"The nation is sick.
Trouble is in the land.
Confusion all around.
That's a strange statement.
But I know, somehow, that only
when it is dark enough, can you see the stars."
Dr. Martin Luther
King, Jr. delivered this speech in support of the striking sanitation
workers at Mason Temple in Memphis, TN on April 3, 1968 — the day
before he was assassinated.
Below is the full audio of the speech
Thank you very kindly, my friends. As I listened to Ralph Abernathy in
his eloquent and generous introduction and then thought about myself, I
wondered who he was talking about. It's always good to have your
closest friend and associate say something good about you. And Ralph is
the best friend that I have in the world.
I'm delighted to see each of you here tonight in spite of a storm
warning. You reveal that you are determined to go on anyhow. Something
is happening in Memphis, something is happening in our world.
As you know, if I were standing at the beginning of time, with the
possibility of general and panoramic view of the whole human history up
to now, and the Almighty said to me, "Martin Luther King, which age
would you like to live in?" — I would take my mental flight by Egypt
through, or rather across the Red Sea, through the wilderness on toward
the promised land. And in spite of its magnificence, I wouldn't stop
there. 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 as they discussed the great and eternal
issues of reality.
But I wouldn't stop there. 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't stop there. 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 esthetic life of man. But
I wouldn't stop there. I would even go by the way that the man for whom
I'm named had his habitat. And I would watch Martin Luther as he tacked
his ninety-five theses on the door at the church in Wittenberg.
But I wouldn't stop there. 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't stop there. I would even come up to the early thirties, 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. Strangely enough, I would turn to the
Almighty, and say, "If you allow me to live just a few years in the
second half of the twentieth century, I will be happy." Now that's 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's 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 twentieth century in a away that men, in some strange way, are
responding — 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 — "We want to be free."
And another reason that I'm happy to live in this period is that we
have been forced to a point where we're going to have to grapple with
the problems that men have been trying to grapple with through history,
but the demand didn't 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's
nonviolence or nonexistence.
That is where we are today. And also in the human rights revolution, if
something isn't done, and 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'm just happy that God
has allowed me to live in this period, to see what is unfolding. And
I'm happy that He's allowed me to be in Memphis.
I can remember, I can remember when Negroes were just going around as
Ralph has said, so often, scratching where they didn't 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's
world.
And that's all this whole thing is about. We aren't 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 that we are God's children. And that we don't
have to live like we are forced to live.
Now,
what does all of this mean in this great period of history? It means
that we've got to stay together. We've 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 salves fighting among themselves. But
whenever the slaves get together, something happens in Pharaoh's court,
and he cannot hold the slaves in slavery. When the slaves get together,
that's the beginning of getting out of slavery. Now let us maintain
unity.
Secondly, let us keep the issues where they are. The issue is
injustice. The issue is the refusal of Memphis to be fair and honest in
its dealings with its public servants, who happen to be sanitation
workers. Now, we've got to keep attention on that. That's always the
problem with a little violence. You know what happened the other day,
and the press dealt only with the window-breaking. I read the articles.
They very seldom got around to mentioning the fact that one thousand,
three hundred sanitation workers were on strike, and that Memphis is
not being fair to them, and that Mayor Loeb is in dire need of a
doctor. They didn't get around to that.
Now we're going to march again, and we've got to march again, in order
to put the issue where it is supposed to be. And force everybody to see
that there are thirteen hundred of God's children here suffering,
sometimes going hungry, going through dark and dreary nights wondering
how this thing is going to come out. That's the issue. And we've got to
say to the nation: we know it's coming out. For when people get caught
up with that which is right and they are willing to sacrifice for it,
there is no stopping point short of victory.
We aren't going to let any mace stop us. We are masters in our
nonviolent movement in disarming police forces; they don't know what to
do, I've 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, "Ain't gonna let nobody
turn me round." Bull Connor next would say, "Turn the fire hoses on."
And as I said to you the other night, Bull Connor didn't know history.
He knew a kind of physics that somehow didn't 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
denomination, we had been immersed. If we were Methodist, and some
others, we had been sprinkled, but we knew water.
