[Music] America is essentially a dream it is the dream of a land where men of all races of all nationalities and of all trees can live together as brothers the substance of the dream is expressed in these profound word we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal [Music] for centuries the principles upon which America was founded did not apply to african-americans for 300 years Africans were kidnapped and shipped to the Americas in enormous numbers to be bought sold and worked like cattle after the Civil War the blacks of North America were officially freed from slavery but well into the 20th century most black people were still not free [Music] they were not free to live where they chose to work at decent jobs to get a quality education african-americans were not free to vote to change the laws that oppressed them they were not even free to eat travel shot or play where they wished America was a racially and economically segregated society and the captives of segregation were the former slaves and their descendants in 1929 less than a lifetime after the end of slavery Martin Luther King jr. was born in Atlanta his father and grandfather were preachers they use language and music to educate the minds and elevate the spirits of their congregations encouraged to learn and express himself King became an accomplished public speaker like his father by the age of 14 he had moved quickly through school skipping both the ninth and twelfth grades and entered Morehouse College an all-black institution at the age of 15 before he graduated from college he had already chosen his life's work and was ordained a minister when he was just 18 King began graduate studies in theology first at Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania then at Boston University while in Boston he met Coretta Scott a music student and Mike King a southerner they were married in 1953 Coretta had moved north to seek opportunities for education and employment not available to blacks in the south but when King was offered a job in Montgomery Alabama the couple decided their greatest service could be rendered in the south the first of the couple's four children Yolanda was born in Montgomery in November 1955 and at the age of 26 King received his PhD from Boston University while he was in school Martin Luther King studied the work of Mahatma Gandhi who was leading India's fight for freedom from Great Britain Gandhi knew that armed insurrection would justify British attack [Music] his solution was nonviolent passive resistance in which vast numbers of Indians boycotted British goods and disobeyed what they felt were unjust laws relentless nonviolent mass confrontation eventually forced the British to abandon their claim to India Martin Luther King saw that Gandhi's nonviolent approach to the struggle for freedom in India could work in the struggle for equal rights in America the year was 1955 King's first job as a minister was at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery Alabama just across the street from the Alabama State Capitol black bus riders who paid the same fare as whites were required by law to give up their seats to white riders and move to the back of the bus as the whites boarded when all seats had been taken away by whites the black riders had to stand when a black woman named Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat she was arrested have been engaged in a nonviolent protest against in justices and indignities experienced on city buses on Monday December 5th 1955 there were no black passengers on the buses of Montgomery that night a committee was formed to carry on the momentum of the one-day boycott Martin Luther King was elected its president at the age of 26 in his first action as leader King gave an electrifying speech calling for an active refusal to cooperate with what he deemed an evil system we'll be able to emerge from the bleak and desolate midnight of man's inhumanity to man to the bright and glittering daybreak a freedom and jump in response to the repressive forces of segregation King evoked the Christian doctrine of love this met maintaining compassion for the white people of Montgomery while fighting their discriminatory system for dr. King the key to victory would be in never resorting to violence the white citizens of Montgomery however had a different agenda more and more blacks began carpooling to ensure the bus boycott would succeed do now and will continue to carry on our mass protest it is tried but urgently true that if America is to remain a first-class nation she can no longer have second-class citizen [Applause] [Music] death threats against King came almost daily and I think this is what Jesus meant when you said love your enemies and I'm happy that he didn't say like your enemy difficult like some people it's difficult to like people bombing your home and threatening their children and kicking you about but Jesus says love them and love is greater than light mother's understanding creative redemptive goodwill tall men what he said to you when he came up Holly said I want to see I told him early at the courthouse that he could speak at our meeting tonight if he wanted to and I invited him and told him that he could have 15 minutes so I asked him if he was planning to come and he said I want to see you about that can I step over and I said yes he came over and then after they pull him away he started kicking are you injured any way you feel any years in so I just feel a slight headache I'm sure that'll pass away will you press charges together no I don't plan to and I always have to stop and try to define the meaning of love in this area and interestingly enough Greek philosophy comes to I ate at this point agape is more than friendship agape is not something affectionate gar pairs understand and creative redemptive goodwill for all men it is an overflowing love which seeks nothing in return theologians would say that it is the love of God operating in the human heart and when one Rises to love on this level he loves me and not because he likes him but he loves every man because God loves him he's all gone you've had some rather personal experiences you afraid and the consequences from my personal life are not particularly in early 1956 dr.
