Thank you very kindly, my friends.
As I listened to Ralph Abernathy and his eloquent
and generous introduction and then thought
about myself, I wondered who he was talking
about.
It's always good to have your closest friend
and associate to say something good about
you, and Ralph Abernathy is the best friend
that I have in the world.
I'm delighted to see each of you here tonight
in spite of a storm warning.
You reveal that you are determined to go on
anyhow.
Something is happening in Memphis, something
is happening in our world.
And you know, if I were standing at the beginning
of time with the possibility of taking a kind
of general and panoramic view of the whole
of human history up to now, and the Almighty
said to me, "Martin Luther King, which age
would you like to live in?"
I would take my mental flight by Egypt, and
I would watch God's children in their magnificent
trek from the dark dungeons of 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, and I would watch them 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 aesthetic 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 tacks his ninety-five
theses on the door at the church of Wittenberg.
But I wouldn't stop there.
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 to 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.
And I see God working in this period of the
twentieth century in a way that men in some
strange way are responding.
Something is happening in our world.
The masses of people are rising up.
And wherever they are assembled today, whether
they are in Johannesburg, South Africa; Nairobi,
Kenya; Accra, Ghana; New York City; Atlanta,
Georgia; Jackson, Mississippi; or Memphis,
Tennessee, the cry is always the same: "We
want to be free."
And another reason I'm happy to live in this
period is that we have been forced to a point
where we are going to have to grapple with
the problems that men have been trying to
grapple with through history, but the demands
didn't force them to do it.
Survival demands that we grapple with them.
Men for years now have been talking about
war and peace.
But now no longer can they just talk about
it.
It is no longer a choice between violence
and nonviolence in this world; it's nonviolence
or nonexistence.
That is where we are today.
And also, in the human rights revolution,
if something isn't done and done in a hurry
to bring the colored peoples of the world
out of their long years of poverty; their
long years of hurt and neglect, the whole
world is doomed.
Now I'm just happy that God has allowed me
to live in this period, to see what is unfolding.
And I'm happy that he's allowed me to be in
Memphis.
I can remember, I can remember when Negroes
were just going around, as Ralph has said
so often, scratching where they didn't itch
and laughing when they were not tickled.
But that day is all over.
We mean business now and we are determined
to gain our rightful place in God's world.
And that's all this whole thing is about.
We aren't engaged in any negative protest
and in any negative arguments with anybody.
We are saying that we are determined to be
men.
We are determined to be people.
We are saying, we are saying that we are God's
children.
And if we are God's children, we don't have
to live like we are forced to live.
Now what does all this mean in this great
period of history?
It means that we've got to stay together.
We've got to stay together and maintain unity.
You know, whenever Pharaoh wanted to prolong
the period of slavery in Egypt, he had a favorite,
favorite formula of doing it.
What was that?
He kept the slaves fighting among themselves.
But whenever the slaves get together, something
happens in Pharaoh's court, and he cannot
hold the slaves in slavery.
When the slaves get together, that's the beginning
of getting out of slavery.
Now let us maintain unity.
Secondly, let us keep the issues where they
are.
The issue is injustice.
The issue is the refusal of Memphis to be
fair and honest in its dealings with its public
servants, who happen to be sanitation workers.
Now we've got to keep attention on that.
That's always the problem with a little violence.
You know what happened the other day, and
the press dealt only with the window breaking.
I read the articles.
They very seldom got around to mentioning
the fact that 1,300 sanitation workers are
on strike, and that Memphis is not being fair
to them, and that Mayor Loeb is in dire need
of a doctor.
They didn't get around to that.
Now we're going to march again, and we've
got to march again, in order to put the issue
where it is supposed to be and force everybody
to see that there are thirteen hundred of
God's children here suffering, sometimes going
hungry, going through dark and dreary nights
wondering how this thing is going to come
out.
That's the issue.
And we've got to say to the nation, we know
how it's coming out.
For when people get caught up with that which
is right and they are willing to sacrifice
for it, there is no stopping point short of
victory.
We aren't going to let any mace stop us.
We are masters in our nonviolent movement
in disarming police forces.
They don't know what to do.
I've seen them so often.
I remember in Birmingham, Alabama, when we
were in that majestic struggle there, we would
move out of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church
day after day.
By the hundreds we would move out, and Bull
Connor would tell them to send the dogs forth,
and they did come.
But we just went before the dogs singing,
"Ain't gonna let nobody turn me around."
Bull Connor next would say, "Turn the fire
hoses on."
