Mr. Chairman, distinguished platform associates,
fellow Americans.
Three years ago the Supreme Court of this
nation rendered in simple, eloquent, and unequivocal
language a decision which will long be stenciled
on the mental sheets of succeeding generations.
For all men of goodwill, this May seventeenth
decision came as a joyous daybreak to end
the long night of human captivity.
It came as a great beacon light of hope to
millions of disinherited people throughout
the world who had dared only to dream of freedom.
Unfortunately, this noble and sublime decision
has not gone without opposition.
This opposition has often risen to ominous
proportions.
Many states have risen up in open defiance.
The legislative halls of the South ring loud
with such words as “interposition” and
“nullification.”
But even more, all types of conniving methods
are still being used to prevent Negroes from
becoming registered voters.
The denial of this sacred right is a tragic
betrayal of the highest mandates of our democratic
tradition.
And so our most urgent request to the president
of the United States and every member of Congress
is to give us the right to vote.
[Audience:] (Yes)
Give us the ballot, and we will no longer
have to worry the federal government about
our basic rights.
Give us the ballot (Yes), and we will no longer
plead to the federal government for passage
of an anti-lynching law; we will by the power
of our vote write the law on the statute books
of the South (All right) and bring an end
to the dastardly acts of the hooded perpetrators
of violence.
Give us the ballot (Give us the ballot), and
we will transform the salient misdeeds of
bloodthirsty mobs (Yeah) into the calculated
good deeds of orderly citizens.
Give us the ballot (Give us the ballot), and
we will fill our legislative halls with men
of goodwill (All right now) and send to the
sacred halls of Congress men who will not
sign a “Southern Manifesto” because of
their devotion to the manifesto of justice.
(Tell ’em about it)
Give us the ballot (Yeah), and we will place
judges on the benches of the South who will
do justly and love mercy (Yeah), and we will
place at the head of the southern states governors
who will, who have felt not only the tang
of the human, but the glow of the Divine.
Give us the ballot (Yes), and we will quietly
and nonviolently, without rancor or bitterness,
implement the Supreme Court’s decision of
May seventeenth, 1954.
(That’s right)
In this juncture of our nation’s history,
there is an urgent need for dedicated and
courageous leadership.
If we are to solve the problems ahead and
make racial justice a reality, this leadership
must be fourfold.
First, there is need for strong, aggressive
leadership from the federal government.
So far, only the judicial branch of the government
has evinced this quality of leadership.
If the executive and legislative branches
of the government were as concerned about
the protection of our citizenship rights as
the federal courts have been, then the transition
from a segregated to an integrated society
would be infinitely smoother.
But we so often look to Washington in vain
for this concern.
In the midst of the tragic breakdown of law
and order, the executive branch of the government
is all too silent and apathetic.
In the midst of the desperate need for civil
rights legislation, the legislative branch
of the government is all too stagnant and
hypocritical.
This dearth of positive leadership from the
federal government is not confined to one
particular political party.
Both political parties have betrayed the cause
of justice.
(Oh yes) The Democrats have betrayed it by
capitulating to the prejudices and undemocratic
practices of the southern Dixiecrats.
The Republicans have betrayed it by capitulating
to the blatant hypocrisy of right wing, reactionary
northerners.
These men so often have a high blood pressure
of words and an anemia of deeds.
[laughter]
In the midst of these prevailing conditions,
we come to Washington today pleading with
the president and members of Congress to provide
a strong, moral, and courageous leadership
for a situation that cannot permanently be
evaded.
We come humbly to say to the men in the forefront
of our government that the civil rights issue
is not an ephemeral, evanescent domestic issue
that can be kicked about by reactionary guardians
of the status quo; it is rather an eternal
moral issue which may well determine the destiny
of our nation (Yeah) in the ideological struggle
with communism.
The hour is late.
The clock of destiny is ticking out.
We must act now, before it is too late.
A second area in which there is need for strong
leadership is from the white northern liberals.
There is a dire need today for a liberalism
which is truly liberal.
What we are witnessing today in so many northern
communities is a sort of quasi-liberalism
which is based on the principle of looking
sympathetically at all sides.
It is a liberalism so bent on seeing all sides,
that it fails to become committed to either
side.