King was arrested for the first time a few months into the 1956 bus boycott Kings home was bombed many wanted to make a violent retaliatory strike against the white community and to the angry black citizens of Montgomery King invoked the words of Jesus he who lives by the sword will perish by the sword we must meet violence with non-violence we must meet hate with love and so he rises to the level of hating the system rather than the individual who is caught up in that system he loves a person and hates the evil deeds [Music] Constitution and nya's rattler right would be to deny as the black leaders had hoped the Montgomery bus boycott achieved national attention finally on November 13th 1956 a year after the arrest of Rosa Parks the Supreme Court declared bus segregation illegal dr. King had demonstrated his skills as a leader and it experienced his first triumph in the fight for equality the next year 1957 King and others formed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference SCLC this important group trained people in the methods and principles of nonviolent resistance thus creating a corps of leaders for the expanding civil rights movement which would soon reach enormous nationwide proportions that same year 1957 dr. King made his first national address from a civil rights rally in Washington later in 1957 a second child was born to Martin and Coretta Scott King throughout the late 1950s King stood at the forefront of the movement [Music] like many other black leaders he was arrested numerous times for activities in violation of what were deemed repressive laws throughout the south King would later write I was proud of my crime it was the crime of joining my people in a nonviolent protest against injustice it was the crime of seeking to instill within my people a sense of dignity and self-respect it was the crime of desiring for my people the unalienable rights of life liberty and the pursuit of happiness it was above all the crime of seeking to convince my people that non-cooperation with evil is just as much a moral duty as cooperation with good using the method of passive resistance even if we have to receive violence we will not return late in 1958 King was stabbed in the chest by a deranged assailant as the autographed copies of his first book stride toward freedom it demonstrates that a climate of hatred and bitterness permeates our nation after a lengthy recovery Martin and Coretta Scott King departed on a month-long visit to India in early 1959 King wrote of his visit that he left India more convinced than ever before that nonviolent resistance is the most potent weapon available to oppressed people in their struggle for freedom in the freedom of black men and brown men and yellow men God is interested in the freedom of the whole human race and the create 1960 was a critical year for the movement of destiny is kicking out late we must act now before it is too late the signs of oppression was still everywhere to be seen and heard throughout America earlier that year a handful of college students in Greensboro North Carolina would risen out of anger and frustration to challenge the practice of denying service to blacks the black students occupied a lunch counter at Woolworth's where they were ordered to leave within a few days students were filling the seats at lunch counters throughout the city and a new term as well as a new tactic in the struggle for civil rights was born the sit-in King welcome to the spontaneous new direction in civil rights activities and became involved with the student movement early realizing the importance of supporting a younger generation in the struggle for equality with King's influence the student movement quickly grew in stature throughout the south and the nation largely under the direction of the newly formed Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee known as snip from this time forth a great deal of the civil rights movements energy would come from the students but in later years the younger factions would also provide the greatest internal challenge to the nonviolent basis for the movement regardless of where he lives we'll stop and examine his conscience this nation was founded by men of many nations and backgrounds it was founded on the principle that all men are created equal today we are committed to promote and protect the rights of all who wish to be free now we descended the world and much more importantly to each other that this is a land of the free except for the Negroes that we have no second-class citizens except Negroes if we have no class or caste system no