Martin Luther King Jr Tomb Vintage Photo Atlanta African American Art 1969

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Seller: memorabilia111 ✉️ (807) 100%, Location: Ann Arbor, Michigan, US, Ships to: US & many other countries, Item: 176277815986 MARTIN LUTHER KING JR TOMB VINTAGE PHOTO ATLANTA AFRICAN AMERICAN ART 1969. Founding fathers' dream, when they. wrote: "We hold these truths to be selfevident. 11.3 United States. 11.2 United Kingdom. 11.1 South Africa. 10.2 Allegations of conspiracy. This was by far the largest school integration attempt in Mississippi since the Brown v. Board of Education ruling in 1954. THESE ARE PHOTOS OF ATTENDANCE AT MLK JR TOMB PHOTOS LISTED ARE OF SELASSIE FAMILY AND MLK JR. FAMILY AND FRIENDS VISITING THE TOMB OF MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. IN SOUTH VIEW CEMETARY. N.P. (ATLANTA) N.D. (1969) BEFORE IT WAS  was later moved to the King National Historic Park in Atlanta. (KING, MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.) PHOTO TAKEN DURING THE VISIT OF EMPEROR HAILE SELASSIE, HIS FAMILY AND MLK JR. FAMILY VISITING THE TOMB OF MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. IN SOUTH VIEW CEMETARY. N.P. (ATLANTA) N.D. (1969). B/W 10X8 INCHES VERY MINOR WEAR WITH STAMP OF PHOTO ELAIN TOMLIN ON REVERSE.  PHOTO SHOWS MLK SR AND ALBERTA KING (MARTIN LUTHER KINGS MOTHER WHO WAS ALSO ASSASSINATED IN THE 70'S) AND OTHER ONLOOKERS AT THE FUNERAL HAILE SELASSIE VISITED THE UNITED STATES IN JULY OF 1969. TOMLIN WAS AN AFRICAM AMERICAN ATIST WHO WAS THE OFFICIAL PHOTOGRAPHER FOR THE SOUTHERN CHRISTIAN LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE (SCLC) Martin Luther King Jr. was originally buried here but was later moved to the King National Historic Park in Atlanta.
Tomlin, Elaine. (active Atlanta, GA, 1960s-80s)   Bibliography and Exhibitions MONOGRAPHS AND SOLO EXHIBITIONS: GENERAL BOOKS AND GROUP EXHIBITIONS: CHIARMONTE, PAULA. Women Artists in the United States. A Selective Bibliography and Resource Guide on the Fine and Decorative Arts, 1750-1986. Boston: G.K. Hall & Co., 1990. Non-black or male artists who were erroneously included are omitted from this list: Eileen Abdulrashid, Mrs. Allen, Charlotte Amevor, Emma Amos, Dorothy Atkins, Joan Cooper Bacchus, Ellen Banks, Camille Billops, Betty Blayton, Gloria Bohanon, [as Bottanon], Shirley Bolton, Kay Brown, Vivian Browne, Beverly Buchanan, Selma Burke, Margaret Burroughs, Sheryle Butler, Carole Byard, Catti [as Caiti], Yvonne Catchings, Elizabeth Catlett, Barbara Chase-Riboud, Doris L. Colbert, Luiza Combs, Marva Cremer, Doris Crudup, Oletha Devane, Stephanie Douglas, Eugenia Dunn, Queen Ellis, Annette Lewis Ensley, Minnie Jones Evans, Irene Foreman, Miriam Francis, Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller, Ibibio Fundi [as Ibibin] (a.k.a. Jo Austin), Alice Gafford, Wilhelmina Godfrey [as Wihelmina], Amanda Gordon, Cynthia Hawkins, Kitty L. Hayden, Lana T. Henderson [as Lane], Vernita Henderson, Adrienne Hoard, Jacqui Holmes, Margo Humphrey, Clementine Hunter, Claudia Jane Hutchinson, Martha E. Jackson, May Howard Jackson, Suzanne Jackson, Rosalind Jeffries, Marie Johnson, Lois Mailou Jones, Barbara Jones-Hogu [as Jones-Hogn], Harriet Kennedy, Gwendolyn Knight, Edmonia Lewis, Samella Lewis, Ida Magwood, Mary Manigault, Valerie Maynard, Geraldine McCullough, Mrs. McIntosh, Dorothy McQuarter, Yvonne