If the 1960s were to switch places with 2016 the years would look the same, and feel the same, except now we have a Black president in the White House

“I object to violence because it offers to do good, but the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent”. Mahatma Gandhi
 
In the Deep South, during the decades of civil unrest, the lives and futures of Black folks did not matter. Yesterday is still today in the lives of too many African Americans. Throughout this presidential election year I watch on TV, and hear angry White folks wallowing in self-pity, complaining that life as they knew it is gone. They say they feel like outsiders. They want to take back “their America.” They are talking about the good old days of White supremacy, White privilege, and their assured firstness on the ladder of opportunity.
 
Demonstrations and protests were the only avenues available for Black folks. There were no firsts for them. Weaponless fighting 

Students participate in demonstrations in Florida

for their share of the American pie, gainful employment and the right to live decent lives were their goals. Black parents watched their children suffer with them, all the while answering their children's questions about why they were treated differently from White boys and girls. Black parents had to explain there was no Black privilege.  There will never be Black privilege for Black folks.

May 2, 1963, Birmingham, Alabama. Over 700 children--The Children’s Crusade--were arrested for participating in a protest. These children, like their adult counterparts, were beaten by police, bitten by police dogs and blasted with fire department strength hoses. The Children’s Crusade was the brainchild of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). Their purpose was to resuscitate the failing anti-segregation campaign. More than 1,000 Black children were recruited and trained how to react when starring in the face violence, and name calling.
 
The plan was to have Black students walk out of classes, gather at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, and then march downtown. But many of the students did not make it downtown. They were arrested and hauled off to jail in paddy wagons and school buses. No matter how these children were treated they stood their ground, sticking to their vow of nonviolence. As a result of their participating in the protest the Birmingham Board of Education saw fit to expel and suspend them from school. The punishments were overturned by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. The expulsions and suspensions had been decided by the Birmingham Federal District Court.  

The Sixteenth Street Baptist Church is where four little girls attending Sunday School were killed by a bomb planted under the church’s steps by a Ku Klux Klan killer named Robert Chambliss. It took years for someone to be arrested and charged. Chambliss was charged with murder for his participation in the bombing. Unfortunately, he died in prison. Two more killers were arrested years later, and sentenced to life in prison. By the time they were apprehended they were old men.  

Everywhere African Americans have lived these stories revealed 100 percent of their history. Some incidents were too ridiculous to believe. Like the Black woman who refused to answer questions on the witness stand, because the judge referred to her by her first name. She wanted the same courtesy afforded the Whites who took the stand, all of whom were addressed as Mr. Miss or Mrs. Mary Hamilton asked that she be called Miss Mary Hamilton. The judge was not having that kind of sassy talk from this Negro gal in his courtroom! How dare she demand White folks respect her! Hamilton paid more than one price for demanding respect in the courtroom. The pissed off judge sentenced her to five days in jail, plus a $50.00 fine.

Hamilton did her time in jail, but she would not pay the fine. The NAACP legal defense team stepped in to defend her, and repealed her case to the Supreme Court. The contempt charge was overturned.

In 1964 three college aged students went to Mississippi to register African Americans to vote. Their names were James Chaney, 22, an African American from Mississippi, was a plasterer’s apprentice; Andrew Goodman, 20, was an anthropology student from New York, and Michael Schwerner, 24, was a social worker from Manhattan Lower East Side. These young activists are recorded in the chronicles of history. They met their untimely deaths at the hands of murderous hoodlums who terrorized Black people (and some Whites) living in the South.  

Goodman and Schwerner, both Jews, were shot once in the head. The most horrendous death was set aside for Chaney. He was severely beaten and shot in the head three times. The KKKers took the bodies to a dam on a farm outside of Philadelphia, Mississippi where they were buried in shallow graves. Their decomposed bodies were found a month after they were reported missing.  

The same fate awaited any civil rights activists trying to register Blacks to vote, fight against discrimination and desegregation. For well over two centuries evilness has been stacked like bricks on the shoulders of African Americans. White people made the choice to disparage Black folks, and then blame them for who they are. The outright denouncement of a race of people justified White folks animosity towards Blacks.