ghettos no master race except with respect to Negroes now the time has come for this nation to fulfill its promise 1960 was a presidential election year and in John F Kennedy many African Americans saw a chance for the first meaningful government action in the cause of equal rights and equal justice America's black leadership strongly supported Kennedy and I would say there are some things that we must continue to do in order to make the American dream a reality and save our nation in this hour on election day most groups were divided evenly between Kennedy and his opponent Richard Nixon only black Americans voted overwhelmingly for JFK Kennedy won but only by an extremely narrow margin however the hoped for comprehensive national civil rights legislation was slow in coming President Kennedy and his brother Attorney General Robert Kennedy at first did not think new civil rights legislation was possible because Congress was conservative like much of America and would not support it the events of the next three years would change the president's mind and the attitudes of millions of white Americans in 1961 as the civil rights movement spread more White's joined in demonstrations against discrimination to fight segregation and travel between the states groups of black and white Freedom Riders began traveling together by bus throughout the south challenging discriminatory laws their actions were often met with white violence in May 1961 King and his followers were trapped in a Montgomery church by white racists until freed by federal marshals under orders from Attorney General Robert Kennedy you've read these people say now you've got to change the hearts of men that's all the way you can solve it and I guess that's true now it may be true that morality cannot be legislated but behavior can be regulated I guess it is true that the law can't make a man love me religion and education must do that but the law can keep him from lynching me and I think that's pretty important the federal government was beginning to react in 1961 segregation was officially ended in interstate travel advances and civil rights were not without their ever increasing cost in human lives in 1962 when james Meredith was admitted by court order as the first black student of the University of Mississippi riots occurred in which two people were killed in June 1963 Medgar Evers head of the Mississippi chapter of the n-double a-c-p the oldest civil rights organization in America was shot and killed outside his home his alleged murderer was not brought to trial until 1993 but the pressure for change continued and the pressure was never greater than in 1963 early in the year dr.
King and other black leaders decided to focus on what they called the most segregated city in the United States Birmingham Alabama [Music] they know how to handle the black leaders planned a highly visible demonstration of their demands for equality on April 12th 1963 two weeks after the birth of his fourth child dr. King Reverend Ralph Abernathy and a thousand others marched toward downtown Birmingham the marchers were in deliberate violation of an order by police commissioner Bull Connor expressly forbidding demonstrations the mass arrests began as expected King and Abernathy were arrested in jail along with many others King was held for 24 hours in solitary confinement until President Kennedy personally interceded with Birmingham officials two days later King's brother the Reverend ad King was arrested for leading another large demonstration Police Commissioner Bull Connor was on public record as being strongly opposed to the civil rights movement his police met the demonstrators with a show of force rarely seen in America police dogs attacked unarmed and unprotected marchers the fire department was called in to help suppress the fire of freedom the force of water from their hoses was like a battering ram even from a distance people were knocked off their feet by the powerful blasts this kind of response to the peaceful black struggle for equal rights was not new but now the confrontations were broadcast across the nation on television America saw firsthand that the demonstrators remained nonviolent while the police were unrestrained in their use of life-threatening force [Music] never before was dr. King's philosophy of non-violence more effective as millions of Americans began to realize that the blacks were being victimized by the laws of the land rather than being protected by the law like other Americans President Kennedy watched on television the familiar spectacle of police violence against dr.