Cole Meo, Onnie Millar, Eva Hamlin Miller, Evangeline Montgomery, Sister Gertrude Morgan, Norma Morgan, Marilyn Nance, Inez Nathaniel-Walker, Senga Nengudi, Winifred Owens-Hart, Denise Palm, Louise Parks, Angela Perkins, Howardena Pindell, Adrian Piper, Stephanie Pogue, Harriet Powers, Elizabeth Prophet, Mavis Pusey, Faith Ringgold, Brenda Rogers, Juanita Rogers, Nellie Mae Rowe, Betye Saar, Augusta Savage, Elizabeth Scott, Joyce Scott, Jewel Simon, Shirley Stark, Della Brown Taylor [as Delia Braun Taylor], Jessie Telfair [as Jessi], Alma Thomas, Phyllis Thompson, Roberta Thompson, Betty Tolbert, Elaine Tomlin, Lucinda Toomer, Elaine Towns, Yvonne Tucker, Charlene Tull, Anna Tyler, Florestee Vance, Pinkie Veal, Ruth Waddy, Carole Ward, Laura W. Waring, Pecolia Warner, Mary Parks Washington, Laura W. Williams, Yvonne Williams. A few African American male artists are also included: Leslie Garland Bolling, Ademola Olugebefola [as Adennola]. CRAWFORD, JOE, ed. The Black Photographers Annual 1973. 1973. Over 110 full-page b&w illus. Foreword by Toni Morrison; intro. by Clayton Riley. Contains work by 49 African American U.S. photographers including Vance Allen, Bert Andrews, Anthony Barboza, Ken Beckles, Hugh Bell, Adger Cowans, Daniel Dawson, Roy DeCarava, Amartey Dente, Mel Dixon, Louis Draper, Clarence E. Eastmond, Albert Fennar, Mikki Ferrill, Bob Fletcher, Ray Francis, Rennie George, Ray Gibson, Leisant Giroux, Dorothy Gloster, Hugh Grannum, Leroy Henderson, Bill Hilton, Bill Jackson, Jim McDonald, James Mannas, Jr., K. A. Morais, Dexter Oliver, John Pinderhughes, Herbert Randall, Cornelius Reed, Morris Rogers, Lloyd E. Saunders, Moneta Sleet, Jr., Beuford Smith, Ming Smith, Chuck Stewart, Frank Stewart, Theron Taylor, Elaine Tomlin, Roger Tucker, Donald R. Valentine, James Van DerZee. Shawn Walker, Ernest Werts, Edward West, Reginald Wickham, Daniel S. Williams, Ted Williams. Foreword by Toni Morrison; intro. by Clayton Riley. Essential reference. Small 4to, stiff wraps. First ed. MOUTOUSSAMY-ASHE, JEANNE. Viewfinders: Black Women Photographers. New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1986. 224 pp., 182 illus., individual bio-bibliogs., listing of photographers, geographical list, footnotes, general bibliog., index. Important survey and reference work with numerous artists not included elsewhere. Includes approximately 115 artists: Barbara Dumetz, Sharon Farmer, Mikki Ferrill, Louise Jefferson, Elaine Tomlin, Michelle Agins, Salimah Ali, Gladys Allen, Winifred Hall Allen (21 illus.), Esther Anderson, Dana Asbury, Carol Augustus, Hattie Baker, Donna Marie Barnes, Carolyn Bell-Taitt, Ellen Blalock, Carol Parrott Blue, Johnnie Mae Bomar, Sandra Turner-Bond, Bonnie Brissett, Queen E. Brooks, Alberta H. Brown, Millie Burns, Lucy Calloway, Michelle Campbell, Charlotte, Marna Clarke, Helen Jones Chur, Juanita Cole, Bonnie Collins, (Mrs.) Collins, Cary Beth Cryor, Billie Louise Barbour Davis (3 illus.), Lenore Davis, Pat Davis, Perla De Leon, Theodora Dorsey, Emma Alice Downs, Barbara Dumetz, Sharon Farmer, Phoebe Farris, Anna Faulkner, Mikki Ferrill (3 illus.), Mary E. Flenoy, Collette V. Fournier, Leisant Giraux, Dorothy Gloster, Lucy Gums, Edna Guy, Rosalind Guy, Susan Hacker, Ella Hamlin, Lydia Hammond, Gail Adelle Hansberry, Inge Hardison ( illus.), Elise Forrest Harleston (10 illus.), Adelle Hodge, Zebonia Hood, A. Grendel