This leads me to ask: What kind of human being throws muriatic acid into a Whites Only

James Brock pours muriatic acid in pool to
chase out protesters.

swimming pool that Blacks attempted to integrate? That’s what five civil rights demonstrators ventured to do, along with two of their White friends at the Monson Motor Lodge, owned and operated by segregationist James E. “Jimmy” Brock, a native Florida.

What drives a person to have such a low regard for Blacks trying to have fun on a hot summer day, despite a racially intolerant law that declared they had no right to swim in Whites Only pools in Florida? Where was the humanness?

 Any Black person or civil rights group that endeavored to break the Whites Only law of segregation subjected themselves to the facing the same deadly fate as Schwerner, Goodman and Chaney. King and Abernathy were arrested for their efforts. Fortunately, they were not set free to travel a dark country road, only to get accosted by a bunch of Ku Klux Klan thugs waiting in the darkness to take their lives. This what happened to the young activists.

A Black dentist named Robert Hayling, along with three other members of the NAACP—James Jackson, Clyde Jenkins and James Hauser--came pretty close to facing death when they bucked the KKK at a rally a year before King came to St. Augustine, Florida.

“Organized demonstrations reached St. Augustine in the summer of 1963, when Robert B. Hayling, a local dentist and advisor to the Youth Council of the city’s branch of the NAACP, led pickets and sit- ins against segregated businesses. The Ku Klux Klan and other Whites responded with violence against demonstrators, which escalated through the fall of 1963, when Hayling and three other NAACP members were severely beaten at a Klan rally, then arrested and convicted of assaulting their attackers. In December 1963, after a grand jury blamed the racial crisis on Hayling and other activists, the NAACP asked for Hayling’s resignation. St. Augustine activists then turned to SCLC for support”. (MLK, Jr. and the Global Freedom Struggle) Hayling was asked to resign because he refused to take a vow of nonviolence.

“On June 25, 300 anti-segregationist marchers who had spent the afternoon rallying at the

Teenage demonstrator beaten the KKK

site of St. Augustine's former slave market, Slave Market Square, were violently attacked by over 200 White segregationists. The segregationists easily evaded police and physically assaulted the marchers. As the marchers fled, they were chased and attacked across the city's downtown area. Close to fifty of the marchers were injured, and fifteen were treated at the city's hospital. Several hours before the attacks on the marchers, seventy-five White segregationists had attacked a group of 100 African Americans who attempted to wade into the ocean at a local White beach, and twenty people were arrested. Such violent clashes between anti-segregationists and segregationists in St. Augustine continued throughout June 1964”. (Equal Justice Initiative)

It was the eve of the Freedom Summer 1964, St. Augustine, Florida. Martin Luther King, Rev. Abernathy, Southern Christian Leadership Conference and demonstrators planned a protest. King had announced their intentions at a press conference the day before. They were going to tackle the racial problems in St. Augustine, Florida.

“When, on 18 June 1964, a Grand Jury called on King and SCLC to leave St. Augustine for one month to diffuse the situation, claiming that they had disrupted racial harmony in the city, King replied that the Grand Jury’s request was an immoral one, as it asked the Negro community to give all, and the White community to give nothing. St. Augustine, they insisted, had never had peaceful race relations’’. (Global Freedom Struggle)

Before King arrived Robert Hayling sent out a call to northern universities and colleges to come to St. Augustine to participate in sit-ins and demonstrations rather than go to the beach. Hayling and SCLC got the cooperation they needed, but hundreds of them ended up in jail. Jail space was limited. That left many students standing outside in a cramped pens with the summer heat blazing down on them.

King targeted Monson Motor Lodge restaurant to integrate. When King and Abernathy

Martin Luther King and Ralph Abernathy
are refused service at restaurant

attempted to enter the establishment they were stopped at the door by James Brock, owner of the lodge and restaurant. The media was on hand to record the protest. In the meanwhile, Al Lingo, one of the White protesters, registered at the motel. At some point one of the rabbis with King got into a shoving match with Brock. Amid the distraction five Black and two White protesters, dressed in swimwear they had changed into, sprinted toward the swimming pool, and jumped in. White swimmers in the pool were taken aback by surprise. It did not take long for them to scuttle out of the now contaminated pool.

Abernathy wrote in his book And the Walls Came Tumbling Down. “… Hosea Williams hit on the perfect plan, one that would help us beat the heat and challenge segregation at the same time: We would integrate the motel swimming pools.