And as I said to you the other night, Bull
Connor didn't know history.
He knew a kind of physics that somehow didn't
relate to the trans-physics that we knew about.
And that was the fact that there was a certain
kind of fire that no water could put out.
And we went before the fire hoses.
We had known water.
If we were Baptist or some other denominations,
we had been immersed.
If we were Methodist or some others, we had
been sprinkled.
But we knew water.
That couldn't stop us.
And we just went on before the dogs and we
would look at them, and we'd go on before
the water hoses and we would look at it.
And we'd just go on singing, "Over my head,
I see freedom in the air."
And then we would be thrown into paddy wagons,
and sometimes we were stacked in there like
sardines in a can.
And they would throw us in, and old Bull would
say, "Take 'em off."
And they did, and we would just go on in the
paddy wagon singing, "We Shall Overcome."
And every now and then we'd get in jail, and
we'd see the jailers looking through the windows
being moved by our prayers and being moved
by our words and our songs.
And there was a power there which Bull Connor
couldn't adjust to, and so we ended up transforming
Bull into a steer, and we on our struggle
in Birmingham.
Now we've got to go on in Memphis just like
that.
I call upon you to be with us when we go out
Monday.
Now about injunctions.
We have an injunction and we're going into
court tomorrow morning to fight this illegal,
unconstitutional injunction.
All we say to America is to be true to what
you said on paper.
If I lived in China or even Russia, or any
totalitarian country, maybe I could understand
some of these illegal injunctions.
Maybe I could understand the denial of certain
basic First Amendment privileges, because
they haven't committed themselves to that
over there.
But somewhere I read of the freedom of assembly.
Somewhere I read of the freedom of speech.
Somewhere I read of the freedom of press.
Somewhere I read that the greatness of America
is the right to protest for right.
And so just as I say we aren't going to let
any dogs or water hoses turn us around, we
aren't going to let any injunction turn us
around.
We are going on.
We need all of you.
You know, what's beautiful to me is to see
all of these ministers of the Gospel.
It's a marvelous picture.
Who is it that is supposed to articulate the
longings and aspirations of the people more
than the preacher?
Somewhere the preacher must have a kind of
fire shut up in his bones, and whenever injustice
is around he must tell it.
Somehow the preacher must be an Amos, who
said, "When God Speaks, who can but prophesy?"
Again with Amos, "Let justice roll down like
waters and righteousness like a mighty stream."
Somehow the preacher must say with Jesus,
"The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because
He hath anointed me, and He's anointed me
to deal with the problems of the poor."
And I want to commend the preachers, under
the leadership of these noble men: James Lawson,
one who has been in this struggle for many
years.
He's been to jail for struggling; he's been
kicked out of Vanderbilt University for this
struggling; but he's still going on, fighting
for the rights of his people.
Reverend Ralph Jackson, Billy Kyles; I could
just go right on down the list, but time will
not permit.
But I want to thank all of them, and I want
you to thank them because so often preachers
aren't concerned about anything but themselves.
And I'm always happy to see a relevant ministry.
It's all right to talk about long white robes
over yonder, in all of its symbolism, but
ultimately people want some suits and dresses
and shoes to wear down here.
It's all right to talk about streets flowing
with milk and honey, but God has commanded
us to be concerned about the slums down here
and His children who can't eat three square
meals a day.
It's all right to talk about the new Jerusalem,
but one day God's preacher must talk about
the new New York, the new Atlanta, the new
Philadelphia, the new Los Angeles, the new
Memphis, Tennessee.
This is what we have to do.
Now the other thing we'll have to do is this:
always anchor our external direct action with
the power of economic withdrawal.
Now we are poor people, individually we are
poor when you compare us with white society
in America.
We are poor.
Never stop and forget that collectively, that
means all of us together, collectively we
are richer than all the nations in the world,
with the exception of nine.
Did you ever think about that?
After you leave the United States, Soviet
Russia, Great Britain, West Germany, France,
and I could name the others, the American
Negro collectively is richer than most nations
of the world.
We have an annual income of more than thirty
billion dollars a year, which is more than
all of the exports of the United States and
more than the national budget of Canada.
Did you know that?
That's power right there, if we know how to
pool it.
We don't have to argue with anybody.
We don't have to curse and go around acting
bad with our words.
We don't need any bricks and bottles; we don't
need any Molotov cocktails.
We just need to go around to these stores,
and to these massive industries in our country
, and say, "God sent us by here to say to
you that you're not treating His children
right.
