause persons to feel that they must
engage in riotous activities as it is for me to condemn riots. I think
America must see that riots do not develop out of thin air. Certain
conditions continue to exist in our society which must be condemned as
vigorously as we condemn riots.
But in the final analysis, a riot is the
language of the unheard.
And what is it that America has failed to
hear?
It has failed to hear that the plight of the Negro poor has
worsened over the last few years.
It has failed to hear that the
promises of freedom and justice have not been met.
And it has failed to
hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about
tranquility and the status quo
than about justice, equality, and
humanity.
And so in a real sense our nation's summers of riots are
caused by our nation's winters of delay. And as long as America
postpones justice, we stand in the position of having these recurrences
of violence and riots over and over again. Social justice and progress
are the absolute guarantors of riot prevention...
Now one of the answers it seems to me, is a
guaranteed annual
income, a guaranteed minimum income for all people, and for our
families of our country. It seems to me that the Civil Rights
movement must now begin to organize for the guaranteed annual
income. Begin to organize people all over our country, and
mobilize forces so that we can bring to the attention of our
nation this need, and this is something which I believe will go a
long long way toward dealing with the Negro's economic problem
and the economic problem which many other poor people confront in
our nation.
Now I said I wasn't going to talk about Vietnam, but
I can't make a speech without mentioning some of the problems
that we face there because I think this war has diverted
attention from civil rights. It has strengthened the forces of
reaction in our country and has brought to the forefront the
military-industrial complex that even President Eisenhower warned
us against at one time. And above all, it is destroying human
lives. It's destroying the lives of thousands of the young
promising men of our nation. It's destroying the lives of little
boys and little girls In Vietnam.
But one of the greatest things that this war is doing to us in Civil
Rights is that it is allowing the Great Society to be shot down on the
battlefields of Vietnam every day. And I submit this afternoon that
we
can end poverty in the United States.
Our nation has the resources to do
it. The National Gross Product of America will rise to the astounding
figure of some $780 billion this year. We have the resources: The
question is, whether our nation has the will, and I submit that if we
can spend $35 billion a year to fight an ill-considered war in Vietnam,
and $20 billion to put a man on the moon, our nation can spend billions
of dollars to put God's children on their own two feet right here on
earth...
I realize and understand the discontent and the agony and the
disappointment and even the bitterness of those who feel that whites in
America cannot be trusted. And I would be the first to say that there
are all too many who are still guided by the racist ethos. And I am
still convinced that there are still many white persons of good will.
And I'm happy to say that I see them every day in the student generation
who cherish democratic principles and justice above principle, and who
will stick with the cause of justice and the cause of Civil Rights and
the cause of peace throughout the days ahead. And so I refuse to
despair. I think we're gonna achieve our freedom because however much
America strays away from the ideals of justice, the goal of America is
freedom.
Abused and scorned though we may be, our destiny is tied up in the
destiny of America. Before the pilgrim fathers landed at Plymouth we
were here. Before Jefferson 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 forebearers labored here without
wages. They made cotton king. 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 continued to grow and develop.
And I say that if the inexpressible cruelties of slavery couldn't stop
us, the opposition that we now face, including the so-called white
backlash, will surely fail. We're gonna 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.
And so I can still sing "We Shall Overcome." We shall overcome
because the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward
Justice. We shall overcome because Carlyle is right, "
No lie
can live forever." We shall overcome because William Cullen
Bryant is right, "
Truth crushed to earth will rise again."
We shall overcome because James Russell Lowell is right,
"
Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the
throne — Yet that scaffold sways the future."
With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of
despair a stone of hope.
With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling
discourse of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood.
With this faith, we will be able to speed up the day when all of
God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles,
Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and live
together as brothers and sisters, all over this great nation.
That will be a great day, that will be a great tomorrow. In the
words of the Scripture, to speak symbolically, that will be the
day when the morning stars will sing together and the sons of God
will shout for joy.
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Read the entire speech...
https://www.crmvet.org/docs/otheram.htm