“But how will we do that?” I asked. “As soon as we walk down the street with our bathing suits on, the police will surround us and keep us from getting near a pool”.

“It’s easy,” said Hosea. “I’ve already got it worked out. A couple of our White friends will register at the Monson Motor Lodge. Then, we’ll go by their rooms, one or two at a time. We’ll change into bathing suits there and then step out the door and walk over to the pool. It’s just a few steps. Before they know we’re there, we’ll be paddling around the pool.”

An angry James Brock ordered the interlopers out of the pool. When they did not comply Brock stormed off and returned with a five gallon can filled with muriatic acid. He warmed them that he had acid in the can, and he was going to pour it on them if they did not vacate the pool. They ignored his demand. Brock poured the liquid into the water. Muriatic acid is undiluted hydrochloric acid used to clean masonry surfaces of pools. The red liquid evolved into a dark circle, spreading outward. However, the slow traveling circle dissipated before getting close to the civil right activists. A disappointed Brock expected the acid to burn their skins, thus forcing them out of the pool. He called the police.

The St. Augustine Record wrote: “King, who was jailed, wrote to a group of rabbis meeting in Savanah, asking them to help the demonstrators draw attention, including a planned swim-in at the Monson pool, which was located on the bay front. On June 17 a dozen rabbis arrived, knelt in front of the restaurant and began to pray to distract Brock while demonstrators jumped into the pool”. Brock told them to leave; that they could not pray on private property.
 
When the police arrived the defiant protesters told the police to come into the pool and get

White Crowd watch cop take off his shoes and gun and jump into
pool to force demonstrators out of the pool.

them if they were under arrest. One officer stepped to the edge of the pool, expecting to grab one of them. The group swam to the center of the pool as a strategy to avoid getting snatched out of the pool. A fully clothed cop, after pulling off his shoes and pistol, jumped into the pool, forcing the protesters to the edge of the pool.

In an interview with NPR, J.T. Johnson, 76, and Al Lingo, 78, the activist that rented the motel room. On a visit to StoryCorps in Atlanta, the pair recalled the hotel owner, James Brock, “losing it”.

“Everybody was kind of caught off guard”, J. T. says. 

“The girls, they were most frightened, and we moved to the center of the pool”, Al says.

“I tried to calm the gang down. I knew that there was too much water for that acid to do anything”, J. T. says. “When they drug us out in bathing suits and they carried us out to the

J. T. Johnson (left), and Al Lingo

jail, they wouldn't feed me because they said I didn't have on any clothes. I said, ‘Well, that's the way you locked me up’”!

Malcolm X, sensing that Martin Luther King was heading for trouble with local Whites and the KKK sent King a telegram: “We have witnessed with great concern the vicious attacks of the White race against our poor defenseless people there in St. Augustine. If the federal government will not send troops to your aid, just say the word and we will immediately dispatch some of our brothers there to organize self-defense units among our people, and the Klu Klux Klan will then receive a taste of its own medicine. The day of turning the other cheek to those brute beasts is over”.  

The Organization of Afro-American Unity Malcolm X, chairman, 
Theresa Hotel Harlem, NY

James Brock’s dilemma was far from over. He found himself caught between a rock and a hard place, and he could not hide under the rock. He had Black and White civil rights activists on one side; White militants and the KKK on the other side. The latter terrorists of the South turned demonstrators, and began marching with signs in front of desegregated businesses.

Even though Monson Motor Lodge was not integrated, incensed bigots threw it in with other integrated businesses. It is likely word got around that Blacks had invaded the swimming pool. James Brock was now hurting financially. It was sink or swim. He desegregated his lodge and restaurant, hoping business would improve.

“Within a few days he desegregated the Monson again after a judge ordered restaurants and motels to serve Blacks. For that his restaurant was hit with Molotov cocktails”, Dr. David R. Colburn wrote in his book “Radical Change and Community Crisis.” (The St. Augustine Record)

Brock later renamed the lodge Monson Bayfront Resort. Eventually sold it to another hotel owner, who demolished it to build the Riverfront Hilton Hotel. Brock died in September 2007 at the age of 85.

