{"id":11507,"date":"2021-01-18T04:35:04","date_gmt":"2021-01-18T12:35:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=11507"},"modified":"2021-01-18T04:35:04","modified_gmt":"2021-01-18T12:35:04","slug":"the-words-of-martin-luther-king-jr-reverberate-in-a-tumultuous-time-the-new-york-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=11507","title":{"rendered":"“The Words of Martin Luther King Jr. Reverberate in a Tumultuous Time”, The New York Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

By <\/span>Audra D. S. Burch<\/span>, John Eligon<\/span> and Michael Wines,\u00a0<\/span>Jan. 18, 2021<\/p>\n

Dr. King\u2019s speeches have particular resonance today amid a year of sickness and death, Black Lives Matter protests and the storming of the Capitol.<\/em><\/p>\n

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The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. waving to the crowd during the March On Washington in 1963 at the Lincoln Memorial, where he gave his \u201cI Have A Dream\u201d speech.<\/span>Credit…<\/span>Central Press\/Getty Images<\/span><\/p>\n

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He lived and died in a time of tumult and a racial awakening, so perhaps it is no surprise that the 35th national celebration of the life and legacy of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on Monday has particular resonance amid one of the most traumatic seasons in memory: A raging pandemic. Protest and civil unrest after the killing of Black people by the police. A momentous election. And an insurrection.<\/p>\n

Even the title of his final book \u2014 \u201cWhere Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?\u201d \u2014 seems ripped from today\u2019s headline.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s still an unanswered question,\u201d said Clayborne Carson, a history professor at Stanford University, referring to the title of Dr. King\u2019s book.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the most important word in that question is \u2018we\u2019 \u2014 who are we, and until you figure that out, it\u2019s very hard to tell where we are going,\u201d said Dr. Carson, who is also the founder and director of the Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute, which is publishing a collection of Dr. King\u2019s papers.<\/p>\n

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Amid the change and upheaval, the words of Dr. King, both those celebrated and the less familiar, feel more urgent then perhaps ever before, both as a guide and a warning. From oft-quoted speeches to the words he never had a chance to deliver before his assassination, Dr. King talked about his vision of a just world, about the power of peaceful protests, and about disruption as the language of the unseen and the unheard.<\/p>\n

We asked Dr. Carson and others from across the country to choose words from Dr. King and reflect on how they resonate today. Here\u2019s what they had to say.<\/p>\n

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\u201cNow, let me say as I move to my conclusion that we\u2019ve got to give ourselves to this struggle until the end. Nothing would be more tragic than to stop at this point, in Memphis. We\u2019ve got to see it through\u201d<\/strong><\/h2>\n

\u2014 from the last speech given by Dr. King, on April 3, 1968, in Memphis, the day before he was assassinated.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The Rev. Dr. William Barber II, a chairman of the Poor People\u2019s Campaign, said Dr. King\u2019s words spoke to the daunting challenge that civil rights leaders faced helping the poor and marginalized. He drew a parallel to today\u2019s challenges of systemic racism, ecological devastation and a lack of access to health care.<\/p>\n

The election of a Democratic president, he said, is no reason to slow down.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not enough to have an election and put new people into office,\u201d Dr. Barber said. \u201cWe must push and continue to push for the kind of public policy that really establishes justice.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe really must now go about the business of lifting up those who are poor and those without health care,\u201d he added. \u201cThat\u2019s the only way we can heal the nation \u2014 we have to heal the body.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Dr. King, center, with (from left to right) Mathew Ahmann, Floyd McKissick, Eugene Carson Blake and Cleveland Robinson during the March on Washington in 1963.<\/span>Credit…<\/span>Robert W. Kelley\/The LIFE Picture Collection, via Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\u201cThe arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.\u201d<\/strong><\/h2>\n

\u2014 from Dr. King\u2019s speech at the Washington National Cathedral on March 31, 1968.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Connie Field said Dr. King\u2019s quote had guided much of her work as an award-winning documentary filmmaker.<\/p>\n

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\u201cDr. King presented a vision of an equal, multiracial society,\u201d she said. \u201cHe presented a vision of economic equality. And he presented a vision of a political struggle that\u2019s nonviolent. Those are three things that we can all try to live by and strive for today.\u201d<\/p>\n

She added: \u201cWhat\u2019s going on in the United States, what we witnessed on Jan. 6, all has to do with a backlash to the fact that our world is changing. It\u2019s going on here in America; it\u2019s going on in Europe. We\u2019re becoming a more intertwined world, a more multicultural world. That\u2019s the trajectory of history, and there\u2019s no going back on that. That quote completely underscores everything I\u2019m talking about \u2014 a just world is an equal world, equal no matter what our race is.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cEven 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.\u201d<\/strong><\/h2>\n

\u2014 from Dr. King\u2019s \u201cI Have a Dream\u201d speech at the March on Washington on August 28, 1963.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Bernard Lafayette, 80, recalled the words from the \u201cI Have a Dream\u201d speech as a reminder that the turmoil the country is witnessing today \u201cis not the way things have to be, and it\u2019s not something we have to accept,\u201d but should be understood as another step on the long journey that Dr. King described, with each shift connected to the events that precede it.<\/p>\n

The violence at the Capitol, he said, reflected the fear from some members of our society that they were losing political power.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to ask the question, \u2018What are these people afraid of?\u2019 Well, they are afraid they would lose power, they would lose control and the election in Georgia exacerbated that,\u201d he said. \u201cThese fears that are being perpetrated, they\u2019re really false fears, because no one is going to take anything away from them.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Marchers gathered in Washington in August for an event celebrating the 57th anniversary of the March On Washington where Dr. King made his \u201cI Have a Dream\u201d speech.<\/span>Credit…<\/span>Christopher Lee for The New York Times<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\u201cI may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land.\u201d<\/strong><\/h2>\n