And we've come by here to ask you to make
the first item on your agenda fair treatment
where God's children are concerned.
Now if you are not prepared to do that, we
do have an agenda that we must follow.
And our agenda calls for withdrawing economic
support from you."
And so, as a 
result of this, we are asking you tonight
to go out and tell your neighbors not to buy
Coca-Cola in Memphis.
Go by and tell them not to buy Sealtest milk.Tell
them not to buy–what is the other bread?–Wonder
Bread.
And what is the other bread company, Jesse?
Tell them not to buy Hart's bread.
As Jesse Jackson has said, up to now only
the garbage men have been feeling pain.
Now we must kind of redistribute that pain.
We are choosing these companies because they
haven't been fair in their hiring policies,
and we are choosing them because they can
begin the process of saying they are going
to support the needs and the rights of these
men who are on strike.
And then they can move on downtown and tell
Mayor Loeb to do what is right.
Now not only that, we've got to strengthen
black institutions.
I call upon you to take your money out of
the banks downtown and deposit your money
in Tri-State Bank.
We want a "bank-in" movement in Memphis.
Go by the savings and loan association.
I'm not asking you something that we don't
do ourselves in SCLC.
Judge Hooks and others will tell you that
we have an account here in the savings and
loan association from the Southern Christian
Leadership Conference.
We are telling you to follow what we're doing,
put your money there.
You have six or seven black insurance companies
here in the city of Memphis.
Take out your insurance there.
We want to have an "insurance-in."
Now these are some practical things that we
can do.
We begin the process of building a greater
economic base, and at the same time, we are
putting pressure where it really hurts.
And I ask you to follow through here.
Now let me say as I move to my conclusion
that we've got to give ourselves to this struggle
until the end.
Nothing would be more tragic than to stop
at this point in Memphis.
We've got to see it through.
And when we have our march, you need to be
there.
If it means leaving work, if it means leaving
school, be there.
Be concerned about your brother.
You may not be on strike, but either we go
up together or we go down together.
Let us develop a kind of dangerous unselfishness.
One day a man came to Jesus and he wanted
to raise some questions about some vital matters
of life.
At points he wanted to trick Jesus, and show
him that he knew a little more than Jesus
knew and throw him off base.
[Recording interrupted] Now that question
could have easily ended up in a philosophical
and theological debate.
But Jesus immediately pulled that question
from midair and placed it on a dangerous curve
between Jerusalem and Jericho.
And he talked about a certain man who fell
among thieves.
You remember that a Levite and a priest passed
by on the other side; they didn't stop to
help him.
Finally, a man of another race came by.
He got down from his beast, decided not to
be compassionate by proxy.
But he got down with him, administered first
aid, and helped the man in need.
Jesus ended up saying this was the good man,
this was the great man because he had the
capacity to project the "I" into the "thou,"
and to be concerned about his brother.
Now, you know, we use our imagination a great
deal to try to determine why the priest and
the Levite didn't stop.
At times we say they were busy going to a
church meeting, an ecclesiastical gathering,
and they had to get on down to Jerusalem so
they wouldn't be late for their meeting.
At other times we would speculate that there
was a religious law that one who was engaged
in religious ceremonials was not to touch
a human body twenty-four hours before the
ceremony.
And every now and then we begin to wonder
whether maybe they were not going down to
Jerusalem, or down to Jericho, rather, to
organize a Jericho Road Improvement Association.
That's a possibility.
Maybe they felt it was better to deal with
the problem from the causal root, rather than
to get bogged down with an individual effect.
But I'm going to tell you what my imagination
tells me.
It's possible that those men were afraid.
You see, the Jericho Road is a dangerous road.
I remember when Mrs. King and I were first
in Jerusalem.
We rented a car and drove from Jerusalem down
to Jericho.
And as soon as we got on that road I said
to my wife, "I can see why Jesus used this
as the setting for his parable."
It's a winding, meandering road.
It's really conducive for ambushing.
You start out in Jerusalem, which is about
twelve hundred miles, or rather, twelve hundred
feet above sea level.
And by the time you get down to Jericho fifteen
or twenty minutes later, you're about twenty-two
feet below sea level.
That's a dangerous road.
In the days of Jesus it came to be known as
the "Bloody Pass."
And you know, it's possible that the priest
and the Levite looked over that man on the
ground and wondered if the robbers were still
around.
Or it's possible that they felt that the man
on the ground was merely faking, and he was
acting like he had been robbed and hurt in
order to seize them over there, lure them
there for quick and easy seizure.