King and his followers for the upper class president from New England it was a shocking education in the realities of life for black America during the 11 days King spent in prison he wrote and smuggled out the famous letter from a Birmingham jail in which he reiterated his philosophy of non-violent civil disobedience for years now we have heard the word wait it rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity this wait has almost always meant never we must come to see that justice too long delayed is justice denied perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say wait but when you've seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will when you've seen the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of no body nurse then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait on may 2nd 1963 a large group of black children joined the Birmingham protests after a speech by King they moved toward downtown again the police began making arrests the same buses that transported the children to segregated schools were now being used to haul them to segregated prisons before the day was over almost a thousand children were in jail a day later another thousand children joined the March this time the authorities were sorted to violence the marchers were blasted with fire hoses beaten with clubs attacked by police dogs and gassed at last on may 10th 1963 under pressure from the federal government and from outraged world opinion the leaders of Birmingham accepted the demands of the freedom marchers there was little time for celebration however that night both Kings motel room and his brother's home were bombed having witnessed the abuse of power by Alabama authorities - the humiliating images of American violence and injustice being spread throughout the world President Kennedy had seen enough so increased the cries for equality that no city or state or legislative body can prudently choose to ignore them Kennedy agreed to push landmark civil rights legislation through Congress it is a time to act in the Congress in your state and local legislative body and above all in all of our daily lives it's not enough to pin the blame on others to say this is the problem of one section of the country or another for the poor the facts that we face they great changes at hand and our task our obligation is to make that revolution that change peaceful and constructive for all those who do nothing are inviting shame as well as violence those who act boldly are recognizing right as well as reality next week I shall ask the Congress of the United States to act to make a commitment it is not fully made in this century to the proposition that race has no place in American life or law in June dr. King and civil rights leaders met with the President to announce plans for a march on Washington in support of the Civil Rights Act President Kennedy thought such a move would be disastrous for the cause but the leaders knew the March would draw hundreds of thousands of people the historic march on Washington took place in August 1963 as King and the others predicted enormous numbers black and white gathered to show the time had come to end the discriminatory treatment of black Americans in the deep south facing all of the violence and all of the suffering that is something that consoles us along the way we are convinced that our cause is right I returned to Alabama Mississippi and Georgia not in despair not in bitterness I returned knowing that we are moving into a bright day of freedom [Music] [Music] dr. King one of the foremost fighters for civil rights is one of many speakers who remind the gathering that this March must not be counted a final victory or defeat we struggle through our suffering through our sacrifice we'll be able to achieve the American dream this will be 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 sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual free at last [Applause] the day was a landmark in American history and the high point was a speech by dr.
King that stands as one of the most important beautiful eloquent and stirring orations in the English language King's words made many Americans feel free for the first time in their lives it was indeed the most important civil rights demonstration in history with millions around the country and around the world sharing its spirit through television coverage the momentum for the Civil Rights Act could not be stopped even though white terrorists would try many more times in September less than a month after the March a black church was bombed in Birmingham during Sunday services for young girls were killed as always King deplored the violence but he urged his followers not to stoop the violence themselves as dr. King had written in 1958 the old law of an eye for an eye leaves everybody blind [Music] but freedom marchers and civil rights advocates were not the only ones to experience violence in a nation that felt like it was inspired with hope but in danger of being torn apart by hatred as President Kennedy at last committed himself to passage of the Civil Rights Act his popularity dropped dramatically president and mrs. Kennedy arrived by plane in Dallas they began a motorcade in open limousines into the heart of the city and there in Dallas John F Kennedy was shot and killed the nation and the world were in shock a sense of betrayal permeated much of American dreams were shattered the first president in a century to hear the demands of black America and respond with a message of hope had died just as Lincoln had died almost 100 years earlier for the millions of Americans black and white who had seen Kennedy as their champion in the fight for justice the future was suddenly obscure [Music] Martin Luther King said in morning President Kennedy we mourn a man who had become the pride of the nation but they also mourn for ourselves you know now that we are sick [Music] a year later Kingwood right while the question of who killed President Kennedy is important the question what killed him is more important it is a climate where men express their disagreement through violence and murder it is the same climate that murdered Medgar Evers in Mississippi and six innocent children in Birmingham Alabama so in a sense we are all participants in that horrible act that tarnished the image of our nation we have created an atmosphere in which violence and hatred had become popular pastimes prophetically King said of the assassination of Kennedy this is going to happen to me I'll never see my 40th birthday soon the most turbulent year in the civil rights movement would be over under the new President Lyndon Johnson America would become involved in a major war in Vietnam the country would be divided as never before new forces in the civil rights struggle would emerge including many who thought King obsolete in his insistence on peaceful protest and his belief in the inevitable unity of all races in one brotherhood of man but for Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement of which he was the conscience the greatest achievements were yet to come his actions and protest his courage to risk safety and even to risk his life have awakened the conscience of this nation President Johnson a southerner was much cooler toward King and the civil rights agenda than Kennedy had been but he pledged to complete Kennedy's work on the Civil Rights Act he knew even better than Kennedy how to achieve consensus on legislation have been many pressures upon your president and there will be others as the day but that pledge you tonight that we intend to fight this battle where it should be fought in the court and in the Congress and in the hearts of men one of Johnson's first and greatest achievements was passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 this bill was the most important civil rights legislation signed into law since the 15th constitutional amendment of 1870 it guaranteed the right to vote to all male citizens without regard to race color or previous enslavement the new federal law of 1964 prohibited discrimination for reasons of color race religion or national origin in public schools and employment dr.