Howard, Ann Elizabeth Jackson, Vera Jackson, Louise Jefferson, Marjorie Johnson, Julia Jones, Gertrude Lewis, Fern Logan, Marie Lovelace, Augusta Mann, Louise Ozell Martin, Lydia Mayo, Dora Miller, Lavina C. Miller, Marlene Montoute, Diane Moore, Shelley Moore, Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe, Carol Mungin, Marilyn Nance, Jacqueline Lavetta Patten, Gwen Phillips, Patricia Phipps, Diane Louise Preacely, Phillda Ragland Njau, Akili-Casundria Ramsess, Deborah Ray, Sean Reynolds, Debbie Richardson, Johnnie Dell Robinson, Wilhelmina Pearl Selena Roberts, Eslanda Cardoza Goode Robeson, Reenie Schmerl, Hazel Shumate, Naomi Simonetti, Coreen Simpson, Lorna Simpson, Marie C. Simpson, Ming Smith, Kalima Soham, Joan Byrd Stephens, Jo Moore Stewart, Lauren Stradford, Kathleen-Marie Taylor, Kay Taylor, Elnora Teal, Rosetta C. Teasdale, Fanny J. Thompson, Elaine Tomlin, Mary E. Warren, Leah Ann Washington, Ruby Washington, Ruth B. Brummel Washington, Sharon Watson, Carrie Mae Weems, Judith White, Adine Williams, Elizabeth ("Tex") Williams, Deborah Willis-Ryan, Delcina Wilson, Joyce R. Wilson, Emma King Woodward, Ethel Worthington. NOTE: Artists for whom there is no other source of information are not individually listed in the AAVAD database. 4to (28 cm.), cloth, dust jacket. First ed. WILLIS, DEBORAH. Visualizing Political Struggle: Civil Rights Era Photography. London: Continuum, 2005. In: Holloway, David and John Beck, eds. American Visual Cultures:166-173, 4 b&w illus. A survey of how Civil Rights era photography aroused public opinion and informed social consciousness, that at least mentions in passing a small roster of black photographers: Roy DeCarava, Jonathan Eubanks, Benedict Fernandez, Bob Fletcher, Jack T. Franklin, Doug Harris, R. C. Hickman, Bert Miles, Gordon Parks, Richard Saunders, Moneta Sleet, Jr., Beuford Smith, Elaine Tomlin, Cecil Williams, and Ernest Withers. 8vo (9.7 x 6.7 in.), cloth, d.j. WILLIS, DEBORAH, ed. Black Photographers: 1940-1988, An Illustrated Bio-Bibliography. New York: Garland, 1989. 483 pp., over 350 illus. The most comprehensive list of Black photographers to date, with brief biographical entries on many artists and a few bibliographical entries on approximately half of the hundreds of names. Photographers included in Willis's earlier book, Black Photographers 1840-1940, receive only a brief notation here. An indispensable reference work. Artists discussed include: Salimah Ali, Omobowale Ayorinde, J. Edward Bailey, III, Anthony Barboza, Donnamarie Barnes, Vanessa Barnes Hillian, Fay D. Bellamy, Lisa Bellamy, Dawoud Bey, Hart Leroy Bibbs, Bonnie Brisset, Barbara Brown, Lisa Brown, Millie Burns, Muriel Agatha Fortune Bush, Cynthia D. Cole, Juanita Cole, Cary Beth Cryor, Tere L. Cuesta, Fikisha Cumbo, Phyllis Cunningham, Pat Davis, Carmen DeJesus, Lydia Ann Douglas, Barbara Dumetz, Joan Eda, Sharon Farmer, Phoebe Farris, Valeria "Mikki" Ferrill, Collette V. Fournier, Roland L. Freeman, Rennie George, Bernadette F. B. Gibson, Anthony Gleaton, Dorothy Gloster, Lydia Hale-Hammond, Gail Adelle Hansberry, Inge Hardison, Teenie Harris, Madeleine Hill, Zebonia Hood, Vera Jackson, Louise Jefferson, Michelle M. Jeffries, Brent Jones, Brian V. Jones, Julia Jones, Kenneth G. Jones, Marvin T. Jones, Leah Jaynes Karp, Irene C. Kellogg, Lucius King, Romulo Lachatanere, Allie Sharon Larkin, George Larkins, Archy La Salle, