"Something is happening in our world."

January 15, 2024 2:07 PM

Dr. King's "I have been to the mountaintop speech." 'The Journey Of A Civil Rights Icon: Rare Photos Of Martin Luther King Jr.'
posted by clavdivs (11 comments total)

Yes, we shall overcome because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice. We shall overcome because Carlyle is right: "No lie can live forever." We shall overcome because James Russell Lowell is right:

Truth forever on the scaffold,
Wrong forever on the throne,
Yet that scaffold sways the future,
And behind the dim unknown
Standeth God within the shadow,
Keeping watch above his own.

We shall overcome because William Cullen Bryant is right: "Truth, crushed to earth, shall rise again." With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair, the stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood, and speed up the day when, in the words of the prophet Amos, "Justice will roll down like waters; and righteousness like a mighty stream."
posted by chavenet at 2:40 PM on January 15 [5 favorites]

Thank you for posting this, clavdivs, I had not read that speech before.
posted by eirias at 2:52 PM on January 15 [2 favorites]

"And it may well be that we will have to repent in this generation, not merely for the vitriolic words and the violent actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence and indifference of the good people who sit around and say, wait on time.

Somewhere we must come to see that human progress never rolls in on the wheels of inevitability. It comes through the tireless efforts and the persistent work of dedicated individuals who are willing to be coworkers with God.

And without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the primitive forces of social stagnation. So we must have time and realize that the time is always right to do right."

-MLK. 3-31-68
posted by clavdivs at 4:06 PM on January 15 [5 favorites]

We visited his home, church and museum in Atlanta a few years ago. Moving. Nothing scarier to white people than a Black person with ideas.
posted by seanmpuckett at 4:17 PM on January 15

allow me to correct your ignorance, that would be if a black person acted upon those ideas.
posted by clavdivs at 4:26 PM on January 15

I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

- Letter from a Birmingham Jail, April 1963
Emphasis added
posted by Frayed Knot at 5:03 PM on January 15 [17 favorites]

Netflix’s “Rustin” was a good way to spend a snowy afternoon visiting with Dr King via the lens of Baynard Rustin. May we carry their fire and movement forward to realizing The Dream.
posted by childofTethys at 7:05 PM on January 15 [2 favorites]

“If I had sneezed” is one of my favorites. Check it out if you haven’t heard it.
posted by beckybakeroo at 8:37 PM on January 15 [2 favorites]

The ending of the Mountaintop speech:

Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it really 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. So 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.

Dr. King was assassinated the following evening.
posted by kirkaracha at 11:02 AM on January 16 [2 favorites]

'Beyond Vietnam'. Delivered 4 April 1967, Riverside Church, New York City.

"I come to this platform tonight to make a passionate plea to my beloved nation. This speech is not addressed to Hanoi or to the National Liberation Front. It is not addressed to China or to Russia. Nor is it an attempt to overlook the ambiguity of the total situation and the need for a collective solution to the tragedy of Vietnam. Neither is it an attempt to make North Vietnam or the National Liberation Front paragons of virtue, nor to overlook the role they must play in the successful resolution of the problem. While they both may have justifiable reasons to be suspicious of the good faith of the United States, life and history give eloquent testimony to the fact that conflicts are never resolved without trustful give and take on both sides.

Tonight, however, I wish not to speak with Hanoi and the National Liberation Front, but rather to my fellow Americans."
posted by clavdivs at 12:08 PM on January 16 [1 favorite]

my dad travelled to see MLK speak, he was a student in Nova Scotia at the time. He met students from Louisiana, Black students who knew a lot more about the exodus of Acadians from NS than he'd ever learned (many Acadians ended up settling in Louisiana). When the students found out my dad was from NS they called him "cousin" and I wish he was alive to tell me more about this.
posted by elkevelvet at 12:49 PM on January 16 [3 favorites]