King for his leadership was named Time magazine's 1964 Man of the Year and later in 1964 he became the youngest person ever to win the Nobel Prize for Peace but passage of the Civil Rights Act did not mean that the struggle was over violence against the movement continued to rage bombings burnings and killings were regular events throughout the south in August 1964 three civil rights workers were murdered on their first day in Mississippi James Chaney was 21 Michael Schwerner was 24 Andrew Goodman was only 20 years later a sheriff and six others would be found guilty of the three slayings but only after King had published an expose of the pattern of murder and official conspiracy in Mississippi television news brought the drama of the investigation and the heartbreak of the discovery of the murders into the homes of millions as more white victims began to fall in the struggle for freedom more of white America began to take serious notice for Martin Luther King winning the world's most respectable Prize the Nobel did not mean he was about to retire to the life of an elder statesman in May 1964 he was arrested during a demonstration in st. Augustine Florida there would be more arrests on behalf of the cause the tales of Jackson Mississippi and transformed these jails from dungeons of shame to havens of freedom and human dignity I know sometimes how distant kids we get we have a right to get discontent and how frustrated we get in the process sometime but I submit to you this evening that this way of non-violence will help us not to seek to rise from a position of disadvantage to one of advantages of subverting justice we will not substitute one tyranny for another black supremacy is as dangerous as white supremacy but many in the civil rights movement were not as forgiving his King and they were becoming increasingly impatient Malcolm X was growing in stature and more people were responding to his message of black nationalism or black separatism a new generation of leaders such as Stokely Carmichael a trapped Brown Bobby Seale and Huey Newton were eager for more decisive change and they often expressed their anger at the continuing outrages through a call to take up arms in 1964 for the first time King experienced violence directed against him by blacks as he had many times by whites during an appearance in Harlem he was assaulted by black Muslims though King realized consensus in the movement would be increasingly difficult to achieve he pressed on with his program of civil disobedience peaceful resistance and what he called non-cooperation with evil and where many of the more militant factions were speaking of whites as the enemy King repeatedly insisted that the brotherhood of man transcended all races religions political social and economic differences after passage of the civil rights act Kings next major objective was the achievement of full voting rights in Alabama only one out of every 100 black residents was able to register to vote this was due to a testing scheme similar to grandfather clauses and poll taxes which were rigged by state and local government officials thus it was almost impossible for blacks to register - in hatred among his fellow man and who promoted love among the people of all races in all regions and all parties to [Applause] call attention to Alabama's voting rights and equities King decided to lead a march from Selma to the Capitol in Montgomery as usual the authorities unwittingly aided his cause by forbidding the March in early February 1965 after voting rights demonstration King was arrested again a week later he met with President Johnson to urge passage of national Voting Rights legislation while King was in jail Malcolm X visited Coretta King in a show of support both King and Malcolm knew that if the nonviolent movement did not succeed the alternative would be militancy however on February 21st 1965 Malcolm X was assassinated in New York City the militant faction of the civil rights movement had its first martyr perhaps Alabama's white population was encouraged by the murder of an important black leader [Music] many whites were fighting at the prospect of the black majority voting sympathetic leaders and office an attempted march from Selma to Montgomery was met with massive police resistance arrests violence and the murder of a white clergyman the marchers turned back as before every assault and death focused more national attention on Selma tragedy the balls that receive the blood that was shed the life of the good man that was lost must strengthen the determination of each of us to bring full and equal and exact justice dr. King himself received many death threats during this period but he said he would rather die on the highways of Alabama then make a butchery of his conscience as the demonstrators prepared for another March to present demands to Governor George Wallace President Johnson lobbied Congress in favor of the voting rights bill finally under federal protection the March was able to proceed over five days to the Alabama State Capitol their King told tens of thousands of supporters that the battle is in our hands [Music] the March gave much-needed