Rev. Martin
Luther King, Jr. appealed to reason (logos) and common decency by demonstrating
a respect for his audience's ideas, assumptions and values (their warrants); he
reinforced this appeal consistently through reliable and appropriate use of
support: factual information; metaphors; analogies; literary, historical,
philosophical and theological allusions—all made up his substantiation of
evidence. Furthermore, King aroused emotions (pathos) through use of
connotative and denotative meanings, via his evocative diction. He reinforced his credibility (ethos) through a sincere, compassionate plea for justice;
thereby, he anticipated his readers' rebuttals before they could find expression
for their injustice. - Glen Brown
From Letter
from a Birmingham Jail, April 16, 1963:
“…Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an
inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever
affects one directly, affects all indirectly...
“Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so
that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half-truths to the
unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, so must we see
the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that
will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic
heights of understanding and brotherhood…
“Lamentably, it is an historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up
their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light and
voluntarily give up their unjust posture but, as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded
us, groups tend to be more immoral than individuals…
“Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of
segregation to say, ‘Wait.’ But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your
mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when
you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black
brothers and sisters; when you see 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 suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech
stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can't
go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television,
and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed
to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in
her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by
developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to
concoct an answer for a five year old son who is asking: ‘Daddy, why do white
people treat colored people so mean?’; when you take a cross-county drive and
find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of
your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day
in and day out by nagging signs reading ‘white’ and ‘colored’; when your first
name becomes ‘nigger,’ your middle name becomes ‘boy’ (however old you are) and
your last name becomes ‘John,’ and your wife and mother are never given the
respected title ‘Mrs.’; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the
fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite
knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer
resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of ‘nobodiness’—then
you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when
the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged
into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and
unavoidable impatience…
“Any law that degrades human personality is unjust… An unjust law is a code
that a numerical or power majority group compels a minority group to obey but
does not make binding on itself. This is difference made legal. By the same
token, a just law is a code that a majority compels a minority to follow and
that it is willing to follow itself…
“Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be
opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light,
injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the
light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be
cured…
“Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial
injustice to the solid rock of human dignity…
“Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever…
“Where were their voices of support when bruised and weary Negro men and women
decided to rise from the dark dungeons of complacency to the bright hills of
creative protest?" […]
“There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love…
“So often the contemporary church is a weak, ineffectual voice with an
uncertain sound. So often it is an arch defender of the status quo. Far from
being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the
average community is consoled by the church's silent—and often even
vocal—sanction of things as they are… If today's church does not recapture the
sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authenticity, forfeit
the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no
meaning for the twentieth century…
“Is organized religion too inextricably bound to the status quo to save our
nation and the world? Perhaps I must turn my faith to the inner spiritual
church, the church within the church, as the true ecclesia and the hope of the
world…
“Let us all hope that the dark clouds of racial prejudice will soon pass away
and the deep fog of misunderstanding will be lifted from our fear drenched
communities, and in some not too distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and
brotherhood will shine over our great nation with all their scintillating
beauty.
Yours for the cause of Peace and Brotherhood,”
Martin Luther King, Jr.
King, Martin
Luther. Why We Can’t Wait. New York: Signet Books, 2000.
The
address to civil rights marchers by Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. in Washington,
D.C. on Aug. 28, 1963:
I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the
greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.
Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand
today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a
great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in
the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long
night of their captivity.
But 100 years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the
life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and
the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a
lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity.
One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of
American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we've come
here today to dramatize a shameful condition.
In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the
architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and
the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which
every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men -- yes,
black men as well as white men -- would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar
as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred
obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check that has
come back marked "insufficient funds."
But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to
believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of
this nation. And so we've come to cash this check, a check that will give us
upon demand the riches of freedom and security of justice. We have also come to
his hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no
time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug
of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is
the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit
path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands
of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make
justice a reality for all of God's children.
It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This
sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until
there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. 1963 is not an end but
a beginning. Those who hoped that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will
now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as
usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is
granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake
the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.
But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm
threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our
rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to
satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and
hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and
discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical
violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting
physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed
the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for
many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have
come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have
come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We
cannot walk alone.
As we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot
turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights,
"When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as
the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can
never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel,
cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities.
We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro's basic mobility is from a smaller
ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are
stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating
"for whites only." We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in
Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for
which to vote. No, no we are not satisfied and we will not be satisfied until
justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.
I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and
tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you
have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by storms of
persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the
veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned
suffering is redemptive.
Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back
to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our
northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.
Let us not wallow in the valley of despair. I say to you today my friends -- so
even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a
dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true
meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all
men are created equal."
