This is a right guaranteed by the Constitution and respected even in the worst areas of the South. It goes without saying that people will protect their homes. There are many people who very honestly raise the question of self-defense. Our record of achievement through nonviolent action is already remarkable. So far, this has only been offered by the nonviolent movement. a tactical program which will bring the Negro into the mainstream of American life as quickly as possible. This is no time for romantic illusions about freedom and empty philosophical debate. The hard cold facts of racial life in the world today indicate that the hope of the people of color in the world may well rest on the American Negro and his ability to reform the structures of racist imperialism from within and thereby turn the technology and wealth of the West to the task of liberating the world from want. I am convinced that for practical as well as moral reasons, nonviolence offers the only road to freedom for my people. Hundreds of victims of shooting and cutting lie bleeding in the emergency rooms, but there is seldom if ever a white person who is the victim of Negro hostility. Unfortunately, a check of the hospitals in any Negro community on any Saturday night will make you painfully aware of the violence within the Negro community. This does not mean that the Negro is a saint who abhors violence. he Negro, even in his bitterest moments, is not intent on killing white men to be free. Now the climate had shifted so that it was even more popular to talk of violence. It was the talk of fearful men, saying that they would not join the nonviolent movement because they would not remain nonviolent if attacked. It was the same talk we have heard on the fringes of the nonviolent movement for the past ten years. Resolutions of self-defense and Black Power sounded forth from our friends and brothers. The year 1966 brought with it the first public challenge to the philosophy and strategy of nonviolence from within the ranks of the civil rights movement. James Melvin Washington (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1986), 54-61. Source: “Nonviolence: The Only Road to Freedom,” in A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr., ed. King promotes his vision of America while subtly discrediting the fledgling Black Power movement. As you read, note the various ways in which Dr. Refuting the need to meet physical aggression with self-defense, King renewed his call for nonviolent resistance. His passionate argument for a “beloved community” of white and black Americans echoes the aspirations of his “I Have a Dream” speech and challenges the creation of self-sufficient and independent black communities. King’s response to the assertions of black nationalists. Black nationalism, with its embrace of self-defense and black self-determination, was appealing.įirst printed in the October 1966 edition of Ebony, this essay is Dr. In the face of such persistent inequality, many black Americans began to question Dr. Black Americans still struggled against social and economic oppression in the form of lower wages, unemployment, poor housing, and insufficient access to educational opportunities. De jure integration and equality had been achieved.Īnd yet, many white Americans vehemently resisted social reform, making de facto racism a continuing reality. The 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act were the federal government’s response to this grassroots effort under these laws, no longer could states ignore black citizens’ rights and protections as codified in the 14th and 15th Amendments. The March on Washington in 1963 had introduced a wide audience of Americans to the civil rights movement’s vision for an integrated America. The violence and abuse black and white civil rights advocates had suffered at the hands of white southerners during the protest summers of 19 had raised national awareness of the persistent inequities of southern society. King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) had achieved substantial success in the civil rights struggle.
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