support to President Johnson's push for voting rights legislation at last on August 6 the 1965 President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law another fundamental right guaranteed by the Constitution was at last won by America's african-american citizens with the passage of the Voting Rights Act Martin Luther King struggle had achieved its last great success from this time forth he would broaden his focus to include issues of poverty employment and peace throughout the United States and the world and meaningful I will with President Johnson to discuss some of the vital and important issues of our nation in the area of civil rights I might say that in the very beginning I am graduated the president for the passage of the new voting bill knowing that he had worked so passionately and unrelentingly for this bill and made it very clear to him that this would be a great step forward in removing all of the remaining obstacles to the right to vote that the time is right for an evening of demonstrations perhaps a moratorium on racial strife well I think that in some areas there will be an easing of demonstrations where there is real compliance with the 1964 bill and with the new voting bill that is if it is vigorously and they meant it I think in those areas we may see a decrease in demonstrations on the other hand the problems of America are growing everyday and I think in those communities I will be an increase of demonstrations in order to Carl attention to the problems and housing jobs and in the schools and I think this will be the only way that the Negro community and the Allies in the white community will be able to bring these issues out in the open so that the communities and bar will not be able to ignore the problem in early 1966 dr.
King began a major action in Chicago there he moved into a slum dwelling with the intention of organizing the poor this was a courageous and controversial effort for King and southern leaders who were focusing on the north for the first time later in 1966 civil rights worker james Meredith led a march through the south Meredith had integrated the University of Mississippi in 1962 without injury this time he would not be so lucky the movement received another blow when Meredith was shot along the route of his March dr. King and other leaders decided to return to the south to continue Meredith's March but during the march king encountered hostile Black Power militants who wanted to respond to violence like the assault on Meredith with violence of their own - this younger generation of activists Kings nonviolent approach seemed out of touch with the angry mood of black America typically King expressed sympathy patience and understanding for his black opponents later that same year Los Angeles was shattered by the Watts Riots [Music] in five days of violence 34 people were killed and hundreds of millions of dollars worth of property was destroyed then in July 1967 Detroit and Newark experienced devastating riots of their own [Music] dozens were killed [Music] thousands were left homeless the nation seemed on the verge of insurrection perhaps peace was impossible in the United States while we had a half million troops fighting in Vietnam in this turbulent social and political climate King realized he could no longer remain silent on the war despite the counsel of major advisors who warned that voicing opposition to the war would alienate some of the civil rights movement strongest allies King spoke out powerfully against America's involvement in Vietnam I knew you both that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today my own government America we may not be able to achieve demand that we admit that we have been wrong from the beginning of our adventure in Vietnam but we have been detrimental to the life of the Vietnamese people situation is one in which we must be ready it's our turn softly from our present wave the New Testament says repent it is time for America to repent now for the kingdom of God is at hand as we counsel young men from planning military service we must clarify for them on a shipload in Vietnam and challenge them with the alternatives of Carter inches objections and I say this morning that it is Maho every young man in this country who finds this law objectionable and abominable and untuk file as a conscientious objection now let me tell you the truth about it they must be Americans estranged liberated you realize that the Vietnamese people proclaim their own independence in 1945 after a combined French and Japanese occupation an incident that this was before the Communist revolution in China they were led by Ho Chi Minh this is a little-known fact these people declared themselves independent in 1945 they quoted our Declaration of Independence in that document of freedom yet our government refused to recognize and who are we supporting in Vietnam today a man by the name of general key King was criticized from many sides for his stand on the war major segments of the mainstream American press virtually wrote his obituary as a national leader President Johnson who was pursuing the war as vigorously as he pursued