That couldn't stop us. And we just went on before the dogs and we would
look at them; and we'd go on before the water hoses and we would look
at it, and we'd just go on singing "Over my head I see freedom in the
air." 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, "Take them off," and they did; and we would
just go in the paddy wagon singing, "We Shall Overcome." And every now
and then we'd get in the jail, and we'd 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't
adjust to; and so we ended up transforming Bull into a steer, and we
won our struggle in Birmingham.
Now we've got to go on to Memphis just like that. I call upon you to be
with us Monday. Now about injunctions: We have an injunction and we're
going into court tomorrow morning to fight this illegal,
unconstitutional injunction. All we say to America is, "Be true to what
you said on paper." If I lived in China or even Russia, or any
totalitarian country, maybe I could understand the denial of certain
basic First Amendment privileges, because they hadn't committed
themselves to that over there. But somewhere I read of the freedom of
assembly. Somewhere I read of the freedom of speech. Somewhere I read
of the freedom of the press. Somewhere I read that the greatness of
America is the right to protest for right. And so just as I say, we
aren't going to let any injunction turn us around. We are going on.
We need all of you. And you know what's beautiful to me, is to see all
of these ministers of the Gospel. It's a marvelous picture. Who is it
that is supposed to articulate the longings and aspirations of the
people more than the preacher? Somehow the preacher must be an Amos,
and say, "Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a
mighty stream." Somehow, the preacher must say with Jesus, "The spirit
of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to deal with the
problems of the poor."
And I want to commend the preachers, under the leadership of these
noble men: James Lawson, one who has been in this struggle for many
years; he's been to jail for struggling; but he's still going on,
fighting for the rights of his people. Rev. Ralph Jackson, Billy Kiles;
I could just go right on down the list, but time will not permit. But I
want to thank them all. And I want you to thank them, because so often,
preachers aren't concerned about anything but themselves. And I'm
always happy to see a relevant ministry.
It's all right to talk about "long white robes over yonder," in all of
its symbolism. But ultimately people want some suits and dresses and
shoes to wear down here. It's all right to talk about "streets flowing
with milk and honey," but God has commanded us to be concerned about
the slums down here, and his children who can't eat three square meals
a day. It's all right to talk about the new Jerusalem, but one day,
God's preachers must talk about the New York, the new Atlanta, the new
Philadelphia, the new Los Angeles, the new Memphis, Tennessee. This is
what we have to do.
Now the other thing we'll have to do is this: Always anchor our
external direct action with the power of economic withdrawal. Now, we
are poor people, individually, we are poor when you compare us with
white society in America. We are poor. Never stop and forget that
collectively, that means all of us together, collectively we are richer
than all the nations in the world, with the exception of nine. Did you
ever think about that? After you leave the United States, Soviet
Russia, Great Britain, West Germany, France, and I could name the
others, the Negro collectively is richer than most nations of the
world. We have an annual income of more than thirty billion dollars a
year, which is more than all of the exports of the United States, and
more than the national budget of Canada. Did you know that? That's
power right there, if we know how to pool it.
We don't have to argue with anybody. We don't have to curse and go
around acting bad with our words. We don't need any bricks and bottles,
we don't need any Molotov cocktails, we just need to go around to these
stores, and to these massive industries in our country, and say, "God
sent us by here, to say to you that you're not treating his children
right. And we've come by here to ask you to make the first item on your
agenda fair treatment, where God's children are concerned. Now, if you
are not prepared to do that, we do have an agenda that we must follow.
And our agenda calls for withdrawing economic support from you."
And so, as a result of this, we are asking you tonight, to go out and
tell your neighbors not to buy Coca-Cola in Memphis. Go by and tell
them not to buy Sealtest milk. Tell them not to buy — what is the other
bread? — Wonder Bread. And what is the other bread company, Jesse? Tell
them not to buy Hart's bread. As Jesse Jackson has said, up to now,
only the garbage men have been feeling pain; now we must kind of
redistribute the pain. We are choosing these companies because they
haven't been fair in their hiring policies; and we are choosing them
because they can begin the process of saying, they are going to support
the needs and the rights of these men who are on strike. And then they
can move on downtown and tell Mayor Loeb to do what is right.