"But all of the news media were there, because somehow I guess they'd gotten word that something was going to happen at that pool that day. And I think that's when President [Lyndon B.] Johnson got the message”, Lingo said.

The following day, the Civil Rights Act was approved, after an 83-day filibuster in the U.S. Senate. The St. Augustine Movement was an umbrella of the civil rights movement. Its achievements were small, and did not successfully integrate St. Augustine’s schools and businesses. The movement lasted from 1963 to 1964. Closing with a story that fits perfectly into the Black Lives Matter movement, this head scratcher is about a Black man shot by police because he did not have a car to take his dog to the vet. The 1960s lives in 2016.

Black Man Killed in Birmingham, Alabama, during Arrest for Failure to Take Dog to Veterinarian

On January 27, 1967, Jefferson County sheriff deputies went to the home of Robert Lacey, a Black father of six, because Mr. Lacey had failed to take the family dog to the veterinarian after it bit a neighborhood child. The health department had instructed the family to take the dog in for a rabies test, but the family did not own a car and had no means of transporting the animal.

Newspapers tell the story of Robert Lacey 

The deputies knocked at the door as Mr. Lacey was getting out of the shower, and when he answered the door they told him to get dressed and go with them. Mr. Lacey asked why and told the deputies to just take the dog. The deputies said they weren’t interested in the dog and told him to get dressed. As Mr. Lacey was doing so, a gun he kept in his dresser fell to the floor. In response, the deputies pushed Mr. Lacey against the wall and attempted to handcuff him. Mr. Lacey offered to walk to the car with them, but one of the deputies said, “Boy, you gonna leave here with handcuffs on, dead or alive.”

Mr. Lacey was a large man; as the deputies attempted to wrestle him down, one of them fell to the ground, and the other then shot Mr. Lacey in the leg. The deputies later claimed Mr. Lacey lunged at them before the second shot, but Mr. Lacey’s family insisted Mr. Lacey fell to the ground before the deputy shot him again, “between the eyes.” Neighbors who ran to the house after the shooting were instructed by police to move the body before the coroner arrived.

Mr. Lacey’s death marked the second black man killed by Jefferson County law enforcement within nine days, and would be one of ten total law enforcement killings of Black men in the Birmingham, Alabama, area within a 14 month period spanning from 1966 to 1967. (Equal Justice Initiative)

As you can see these cops feared for their lives, and they had to kill the unarmed Black man, whose dog they had lost interest in by the time they arrived at Robert Lacey’s house. Black lives have never mattered in America.

My locked up tears flowed again April 4, 1968

My locked up tears flowed again

I was standing in my kitchen ironing

When the news flash interrupted the
Regular programming on TV
The date was April 4, 1968

When I heard

Martin Luther King's name

I stopped ironing

Nervously whispering under my breath

Putting it and my brain on hold

Oh, God. No! Not again!

But it was again!
And another assassination!

My locked up tears started flowing
Again!

I cried and cried and cried

Only God and me know how I cried

I cried easier during those youthful days

My heart was not hard and cold

Those days were full of patriotic

Protests and honest marching

In the streets of America
I understood the politics of freedom
But the politics of death was what
I wanted to run from

That's not to say I don't understand
Death or painful crying
I am not personally acquainted with death
However, I did have a close encounter
But I don't count that incident because 
I survived the foolish dare

I don't cry so easily these days
My tears have gotten selfish

They have gotten harder and

Tougher to arouse out of their sleep

Violence has a way of

Draining the body and soul when it

Occurs too soon, too often

Nonetheless, I still get misty eyed

And sentimental when

I hear one of Martin's speeches 

Especially the one in which he talks about

Little black girls and boys walking

Hand-in-hand with little
White girls and boys

Little black children who should be

Judged for the content of their character

Not the color of their skin

Martin had a dream
Mahalia Jackson reminded him of it
One August day in Washington:
"Tell them about your dream, Martin!

Tell them about your dream!"
Mahalia encouraged
And Martin revealed his dream
Making America dream with him

Parting with a different speech in Memphis, Tennessee

Martin told us about sick

Whitemen wanting to

Kill him for no logical reason
Other than to shut down his dream 
He had no right to demand a fair and just America
These sick Whiteman wanted to shut down
His ideology, his politics, his righteousness
Their dry White hate wanted to still his voice
 

 I've Been To The Mountaintop
Is not repeated as often as
I Have A Dream
But the speech was just as memorable 
It had an important message  

Martin was in Memphis to march and protest
With striking sanitation workers
They wanted recognition for their worth
As working men
As human beings

Their posters screamed:
I AM A MAN!
I AM A MAN!