the Civil Rights Act felt personally betrayed by King and by all of black America but within one year of King's Speech the tide of public opinion had turned so strongly against the war that Lyndon Johnson decided not to run for a second term as president Martin Luther King was arguably the most important and effective American leader to take a moral stand against our involvement in Vietnam in late March 1968 dr. King that a demonstration of 8,000 people in Memphis Tennessee this time the demonstrators turned violent and yet at the same time when the hearts and sold the boat who have kept these conditions alive we've been traveled over so long [Applause] I know the temptation that comes to all of us we've seen the forbidden and misguided and they've ended up feeling that the problem kids these they talk about racial separation rather than racial integration determined to show the world that non-violence is not dead Kings scheduled another March working with many of the factions involved in the earlier violence King convinced them to participate without resorting to dangerous physical confrontation on April 3rd he delivered a speech that made reference to the war abroad and the war at home in the same terms 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 non-violence in this world it's non-violence or non-existence dr.
King went on to utter words that would be prophetic we've got some difficult days ahead like anybody I would like to live a long life but I'm not concerned about that now I just want to do God's will and he's allowed me to go up to the mountain and I've looked over and I've 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 I'm happy tonight I'm not worried about anything I'm not fearing any man mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord God is interested in the freedom of the whole the creation of a society by all men will live together his problems no we need not hate we need not use violence that is another way where as old as the insights of Jesus of Nazareth that modern as the techniques of Mohandas K Gandhi that is another way where's all this Jesus saying love your enemies bless them that curse you modern is Gandhi saying through the role non-cooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as his cooperation with good that is another way aware though let's Jesus saying turn the other cheek when he said that he realized that turning the other cheek might bring suffering sometimes he realized that it may get some home bomb some time he realized that it may get to stab some time he realized that it may get to start up some time he will say in substance that it is better to go through life with a starter body than a start of soul that is another way [Applause] one day later on April 4th 1968 dr. King stepped out onto the balcony of his motel room in Memphis where he had been meeting with Ralph Abernathy Jesse Jackson and others from across the way a single shot was fired Martin Luther King fell dead murdered at the age of 39 James Earl Ray was convicted of the murder of Martin Luther King King was a man with extraordinary gifts a dreamer with a vision of equality he shared so generously for the good of humanity a hero of magnificent courage eloquence and inspiration a father of four young children a leader with a lifetime of yet untapped potential that will make America a new nation we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of probable this is our challenge this is the way we must battle with this dilemma we will be abased let us have faith in the future and all of us asking how long will prejudice blind divisions of men darken their understanding and drive by tide wisdom from a sacred throne be lifted from this dust of shame to reign supreme among the children of men yes when will the radiant star of hope be plunged again two hundred thousand Americans black and white walked slowly through the sun-baked streets of Atlanta following the mule drawn sharecroppers farm wagon that carried his casket in the aftermath of King's death riots broke out in over 100 cities soldiers marched across America against her own people tens of thousands were arrested martin luther king provided a more constructive call to arms when he said non-violence is a powerful and just weapon it is a weapon unique in history which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it it is a sword that heals with America still immersed in violence and injustice what has survived the legacy of dr. Martin Luther King in 1955 before Martin Luther King entered public life in much of the United States Americans of African descent could not even vote King's work had made it possible for Edward Brooke to be elected the first black US senator in 1967 Thurgood Marshall was sworn in as the first black Supreme Court justice that same year Carl Stokes and Richard Hatcher were elected the first black mayors of major US cities in 1968 shirley Chisholm became the first African American woman elected to Congress in 1992 carol moseley-braun became the first black woman elec to the United States Senate but if this seems like too little too late remember that the legacy of dr.
