#MLK: The Three Evils of Society // #Nonviolence365

Miss, Mr. President, friends and brothers in this first meeting of the National Conference on New Politics, ladies and gentlemen, can you hear me from the back? I don't know if the clan is here tonight or not with all the problems we're having. with these microphones, we rarely, if ever, continue to work with it, as I was about to say, rarely, if ever, has such a diverse and truly ecumenical Gathering been gathered under the Eis of politics in our nation and I want to commend the leadership of the National Conference on New Politics for all the great work they have done to make this important convention possible;

In fact, by our very nature, we affirm that something new is happening on the American political horizon. We come here from the dusty plantations of the Deep South and the dreary ghettos of the North, we come from the great universities and the burgeoning suburbs, we come from Appalachian poverty and conscience-stricken wealth, but we come and we come here because We share a common concern for moral health. of our nation we have come because our eyes have seen through the superficial glory and glitter of our

society

and behold the coming of judgment like the prophet of old we have read the writing on the wall we have seen our nation weighed in the scales of history and we find ourselves eager we have come because we see this as a dark hour in the affairs of men for most of us this is a new state of mind we are traditionally the idealists we are the Mississippi and Salmont protesters in Washington who risked our lives in the American dream during the first half of this decade, many gathered here campaigned determinedly for Lynon Johnson in 1964 because we could not stand by and watch our nation contaminated by the 18th century policies of Goldwater's ISM;

We were the hardcore activists who were willing to believe that Southerners could rebuild themselves in the constitutional image We were the dreamers of a dream in which the dark yesterdays of man's inhumanity to man would soon transform into bright tomorrows of Justice now hard to escape From the disillusionment of betrayal our hopes have been ruined and our dreams shattered the promise of a Great Society shipwrecked off the coast of Asia on the Terrible Peninsula towards Vietnam the poor black and white the poor black and white continue to perish in a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity What happens to a dream deferred leads to disconcerting frustration and corrosive bitterness.

I came to see this in personal experience here in Chicago last summer and every talk I have given in the United States to varied audiences, including some hostile whites, the only time. The only time I was booed was one night at our regular weekly mass by some angry young people in our movement. That night I went home with unpleasant feelings. I selfishly thought about my sufferings and sacrifices over the past 12 12 years. Why would they boo me? one so close to them, but as I lay awake thinking, I finally came to my senses and could not for the life of me have less impatience and understanding towards those young men.

For 12 years, I and others like me had offered radiant promises of progress. I had preached to them about my dream. He had lectured them about the day not far off when everyone here would now be free. Amen. He had urged them to have faith in America and the White Society. His hopes had skyrocketed. Now they were booing me because they felt we couldn't keep our promises, they were booing us because we had urged them to have faith in people who had too often proven unfaithful, now they were hostile because, seeing the dream they had so easily accepted, They had accepted their turn.

In a frustrating Nightmare and this situation is even more sinister in view of the increasing expectations of men throughout the world about the Deep Rumors that we hear today, the din of discontent is the thunder of the disinherited masses rising from the dungeons of the Oppression towards the shining Hills. of Freedom throughout the world like a fever freedom is spreading in the broadest Liberation movement in history, the great masses of people are determined to put an end to the exploitation of their races and lands and in a majestic chorus they sing the lyrics of our freedom song.

We are not going to allow anyone to make us change course and thus the collision course is set, people cry out for freedom and Congress tries to legislate repression. Millions, yes, billions are appropriated for mass murder, but the merest pittance of foreign aid for international development is crushed. In The Backlash, unemployment reaches a major depression level in the black ghettos, but the bipartisan response is an anti-rot bill rather than a serious anti-poverty program. The modest proposals for model cities, rent supplements and rat control are as regrettable as they were in the beginning. They are trapped in the Labyrinth of Congressional inaction and I propose to you tonight that a Congress that proves to be more anti-ro than anti-at must be removed;

It seems that our legislative assemblies have adopted Nero as their patron saint and are hell-bent on fiddling while our cities burn, even as people persist and in the face of great obstacles develop indigenous leadership and self-help approaches to their problems and ultimately spread the forest of bureaucracy to obtain existing government funds, the corrupt political order seeks to crush even this beginning. of Hope, the cdgm case in Mississippi is the most publicized example, but it is a story that is repeated many times throughout our nation. Our own experience here in Chicago is especially painful today after a glowing endorsement from the hws adult education department.