And so the first question that the priest
asked, the first question that the Levite
asked was, "If I stop to help this man, what
will happen to me?"
But then the Good Samaritan came by, and he
reversed the question: "If I do not stop to
help this man, what will happen to him?"
That's the question before you tonight.
Not, "If I stop to help the sanitation workers,
what will happen to my job?"
Not, "If I stop to help the sanitation workers,
what will happen to all of the hours that
I usually spend in my office every day and
every week as a pastor?"
The question is not, "If I stop to help this
man in need, what will happen to me?"
The question is, "If I do not stop to help
the sanitation workers, what will happen to
them?"
That's the question.
Let us rise up tonight with a greater readiness.
Let us stand with a greater determination.
And let us move on in these powerful days,
these days of challenge, to make America what
it ought to be.
We have an opportunity to make America a better
nation.
And I want to thank God, once more, for allowing
me to be here with you.
You know, several years ago I was in New York
City autographing the first book that I had
written.
And while sitting there autographing books,
a demented black woman came up.
The only question I heard from her was, "Are
you Martin Luther King?"
And I was looking down writing and I said,
"Yes."
The next minute I felt something beating on
my chest.
Before I knew it I had been stabbed by this
demented woman.
I was rushed to Harlem Hospital.
It was a dark Saturday afternoon.
And that blade had gone through, and the X
rays revealed that the tip of the blade was
on the edge of my aorta, the main artery.
And once that's punctured you're drowned in
your own blood, that's the end of you.
It came out in the New York Times the next
morning that if I had merely sneezed, I would
have died.
Well, about four days later, they allowed
me, after the operation, after my chest had
been opened and the blade had been taken out,
to move around in the wheelchair of the hospital.
They allowed me to read some of the mail that
came in, and from all over the states and
the world kind letters came in.
I read a few, but one of them I will never
forget.
I had received one from the president and
the vice president; I've forgotten what those
telegrams said.
I'd received a visit and a letter from the
governor of New York, but I've forgotten what
that letter said.
But there was another letter that came from
a little girl, a young girl who was a student
at the White Plains High School.
And I looked at that letter and I'll never
forget it.
It said simply, "Dear Dr. King: I am a ninth-grade
student at the White Plains High School."
She said, "While it should not matter, I would
like to mention that I'm a white girl.
I read in the paper of your misfortune and
of your suffering.
And I read that if you had sneezed, you would
have died.
And I'm simply writing you to say that I'm
so happy that you didn't sneeze."
And I want to say tonight, I want to say tonight
that I, too, am happy that I didn't sneeze.
Because if I had sneezed, I wouldn't have
been around here in 1960, when students all
over the South started sitting-in at lunch
counters.
And I knew that as they were sitting in, they
were really standing up for the best in the
American dream and taking the whole nation
back to those great wells of democracy, which
were dug deep by the founding fathers in the
Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
If I had sneezed, I wouldn't have been around
here in 1961, when we decided to take a ride
for freedom and ended segregation in interstate
travel.
If I had sneezed, I wouldn't have been around
here in 1962, when Negroes in Albany, Georgia,
decided to straighten their backs up.
And whenever men and women straighten their
backs up, they are going somewhere, because
a man can't ride your back unless it is bent.
If I had sneezed, if I had sneezed, I wouldn't
have been here in 1963 , when the black people
of Birmingham, Alabama, aroused the conscience
of this nation and brought into being the
Civil Rights Bill.
If I had sneezed, I wouldn't have had a chance
later that year, in August, to try to tell
America about a dream that I had had.
If I had sneezed, I wouldn't have been down
in Selma, Alabama, to see the great movement
there.
If I had sneezed, I wouldn't have been in
Memphis to see a community rally around those
brothers and sisters who are suffering.
I'm so happy that I didn't sneeze.
And they were telling me.
Now it doesn't matter now.
It really doesn't matter what happens now.
I left Atlanta this morning, and as we got
started on the plane–there were six of us–the
pilot said over the public address system:
"We are sorry for the delay, but we have Dr.
Martin Luther King on the plane.
And to be sure that all of the bags were checked,
and to be sure that nothing would be wrong
on the plane, we had to check out everything
carefully.
And we've had the plane protected and guarded
all night."
And then I got into Memphis.
And some began to say the threats, or talk
about the threats that were out, or what would
happen to me from some of our sick white brothers.
Well, I don't know what will happen now; we've
got some difficult days ahead.
But it really doesn't matter to 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.
And 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.