But not only that, we've got to strengthen black institutions. I call
upon you to take your money out of the banks downtown and deposit your
money in Tri-State Bank — we want a "bank-in" movement in Memphis. So
go by the savings and loan association. I'm not asking you something we
don't do ourselves at SCLC. Judge Hooks and others will tell you that
we have an account here in the savings and loan association from the
Southern Christian Leadership Conference. We're just telling you to
follow what we're doing. Put your money there. You have six or seven
black insurance companies in Memphis. Take out your insurance there. We
want to have an "insurance-in."
Now these are some practical things we can do. We begin the process of
building a greater economic base. And at the same time, we are putting
pressure where it really hurts. I ask you to follow through here.
Now, let me say as I move to my conclusion that we've got to give
ourselves to this struggle until the end. Nothing would be more tragic
than to stop at this point, in Memphis. We've got to see it through.
And when we have our march, you need to be there. Be concerned about
your brother. You may not be on strike. But either we go up together,
or we go down together.
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
in life. At points, he wanted to trick Jesus, and show him that he knew
a little more than Jesus knew, and through this, 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 a 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't 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
with him, administering 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 "I" into the "thou," and to be
concerned about his brother. Now you know, we use our imagination a
great deal to try to determine why the priest and the Levite didn't
stop. At times we say they were busy going to church meetings — an
ecclesiastical gathering — and they had to get on down to Jerusalem so
they wouldn't be late for their meeting. At other times we would
speculate that there was a religious law that "One who was engaged in
religious ceremonials was not to touch a human body twenty-four hours
before the ceremony." And every now and then we begin to wonder whether
maybe they were not going down to Jerusalem, or down to Jericho, rather
to organize a "Jericho Road Improvement Association." That's 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 effort.
But I'm going to tell you what my imagination tells me. It's possible
that these 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, "I can see why Jesus used this
as a setting for his parable." It's a winding, meandering road. It's
really conducive for ambushing. You start out in Jerusalem, which is
about 1200 miles, or rather 1200 feet above sea level. And by the time
you get down to Jericho, fifteen or twenty minutes later, you're about
2200 feet below sea level. That's a dangerous road. In the days of
Jesus it came to be known as the "Bloody Pass." And you know, it's
possible that the priest and the Levite looked over that man on the
ground and wondered if the robbers were still around. Or it's 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 Levite asked was, "If I stop to help this man, what
will happen to me?" But then the Good Samaritan came by. And he
reversed the question: "If I do not stop to help this man, what will
happen to him?"
That's the question before you tonight. Not, "If 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?" The question
is not, "If I stop to help this man in need, what will happen to me?"
"If I do not stop to help the sanitation workers, what will happen to
them?" That's the question.
Let us rise up tonight with a greater readiness. Let us stand with a
greater determination. And let us move on in these powerful days, these
days of challenge to make America what it ought to be. We have an
opportunity to make America a better nation. And I want to thank God,
once more, for allowing me to be here with you.
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, "Are you Martin Luther King?"
And I was looking down writing, and I said yes. 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's punctured, you drown in your own blood —
that's the end of you.
It came out in the New York Times the next morning, that if I had
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 wheel chair 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've forgotten what those telegrams said. I'd
received a visit and a letter from the Governor of New York, but I've
forgotten what the 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'll never forget it. It
said simply, "Dear Dr. King: I am a ninth-grade student at the White
Plains High School." She said, "While it should not matter, I would
like to mention that I am 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'm simply writing you to say that I'm so
happy that you didn't sneeze."
And I want to say tonight, I want to say that I am happy that I didn't
sneeze. Because if I had sneezed, I wouldn't 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. If I had sneezed, I wouldn't have been around 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't ride your back unless it is bent. If I
had sneezed, I wouldn't 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. If I had sneezed, I wouldn't
have had a chance later that year, in August, to try to tell America
about a dream that I had had. If I had sneezed, I wouldn't have been
down in Selma, Alabama, been in Memphis to see the community rally
around those brothers and sisters who are suffering. I'm so happy that
I didn't sneeze.
And they were telling me, now it doesn't matter now. It really doesn't
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, "We 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 with the
plane, we had to check out everything carefully. And we've had the
plane protected and guarded all night."
And then I got to Memphis. And some began to say the threats, or talk
about the threats that were out. What would happen to me from some of
our sick white brothers?
Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days
ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the
mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a
long life. Longevity has its place. 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.