It is a liberalism that is so objectively
analytical that it is not subjectively committed.
It is a liberalism which is neither hot nor
cold, but lukewarm.
(All right) We call for a liberalism from
the North which will be thoroughly committed
to the ideal of racial justice and will not
be deterred by the propaganda and subtle words
of those who say: “Slow up for a while;
you’re pushing too fast.”
A third source that we must look to for strong
leadership is from the moderates of the white
South.
It is unfortunate that at this time the leadership
of the white South stems from the close-minded
reactionaries.
These persons gain prominence and power by
the dissemination of false ideas and by deliberately
appealing to the deepest hate responses within
the human mind.
It is my firm belief that this close-minded,
reactionary, recalcitrant group constitutes
a numerical minority.
There are in the white South more open-minded
moderates than appears on the surface.
These persons are silent today because of
fear of social, political and economic reprisals.
God grant that the white moderates of the
South will rise up courageously, without fear,
and take up the leadership in this tense period
of transition.
I cannot close without stressing the urgent
need for strong, courageous and intelligent
leadership from the Negro community.
We need a leadership that is 1957 calm and
yet positive.
This is no day for the rabble-rouser, whether
he be Negro or white.
(All right) We must realize that we are grappling
with the most weighty social problem of this
nation, and in grappling with such a complex
problem there is no place for misguided emotionalism.
(All right, That’s right) We must work passionately
and unrelentingly for the goal of freedom,
but we must be sure that our hands are clean
in the struggle.
We must never struggle with falsehood, hate,
or malice.
We must never become bitter.
I know how we feel sometime.
There is the danger that those of us who have
been forced so long to stand amid the tragic
midnight of oppression—those of us who have
been trampled over, those of us who have been
kicked about—there is the danger that we
will become bitter.
But if we will become bitter and indulge in
hate campaigns, the old, the new order which
is emerging will be nothing but a duplication
of the old order.
(Yeah, That’s all right)
We must meet hate with love.
(Yeah) We must meet physical force with soul
force.
There is still a voice crying out through
the vista of time, saying: “Love your enemies
(Yeah), bless them that curse you (Yes), pray
for them that despitefully use you.”
(That’s right, All right) Then, and only
then, can you matriculate into the university
of eternal life.
That same voice cries out in terms lifted
to cosmic proportions: “He who lives by
the sword will perish by the sword.”
(Yeah, Lord) And history is replete with the
bleached bones of nations (Yeah) that failed
to follow this command.
(All right) We must follow nonviolence and
love.
(Yes, Lord)
Now, I’m not talking about a sentimental,
shallow kind of love.
(Go ahead) I’m not talking about eros, which
is a sort of aesthetic, romantic love.
I’m not even talking about philia, which
is a sort of intimate affection between personal
friends.
But I’m talking about agape.
(Yes sir) I’m talking about the love of
God in the hearts of men.
(Yes) I’m talking about a type of love which
will cause you to love the person who does
the evil deed while hating the deed that the
person does.
(Go ahead) We’ve got to love.
(Oh yes)
There is another warning signal.
We talk a great deal about our rights, and
rightly so.
We proudly proclaim that three-fourths of
the peoples of the world are colored.
We have the privilege of noticing in our generation
the great drama of freedom and independence
as it unfolds in Asia and Africa.
All of these things are in line with the unfolding
work of Providence.
But we must be sure that we accept them in
the right spirit.
We must not seek to use our emerging freedom
and our growing power to do the same thing
to the white minority that has been done to
us for so many centuries.
(Yes) Our aim must never be to defeat or humiliate
the white man.
We must not become victimized with a philosophy
of black supremacy.
God is not interested merely in freeing black
men and brown men and yellow men, but God
is interested in freeing the whole human race.
(Yes, All right) We must work with determination
to create a society (Yes), not where black
men are superior and other men are inferior
and vice versa, but a society in which all
men will live together as brothers (Yes) and
respect the dignity and worth of human personality.
(Yes)
We must also avoid the temptation of being
victimized with a psychology of victors.
We have won marvelous victories.
Through the work of the NAACP, we have been
able to do some of the most amazing things
of this generation.