SCC started an adult literacy program. project to help 1,000 young men and women who have been expelled from overcrowded ghetto schools gain basic basic literacy skills, a prerequisite for employment, we had an agreement with A&P stores for 750 jobs through the "barn" operation of the scc Employment Program and we had recruited more than 500 students. the first week at that time congressman kiny and the daily machine intervened and demanded that Washington cut off our funds or funnel them through the machine's poverty control program in Chicago now we don't have any problems with administrative oversight but we do have the desire to be independent of machine control and the Democratic Party sponsorship Network for this desire for a politically independent approach to the needs of our brothers our funds will be suspended effective September 15 and a very significant program will be suspended yes, the hour is dark evil appears disguised as good It is a time of doublespeak when men in high places have high blood pressure due to misleading rhetoric and an anemia of concrete performance.

We rail against welfare handouts to the poor but generously approve an oil depletion subsidy to further enrich the rich. Six Mississippi Plantations. receive more than a million dollars a year not to plant cotton, but no provision is made to feed the tenant who is put out of work by the government subsidy, the greatest achievement in hypocrisy must go to those staunch Republicans and Democrats of the Midwest and West, who were given land by our government when they came here as immigrants from Europe, were educated through land grant universities, were provided agricultural agents so they could keep up with agricultural trends, were given loans to low interest to help in mechanization. from their farms and now that they have managed to succeed they are paid not to farm and these are the same people who now tell black people whose ancestors were brought to this country in chains and who were emancipated in 1863 without being given land to grow bread to eat that they themselves must raise with their own efforts.

What they really defend is socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor. I wish I could say that this is just a passing phase in the cycle of our nation's crisis. Certainly, life is times of war, times of reaction throughout

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, but I suspect that we are now experiencing the surfacing of a triple disease that has been lurking within our body politic from the beginning: the disease of racism, Excessive materialism and militarism is not only the dilemma of our nation, but also the plague of Western civilization, as early as 1906 WB Duo prophesied that the problem of the 20th century will be the problem of the color line now that we occupy the second third place in this crucial period of History that we know. very well that racism continues to be that Dog of Hell that follows the footprints of our civilization since the birth of our nation.

White America has had a schizophrenic personality on the question of race, it has been divided between a self in which it proudly professed the great principles of democracy and a self in which it madly practices the antithesis of democracy, this tragic Duality has produced a strange indecision and ambivalence toward the Negro, causing America to take a step back simultaneously with each step forward on the issue of racial justice to be at one time attracted to the Negro and repelled by loving and hating him. , there has never been a solid, unified and determined push to make justice a reality for African Americans, the step back has a new name today it is called white backlash, but the white backlash is nothing new, it is the rise of old prejudices, hostilities and ambivalences that have always been there.

It was caused neither by The Cry of Black Power nor by the unfortunate recent wave of riots in our cities. Today's white reaction. It is rooted in the same problem that has characterized America since the black man landed in chains on the shores of this nation. This does not imply that all white Americans are racists, far from it; many whites, through deep moral compulsion, have fought long and hard. for racial justice nor does it mean that the United States has not made progress in its attempt to cure the body politic of the disease of racism, it is that the dogma of racism has not been considerably modified in recent years, however, for the sake of The United States is necessary. refute the idea that the dominant ideology in our country, even today, is freedom and equality, while racism is only an occasional deviation from the n by a few intolerant extremists.

Racism may well be that corrosive evil that will bring down the curtain on the West. Civilization Arnold Tber has said that some 26 civilizations have arisen on the face of the earth, almost all of them having descended into the rubbish heaps of Destruction. The decline and fall of these civilizations according to Torbe was not caused by external invasions but by internal decay. failed to respond creatively to the challenges presented to them, if the United States does not respond creatively to the challenge of banishing racism, some future historian will have to say that a great civilization died because it lacked the soul and commitment to make justice a reality. for all men.