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former
slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at
the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering
with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be
transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where
they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their
character.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its
governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification
-- one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be
able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and
brothers.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and
mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the
crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be
revealed and all flesh shall see it together.
This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. 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 discords of our
nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be
able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail
together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one
day.
This will be the day. This will be the day when all of God's children will be
able to sing with new meaning "My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of
liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my father's died, land of the Pilgrim's
pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring!"
And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true. And so let
freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring
from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening
Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.
Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado. Let freedom ring
from the curvaceous slopes of California.
But not only that, let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.
Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.
Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi -- from every
mountainside.
Let freedom ring. And when this happens, and when we allow freedom ring -- when
we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every
city, we will be able to speed up that 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! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"
Martin
Luther King, Jr.
from
Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence, a speech delivered on April 4, 1967 at
a meeting of Clergy and Laity Concerned at Riverside Church in New York City by Rev.
Martin Luther King:
“…Perhaps the more tragic recognition of reality took place when it became
clear to me that the war was doing far more than devastating the hopes of the
poor at home. It was sending their sons and their brothers and their husbands
to fight and to die in extraordinarily high proportions relative to the rest of
the population. We were taking the black young men who had been crippled by our
society and sending them eight thousand miles away to guarantee liberties in
Southeast Asia which they had not found in southwest Georgia and East Harlem.
So we have been repeatedly faced with the cruel irony of watching Negro and
white boys on TV screens as they kill and die together for a nation that has
been unable to seat them together in the same schools. So we watch them in brutal
solidarity burning the huts of a poor village, but we realize that they would
never live on the same block in Detroit. I could not be silent in the face of
such cruel manipulation of the poor…
“As I have walked among the desperate, rejected and angry young men I have told
them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems. I have
tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that
social change comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action. But they asked
-- and rightly so -- what about Vietnam? They asked if our own nation wasn't
using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the
changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never
again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos
without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the
world today -- my own government. For the sake of those boys, for the sake of
this government, for the sake of hundreds of thousands trembling under our
violence, I cannot be silent…
“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 an American to the leaders of my own nation. The great initiative in
this war is ours. The initiative to stop it must be ours.
“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. There is nothing to keep us from
molding a recalcitrant status quo with bruised hands until we have fashioned it
into a brotherhood…
“War is not the answer. These are revolutionary times… 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.
This call for a world-wide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond
one's tribe, race, class and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing and
unconditional love for all men…
“We are now faced with the fact 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 ‘tide in the affairs of men’ does not remain at the flood; it
ebbs. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is
deaf to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residue
of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words: ‘Too late.’ There is
an invisible book of life that faithfully records our vigilance or our neglect.
‘The moving finger writes, and having writ moves on...’ We still have a choice
today; nonviolent coexistence or violent co-annihilation…”
Click Here
for the entire transcript.
Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. (January 15, 1929 - April 4, 1968)
A writer must “know and have an ever-present consciousness that this world is a world of fools and rogues… tormented with envy, consumed with vanity; selfish, false, cruel, cursed with illusions… He should free himself of all doctrines, theories, etiquettes, politics…” —Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914?). “The nobility of the writer's occupation lies in resisting oppression, thus in accepting isolation” —Albert Camus (1913-1960). “What are you gonna do” —Bertha Brown (1895-1987).
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“The philosophy of nonviolence which I learned from Dr. Marin Luther King, Jr., during my involvement in the civil rights movement was first responsible for my change in diet…Under the leadership of Dr. King, I became totally committed to nonviolence, and I was convinced that nonviolence meant opposition to killing in any form. I felt the commandment ‘Thou Salt not kill’ applied to human beings not only in their dealings with each other – war, lynching, assassination, murder and the like – but in their practice of killing animals for food or sport. Animals suffer and die alike. Violence causes the same pain…the same arrogant, cruel and brutal taking of life.” – Dick Gregory
ReplyDeleteLet America be America Again by Langston Hughes
ReplyDeleteLet America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.
(America never was America to me.)
Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed--
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.
(It never was America to me.)
O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.
(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")
Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?
I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek--
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.
I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one's own greed!
I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean--
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today--O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.
Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That's made America the land it has become.
O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home--
For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,
And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free."
The free?
Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we've dreamed
And all the songs we've sung
And all the hopes we've held
And all the flags we've hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay--
Except the dream that's almost dead today.
O, let America be America again--
The land that never has been yet--
And yet must be--the land where every man is free.
The land that's mine--the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME--
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.
Sure, call me any ugly name you choose--
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!
O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath--
America will be!
Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain--
All, all the stretch of these great green states--
And make America again!