And I come this afternoon with nothing, nothing
but praise for this great organization, the
work that it has already done and the work
that it will do in the future.
And although they’re outlawed in Alabama
and other states, the fact still remains that
this organization has done more to achieve
civil rights for Negroes than any other organization
we can point to.
(Yeah, Amen) Certainly, this is fine.
But we must not, however, remain satisfied
with a court victory over our white brothers.
We must respond to every decision with an
understanding of those who have opposed us
and with an appreciation of the difficult
adjustments that the court orders pose for
them.
We must act in such a way as to make possible
a coming together of white people and colored
people on the basis of a real harmony of interest
and understanding.
We must seek an integration based on mutual
respect.
I conclude by saying that each of us must
keep faith in the future.
Let us not despair.
Let us realize that as we struggle for justice
and freedom, we have cosmic companionship.
This is the long faith of the Hebraic-Christian
tradition: that God is not some Aristotelian
“unmoved mover” who merely contemplates
upon Himself.
He is not merely a self-knowing God, but an
other-loving God (Yeah) forever working through
history for the establishment of His kingdom.
And those of us who call the name of Jesus
Christ find something of an event in our Christian
faith that tells us this.
There is something in our faith that says
to us, “Never despair; never give up; never
feel that the cause of righteousness and justice
is doomed.”
There is something in our Christian faith,
at the center of it, which says to us that
Good Friday may occupy the throne for a day,
but ultimately it must give way to the triumphant
beat of the drums of Easter.
(That’s right) There is something in our
faith that says evil may so shape events that
Caesar will occupy the palace and Christ the
cross (That’s right), but one day that same
Christ will rise up and split history into
A.D. and B.C.
(Yes), so that even the name, the life of
Caesar must be dated by his name.
(Yes) There is something in this universe
(Yes, Yes) which justifies Carlyle in saying:
“No lie can live forever.”
(All right) There is something in this universe
which justifies William Cullen Bryant in saying:
“Truth crushed to earth will rise again.”
(Yes, All right) There is something in this
universe (Watch yourself) which justifies
James Russell Lowell in saying:
Truth forever on the scaffold,
Wrong forever on the throne.
( Oh yeah)
Yet that scaffold sways the future,
And behind the dim unknown
Stands God (All right), within the shadow,
Keeping watch above His own.
(Yeah, Yes)
Go out with that faith today.
(All right, Yes) Go back to your homes in
the Southland to that faith, with that faith
today.
Go back to Philadelphia, to New York, to 1957
Detroit and Chicago with that faith today
(That’s right), that the universe is on
our side in the struggle.
(Sure is, Yes) Stand up for justice.
(Yes) Sometimes it gets hard, but it is always
difficult to get out of Egypt, for the Red
Sea always stands before you with discouraging
dimensions.
(Yes) And even after you’ve crossed the
Red Sea, you have to move through a wilderness
with prodigious hilltops of evil (Yes) and
gigantic mountains of opposition.
(Yes) But I say to you this afternoon: Keep
moving.
(Go on ahead) Let nothing slow you up.
(Go on ahead) Move on with dignity and honor
and respectability.
(Yes)
I realize that it will cause restless nights
sometime.
It might cause losing a job; it will cause
suffering and sacrifice.
(That’s right) It might even cause physical
death for some.
But if physical death is the price that some
must pay (Yes sir) to free their children
from a permanent life of psychological death
(Yes sir), then nothing can be more Christian.
(Yes sir) Keep going today.
(Yes sir) Keep moving amid every obstacle.
(Yes sir) Keep moving amid every mountain
of opposition.
(Yes sir, Yeah) If you will do that with dignity
(Say it), when the history books are written
in the future, the historians will have to
look back and say, “There lived a great
people.
(Yes sir, Yes) A people with ‘fleecy locks
and black complexion,’ but a people who
injected new meaning into the veins of civilization
(Yes); a people which stood up with dignity
and honor and saved Western civilization in
her darkest hour (Yes); a people that gave
new integrity and a new dimension of love
to our civilization.”
(Yeah, Look out) When that happens, “the
morning stars will sing together (Yes sir),
and the sons of God will shout for joy.’’
(Yes sir, All right) [applause] (Yes, That’s
wonderful, All right)