They walked and walked and walked 
Justice was just around the corner

Martin requested one of
His favorite Mahalia Jackson songs
I think it might have been
Precious Lord, Take My Hand
No one could sing it like Mahalia
It's one of those old Negro
Tear-jerking spirituals

The song wrapped itself around Martin

And then Martin Luther king told us that he
Just wanted to do God's will
He said he had

Gone to the Mountaintop
God allowed him to

 See the Promise Land

Did you really see it, Martin?
What did you see?

My heart swelling with the hallelujah of God

I felt empowered to

Understand what Martin was saying
Nevertheless, I wanted to know what the
Promise Land looked like 

Not everyone is permitted to
Climb to the mountaintop
To see what Martin saw

I vividly remember

The glow on Martin's face that night 
His face had a shiny halo
Must be the glow of God 
I thought to myself

Near the end of the speech
Martin said:

And then I got to Memphis
And some began to say the threats
Or talk of threats were out.
What would happen to me
From some of our sick White brothers.
Well, I don't know what will happen now.
Because I have been to the
Mountaintop. And I don't mind.
Like anybody I want
To live a long life. 
Longevity has its place.
 And I am happy tonight.
I'm not worried about anything.
I'm not fearing any man!

Martin said his eyes had seen the
Glory of the coming of the Lord 
I envied him because my eyes
Were not open enough to see God
And the coming of His glory

When Martin said: I may not get there with you

I wondered why would God
Show him the Promise Land
And not let him cross over 
Perhaps God explained the journey 
To him as he did with Moses  

The Book of Deuteronomy says:

Then Moses went up from the plains of Moab
To Mount Nebo, to the top of Pisgah,
Which is across from Jericho.
And the Lord showed showed him all 
Land of Gilead as far as Dan,
All Naphtali and the land of
Ephraim and Manasseh, all the land
of Judah as far as the Western Sea,
The South, and the plain of the Valley
of Jericho, the city of palm trees
As far as Zoar. Then the Lord said to him,
This is the land of which I swore
To give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,
Saying, I will give it to your descendants.
I have caused you to see it with your own eyes,
But you shall not cross over there.

Martin was graced to see what we could not

 He did not live in fear of dangerous Whitemen

Hyper hound dogs and water

Spraying hoses held with hateful hands

The prospect of death
Did not scare him, but still
He knew that longevity has it place
He preferred it to death
But God's will had to be done

I learned from Martin that
A man or woman cannot achieve 
The complete art of living

While stuck in the concrete fear
Unlike Martin, I was straddling the fence
My false bravery was too fearful of dying
I was not ready for the mountain walk

Drum majors are destined to stand

Out front for justice
 Refusing to be intimidated
 Strutting and marching toward

Gun fired bullets and

Fast thrown bricks and
Bottles and race tinged words

I wish I could have known Martin

I would have asked him to

Show me how to dream about

Real freedom and peace of mind

How to be nonviolent when

Starring violence in the face

I would have asked him to hold my hand so that his

Strength could surge through my body
 Like a bolt of lightning
Energizing my weaknesses and fears

That were choking the free life
I should have been living
My fearful spirit could not pull 
My feet out of the concrete

I would have asked Martin to show

Me how to look over the mountaintop

And not be scared if I was not

Destined to make it to the Promise Land 
To walk and talk to God

Standing in my kitchen
Trembling and crying, the iron in my hand
I wondered if my eyes would  ever
See the coming of the Lord

(C) by dorothy charles banks

An up close and personal interview with Dr. Martin Luther King, jr.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

There are many people in ancient and contemporary history that I would have loved to interview. One of the individuals  is Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  But he was not the first on my list. I would have been overcome with joy to interview Jesus the Christ one-on-one! I would have asked him about his childhood, his dreams, his future goals. I would have asked if he felt that his destiny was out of his control. I would asked his mother, Mary, what kind of son he is. I would have asked her if she feels her son is a special kid who is destined for greatness? I would have asked  Mary if she sensed her son's life would be short, but forever lasting. I would have asked what her dreams were for her son.

No, I would not be crass and ask The Virgin Mary if she was a virgin when she gave birth to her son Jesus.

Because there are no magical time or travel machines, and no way to communicate with the deceased–except in the movies and on TV–I had to find a way to bring Dr. King to me for an interview. Jesus is too large for me to imagine what he would say to direct questions.
I racked my brain about 10 minutes, maybe 15, trying to make magic happen without abracadabra incantations that would not solve my dilemma. Then lightening struck. My brain jumped into action. My plan: Read Dr. King’s speeches and quotes to fit the questions I want him to answer. Using his own words, I prepared my chance of a lifetime “interview” with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. That adage is true. Forty-four years after he was assassinated, but Dr. King's words are just as relevant and forceful today as they were when he first spoke them during his lifetime. Even though he is gone his words are still repeated and recited by the young and old, Blacks and Whites, and foreigners.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was born January 15, 1929. He was fatally shot by James Earl Ray as he and a few friends stood on the balcony of the Lorain Hotel in Memphis, Tennessee, April 4, 1968. He was in Tennessee to march with sanitation workers, whose incomes and working conditions were far below those of Whites working the same jobs. The workers and supporters carried signs that said: I AM A MAN TOO! For clarity, this "interview" will not focus on the protest in Memphis.

Dorothy: Dr. King if you could step back into history, mentally or physically, what time period  or time periods would you return to?

Dr. King: 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 esthetics's 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 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.

Dorothy: That sounds like an eye opening journey. When did you decide the direction your life might go?

Dr. King: I decided early to give my life to something eternal and absolute. Not to these little gods that are here today and gone tomorrow; but to God who is the same yesterday, today, tomorrow and forever.

Dorothy: How would you, a widely known leader, measure the spirit of man, being a spiritual man yourself?

Dr. King: The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands in times of challenge and controversy.

Dorothy: Can what affects one race of Americans, not affect another race, especially in the realm of justice?

Dr. King: 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.

Dorothy: Politicians talk a lot about science and its relationship to religion. What is your opinion? Are the two connected?

Dr. King: Science investigates, religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge, which is power; religion gives man wisdom, which is control. Science deal mainly with facts, religion deals mainly with values. The two are not rivals. They are complimentary. Science keeps religion from sinking into the valley or crippling irrationalism and paralyzing obscurantism. Religion prevents science from falling into the marsh of obsolete materialism and moral nihilism.

Dorothy: Dr. King, everyone is aware that you are nonviolent. But realistically, wouldn’t you achieve your goal for justice much faster by employing a hint of violence?

Dr. King: Violence as a way of achieving racial justice is both impractical and immoral. It is impractical because it is a descending spiral ending in destruction for all. It is immoral because it seeks to humiliate the opponent, rather than win his understanding. It seems to annihilate rather than to convert. Violence is immoral because it thrives on hatred rather than love. At the center of non-violence stands the principle of love. Love is not emotional bash; it is not empty sentimentalism. It is the active outpouring of one's whole being into the being of another.

Dorothy: How do you feel about discrimination?

Dr. King: Discrimination is a hellhound that gnaws at Negroes in every waking moment of their lives to remind them that the lie of their inferiority is accepted as truth in the society dominating them.

Dorothy: Once again America is at war after the 9/11 terrorists strike. We went to war in Iraq and Afghanistan, where we stall are fighting. But these wars different from Vietnam. Will there ever be peace in the world?

Dr. King: Sooner or later all the people of the world will have to discover a way to live together in peace, and thereby, transform this pending cosmic elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality.

I refuse to accept the cynical notion that nation after nation must spiral down a militaristic stairway into the hell of nuclear annihilation. I believe that even amid today's mortar bursts and whining bullets, there is still hope for a brighter tomorrow. I still believe that one day mankind will bow before the altars of God and be crowned triumphant over war and bloodshed.

Dorothy: Did America damage its image with its involvement in the Vietnam war?

Dr. King: It is curious that Americans who calculate so carefully on the possibilities of military victory, do not realize that in the process, they are incurring deep psychological and political defeat. The image of America will never again be the image of evolution, freedom and democracy, but the image of violence and militarism.