The second aspect of our afflicted society is extreme materialism. An Asian writer has portrayed our dilemma in candid terms. He says that you call your thousand material devices Labor-saving Machinery, and yet you are always busy with the multiplication of your machinery. you have you want more and wherever you are you want to go somewhere else your devices do not save time nor do they save souls there are so many sharp stimuli that urge you to invent more machinery and do more business this tells us something about our civilization that cannot be left aside as an accusation of prejudice by an Eastern thinker who is jealous of Western prosperity we cannot escape the accusation this does not mean we should turn back the clock of scientific progress no one can overlook the wonders that science has wrought in our lives the automobile will not abdicate in favor of the horse and buggy are the train in favor of the CCH stage are the tractor in favor of the manual plow of the scientific method in favor of ignorance and superstition but our moral backwardness must be redeemed when scientific power surpasses moral power we end up with guided missiles and misguided men when we foolishly maximize the minimum and minimize the maximum we sign the order of our own dun day it is this backwardness of Mora and our thing-oriented society that blinds us to the human realities around us and We are encouraged in the greed and exploitation that creates the sector of poverty in the midst of wealth.

We have once again deceived ourselves into believing the myth that capitalism grew and prospered from the Protestant ethic of hard work and sacrifice, but heThe fact is that capitalism was built on the exploitation and suffering of black slaves and continues to thrive on the exploitation of the poor, both white and black, both here and abroad, if blacks and poor whites do not participate in the free flow of wealth within our economy, they will do so forever. Be poor, give your energy, talents, and limited funds to the consumer market, but get few benefits and services in return.

The way to end poverty is to end the exploitation of the poor. Make sure they are assured a fair share of government and nation services. Resources I recently proposed that a national agency be established to provide employment to all who need it. Nothing is more socially unforgivable than unemployment in this era, in the 1930s, when the nation was bankrupt, such an agency was instituted. The WPA in the current conditions of a saturated nation. with resources, it is barbaric to condemn people who wish to work to soul-depleting inactivity and poverty and I am convinced that even this massive act of concern would do more than all the state police and armies in the nation to quell riots and steal hatred from tragedy.

Victor Hugo may have been thinking of 20th century America when he wrote: There is always more misery among the lower classes than humanity in the upper classes; The time has come for America to devote at least as much to the education of our children and to the health of our children as we do to the care of our children. automobiles and the construction of beautiful, impressive hotels, and we must also realize that the problems of racial injustice and economic injustice cannot be solved without a radical redistribution of political and economic power. We must further recognize that the ghetto is a domestic colony.

Black people must develop programs that assist in the transfer of power and wealth into the hands of the ghetto residents so that they can actually control their own destinies. This is the meaning of the New Politics, people of good will in the community at large must support the black man in this effort the final phase of our national disease is the disease of militarism nothing more clearly demonstrates our nation's abuse of military power that our tragic adventure in Vietnam, this war has wreaked havoc on the destiny of the entire world, has destroyed the Geneva agreement, has seriously damaged the United Nations, has exacerbated hatred between continents and, worse still, between races, has frustrated our development from home to home, telling our own disadvantaged citizens that we put insatiable military demands before their most important needs. critical needs, has contributed greatly to the reaction forces in the United States and has strengthened the military industrial complex and has practically destroyed Vietnam and has left thousands of young Americans and Vietnamese maimed and maimed and exposed the entire world to the risk of a nuclear war, especially to the The war in Vietnam has revealed what Senator Fulbright calls the arrogance of power of our Nations.

We are arrogant to profess to be concerned about the freedom of foreign Nations without putting our own house in order. Many of our Senators and Congressmen happily vote to appropriate billions of dollars from us. for the Vietnam War and many of these same senators and congressmen vote loudly against the fair housing bill to make it possible for a black Vietnam veteran to buy a decent home we arm black soldiers to kill on foreign battlefields but we offer little protection for their relatives from beatings and murders in our own South, we are willing to make the black man a 100% citizen in war, but reduce him to 50% of a citizen on American soil.

No war in our nation's history has violated our conscience so much. natural national interests and so destructive of our moral standing in the world, no enemy has been able to cause us as much harm as we inflict on ourselves, the inexurable decay of our urban centers has become a terrifying internal conflict as The pursuit of a foreign war absorbs our wealth and energy, misery and poverty mark our cities as our military power destroys cities in a distant land to support the oligarchy to intervene in internal conflicts the president who values ​​consensus for peace has escalated the war in response to a cry to stop the war. has mockingly taken a minute's flight from China to a moment before midnight of the world configuration we are offered a tax for war instead of a plan for peace men of Reason should no longer debate the merits of war or the means of financing it, yes, they should end the war and restore sanity and Humanity to America.