\u2014 from Dr. King speech in Memphis on April 3, 1968, a day before he was assassinated.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Rutha Mae Harris, 80, of Albany, Ga., said she believed Dr. King\u2019s speeches often warned of the kind of conflict that unfolded in Washington on Jan. 6. Ms. Harris, who marched with Dr. King during the Civil Rights era, recalled, in particular, the famous speech he gave in Memphis a day before he was killed.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith the rhetoric of Trump, I myself knew that something would happen,\u201d she said. \u201cThis had been building up for four years.\u201d She said Dr. King was a man of vision, but that vision captured the darkness as well as the light. She noted, \u201cHe said, \u2018I might not get there with you,\u2019 and, of course, you can read in between the lines.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cWhy America May Go To Hell\u201d<\/strong><\/h2>\n

\u2014 title of a sermon that Dr. King had planned to deliver at his church on Sunday, April 7, 1968.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

For the Rev. Amos C. Brown, the pastor of Third Baptist Church, a historically Black church in San Francisco founded in 1852, the words of Dr. King that come to mind this year are the ones he never had a chance to speak.<\/p>\n

When he was assassinated, Dr. King had been planning to give a sermon, he said, called \u201cWhy America May Go to Hell.\u201d In the sermon, Dr. King planned<\/a> to warn that the country needed to use its vast resources to end poverty, and to offer all of God\u2019s children the necessities of life.<\/p>\n

The hell that Dr. King stood against is still deeply embedded in America today, said , who is attending the inauguration as a guest of Vice President-elect Kamala Harris (who attends his church).<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are about to fall over the precipice into, figuratively speaking, hell in this nation \u2014 sure, we ought to be concerned about what\u2019s going on now,\u201d he said, referring to the attack on the Capitol. \u201cBut people are just now beginning to experience what Black folk have gone through since the Atlantic slave trade began. Hell.\u201d<\/p>\n

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A view of the audience over Dr. King\u2019s shoulder as he delivered a speech at the Gillfield Baptist Church, in Petersburg, Va., in 1960.<\/span>Credit…<\/span>Howard Sochurek\/The LIFE Picture Collection, via Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\u201cWe must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.\u201d<\/strong><\/h2>\n

\u2014 from Dr. King\u2019s speech in St. Louis on March 22, 1964.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

For Antwan T. Lang, a member of the Chatham County Board of Elections in Savannah, Ga., Dr. King\u2019s words meant we cannot be afraid to learn from one another and understand our differences and similarities.<\/p>\n

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\u201cMy hope is that one day white America will understand that we harvest no hate, but we want to be seen not as a Black man, Black entrepreneur, Black superintendent, Black doctor, Black lawyer, Black teacher, Black insurance agent, Black funeral director, but as a human being wanting to freely be ourselves without having to walk on eggshells in fear of becoming a statistic,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is clear to me that our protest and our plea to America is that we want to be free, to simply be a human being with real feelings, emotions, dreams and goals,\u201d Mr. Lang said, \u201cto be able to live long enough to accomplish those goals, dreams and ambitions.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cOh no, Brother Gray. This is no ploy at all. If we are to succeed, I am now convinced that an absolutely nonviolent method must be ours amid the vast hostilities we face.\u201d<\/strong><\/h2>\n

\u2014 Dr. King\u2019s response in 1955 to a suggestion that his nonviolence tactics were for attention.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Fred D. Gray was the lawyer who represented Rosa Parks, Dr. King and the Montgomery Improvement Association during the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955, the event that inaugurated the 20th century civil rights movement. The quote, found in Mr. Gray\u2019s account of that battle, \u201cBus Ride to Justice,\u201d was Dr. King\u2019s response to a suggestion that his commitment to nonviolence was a ploy to gain attention in the press.<\/p>\n

\u201cI became a lawyer so I could use the law for the purpose of destroying every act of segregation that I could find,\u201d Mr. Gray said. \u201cThere were other people whose roles were to make speeches, and others who demonstrated, but you had to put it all together and do it in a nonviolent fashion.\u201d<\/p>\n

Regarding the protests over the past year against killings of unarmed African Americans by police officers, Mr. Gray said: \u201cI think we\u2019re going to have to go back to what Martin said about nonviolence and social change. All the things that Dr. King did, all the things we did in the Montgomery bus boycott were to get rid of racism and inequality. We were able to do a little bit, but not do it all.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ellen Barry, Elizabeth Dias and Richard Fausset contributed reporting. Susan Beachy contributed research.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n

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John Eligon is a Kansas City-based national correspondent covering race. He previously worked as a reporter in Sports and Metro, and his work has taken him to Nelson Mandela’s funeral in South Africa and the Winter Olympics in Turin.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Michael Wines writes about voting and other election-related issues. Since joining The Times in 1988, he has covered the Justice Department, the White House, Congress, Russia, southern Africa, China and various other topics.<\/em><\/p>\n

The New York Times<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Audra D. S. Burch, John Eligon and Michael Wines,\u00a0Jan. 18, 2021 Dr. King\u2019s speeches have particular resonance today amid a year of sickness and death, Black Lives Matter protests and the storming of the Capitol. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. waving to the crowd during the March On Washington in 1963 at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1001004,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11507"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1001004"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11507"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11507\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11508,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11507\/revisions\/11508"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}