Dorothy: How do you feel about defense spending as opposed to spending on programs to help America’s poor?

Dr. King: A nation that continues year after year to spend more money in military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death. The curse of poverty has no justification in our age. It is socially as cruel and blind as the practice of cannibalism at the dawn of civilization, when men ate each other because they had not yet learned to take food from the soil or to consume the abundant animal life around them. The time has come for us to civilize ourselves by the total, direct and immediate abolition of poverty.
 
Dorothy: Today many people appear to be brain dead, and willing to accept whatever is told to them without question. Why do you think that is?

Dr. King: Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than insincere ignorance and conscious stupidity.

Dorothy: Explain what the "drum major instinct" means.

Dr. King: Now the presence of the drum major instinct is why so many people are "joiners." You know, there are some people who just join everything. And it's really a quest for attention and recognition and importance. And they get names that give them that impression. So you get your groups, and they become the "Grand Patron" and the little fellow who is henpecked at home needs a chance to be the "Most Worthy of the Most Worthy" of something. It is the drum major impulse and longing that runs the gamut of human life. And so we see it everywhere, this quest for recognition. And we join things, over join really, that we think that we will find that recognition in.

Dorothy: How can America reroute the revolution of values in the midst of war?

Dr. King: 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.

Dorothy: In Birmingham you decided to take nonviolent "direct action". What was the purpose?

Dr. King: Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue so that it can no longer be ignored. My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent--resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word tension. I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth.

Dorothy: Were any of your direct-action campaigns ever well timed? Many whites feel they were not.

Dr. King: Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct-action campaign that was well timed in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word ‘wait.’ It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This ‘wait’ has almost always meant ‘never.’

Dorothy: In your own words, describe what is it like to be black and living in America.

Dr. King: Being a Negro in America means trying to smile when you want to cry. It means trying to hold on to physical life amid psychological death. It means the pain of watching your children grow up with clouds of inferiority in their mental skies. It means having your legs cut off, and then being condemned for being a cripple. It means seeing your mother and father spiritually murdered by the slings and arrows of daily exploitation, and then being hated for being an orphan.

Dorothy: When you hear people say you are breaking the law in some instances when you hold demonstrations or marches, what is your response?

Dr. King: The answers lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that an unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust.

Dorothy: During the early days of the bus boycotts, you received a threatening call around midnight, in which the caller said, ‘Nigger, we are tired of you and your mess now. If you don’ get out of town in three days, we’re going to blow up your house.’ Was that frightening for you and your family?

Dr. King: I could hear an inner voice saying to me, ‘Martin Luther, stand up for justice. Stand up for truth. And lo I will be with you, even until the end of the world.’

Dorothy: Does the prospect of death frighten you?

Dr. King: Death comes to every individual. There is an amazing democracy about death. It is not aristocracy for some of the people, but a democracy for all of the people. Death is the irreductible common denominator of all men.

Dorothy: How do you want to be remembered? What do you people to say at your funeral?

Dr. King: If any of you are around when I have to meet my day, I don’t want a long funeral. And if you get somebody to deliver the eulogy, tell them not to talk too long. And every now and then I wonder what I want them to say. Tell them not to mention that I have a Nobel Peace Prize—that isn’t important. Tell them not to mention that I have three or four hundred other awards—that’s not important. Tell them not to mention where I went to school. 'd like somebody to mention that day that Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to give his life serving others. I'd like for somebody to say that day that Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to love somebody.
 

The Lorrain Hotel turned into a Civil Rights Museum

Dorothy: If I was slated to speak at your funeral, what would you like me to say?
 
Dr. King: I want you to say that day that I tried to be right on the war question. I want you to be able to say that day that I did try to feed the hungry. And I want you to be able to say that day that I did try in my life to clothe those who were naked. I want you to say on that day that I did try in my life to visit those who were in prison. 

I want you to say that I tried to love and serve humanity. Yes, if you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice. Say that I was a drum major for peace. I was a drum major for righteousness. And all of the other shallow things will not matter. I won't have any money to leave behind. I won't have the fine and luxurious things of life to leave behind. But I just want to leave a committed life behind. And that's all I want to say.
 
Dorothy: Thank you, Dr. King. I enjoyed the interview.

Dr. King: You're quite welcome.