VISIONS OF THE PROMISED LAND

FEW American orators, black or white, could match I the sonorous, soul-stirring resonances of Martin Luther King Jr. From his early sermons to his letter from a Birmingham jail, from the epic address at the Lincoln Memorial during the 1963 March on Washington to his acceptance speech at the Nobel ceremonies, King's rhetoric rang richly with both the ageless cadences of Negro spirituals and the moral immediacy of the civil rights struggle. His voice was for his time and beyond.

Highlights:

.ON NONVIOLENCE (from Birmingham jail, 1963): 1 your statement, you asserted that our actions, even though peaceful, must be condemned because they precipitate violence. Isn't this like condemning the robbed man because his possession of money precipitated the evil act of robbery? Isn't this like condemning Jesus because his unique God-consciousness and never-ceasing devotion to God's will precipitated the evil act of the Crucifixion?

. ECONOMIC EQUALITY (1965): What good does it do to be able to eat at a lunch counter if you can't buy a hamburger?

.ON THE NEGRO IN AMERICA (from Birmingham jail, 1963): Before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth, we were here. Before the pen of Jefferson etched across the pages of history the majestic words of the Declaration of Independence, we were here. If the inexpressible cruelties of slavery could not stop us, the opposition we now face will surely fail. We will win our freedom because the sacred heritage of our nation and the eternal will of God are embodied in our echoing demands.

.ON NONCONFORMITY (1963): This hour in history needs a dedicated circle of transformed nonconformists. Dangerous passions of pride, hatred and selfishness are enthroned in our lives; truth lies prostrate on the rugged hills of nameless Calvaries. The saving of our world from pending doom will come, not through the complacent adjustment of the conforming majority, but through the creative maladjustment of a nonconforming minority. I confess that I never intend to become adjusted to the evils of segregation and the crippling effects of discrimination, to the moral degeneracy of religious bigotry and the corroding effects of narrow sectarianism, to economic conditions that deprive men of work and food, and to the insanities of militarism and the self-defeating effects of physical violence.

.ON BLACK POWER (1967): Today's despair is a poor chisel to carve out tomorrow's justice. Black Power is an implicit and often explicit belief in black separatism. Yet behind Black Power's legitimate and necessary concern for group unity and black identity lies the belief that there can be a separate black road to power and fulfillment. Few ideas are more unrealistic. There is no salvation for the Negro through isolation.

.ON MARCHING FOR CIVIL RIGHTS (Selma to Montgomery, 1965): Like an idea whose time has come, not even the marching of mighty armies can halt us. We are moving to the land of freedom. Let us march to the realization of the American dream. Let us march on segregated housing. Let us march on segregated schools.

Let us march on poverty. Let us march on ballot boxes, march on ballot boxes until race baiters disappear from the political arena, until the Wallaces of our nation trem ble away in silence. My people, my people, listen! The battle is in our hands.

.ON PEACE (1964): Sooner or later all the people ot 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. This is why right temporarily defeated is stronger than evil triumphant.

.ON THE DREAM OF FREEDOM (1963): So even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed that all men are created equal. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state 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. And if America is to be a great nation, this must be come true.

So let freedom ring. From the prodigious hilltops ot New Hampshire, let freedom ring. From the mighty mountains of New York, let freedom ring. From the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania, let freedom ring. But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia. Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. And when this happens, when we let it ring, we will speed 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're free at last. .ON HIS OWN FUTURE (April 3, 1968): We've got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn't matter with me now Because I've been to the mountaintop. I wont 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 fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.

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