American politics and if the will of the people continues to be ignored, all men of Good Will must create a situation in which the elections of 1967-68 become a referendum on the wall of the American people. The American people must have the opportunity to vote to send to Oblivion those who cannot separate themselves from militarism and those who lead us, and that is why we are here because we believe, hope and pray that something new will emerge in the political life of this nation that produces a new man, new structures and institutions and a new life for humanity.

I am convinced that this new life will not emerge until our nation undergoes a radical revolution of values ​​when machines and computers gain more motives and property rights are considered more important than people. the giant triplets of racism, economic exploitation and militarism are incapable of being conquered. A civilization can falter from moral bankruptcy as easily as it does from financial bankruptcy. A true revolution of values ​​will soon make us question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. We are called to act as good Samaritans in the paths of life, but that will only be an initial act.

One day, the entire road to Jericho must be transformed so that men and women will not be beaten or robbed while making their journey. Through Life True compassion is more than throwing a coin to a beggar. He does understand that a building that produces beggars needs restructuring. A true revolution of values ​​will soon look uneasily at the flagrant contrast of poverty and wealth with righteous indignation. It will look at thousands of workers. people displaced from their jobs with reduced incomes as a result of automation, while employers' profits remain intact and they say this is not just, you will look across the oceans and see individual capitalists from the West investing huge sums of money only in Asia and Africa. take profits without worrying about the social improvement of the countries and say that this is not fair they will look at our alliance with the landed nobility of Latin America and say that this is not just a true revolution of values ​​they will put their hands in the world order and say of War, this way of resolving differences is not only this business of burning human beings with Napal, of filling the homes of our Nations with offerings and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of normally Human peoples, of sending men home from the Darkness and the Blood. physically disabled and psychologically degraded battlefields cannot be reconciled with wisdom Justice and love a nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on social upliftment programs is approaching spiritual death, so what We all need to see that these are revolutionary times.

All over the world men are rebelling against the old systems of exploitation and to emerge from the wounds of a fragile world, new and new systems of justice and equality are born, the shirtless and barefoot peoples of the earth, emerging as never before the towns that were established. The darkness has seen a great light. Yes, we in the West must support these revolutions. It is a sad fact that due to comfort, complacency and morbid fear of communism, I would have been prone to adapt to the injustice of the Western nations that initiated much of the revolutionary spirit. of the modern world have now become the well-known anti-revolutionaries and this has led many to feel that only Marxism has the revolutionary spirit.

Communism is a judgment and, in a sense, communism is a judgment of our inability to make democracy real and fulfill its objectives. In the revolutions we initiated, our only hope today lies in our ability to recover the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal opposition to poverty, racism and militarism. With this powerful commitment we will boldly challenge the status quo and unjust grievances and therefore Hasten the day when every valley will be exalted and every mountain and hill will be made low and the crooked places will be made straight and the rough places will be made smooth, I can say In conclusion, and that is a need now more than ever for men and women. men and women of our nation are creatively misfits, said Mr.

Davis, and I tell you that I choose to be among the misfits, as my good friend Bill Coffin said, there are those who have criticized me and many of you for taking a step against the war in Vietnam and for trying to tell the nation that issues of civil rights cannot be separated from issues of peace. I want to tell you tonight that I intend to keep these issues mixed because they are mixed somewhere, we must see that Justice is indivisible. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere and I have fought too long and too hard against segregated public accommodations to end up at this point in my life segregating my moral concern, so let us stand in this convention knowing that in some positions the coward has asked whether it is safe expediency asked the question whether it is political vanity asked the question whether it is popular but conscience asks the question whether it is right in some positions and in some positions it is necessary for the moral individual to adopt a stance that is not safe nor the policy is not popular but you must do it because it is right and we tell our nation tonight we tell our government we even tell our bi we will not be harassed we will not make a butchery of our conscience No We will allow ourselves to be intimidated and we will be heard.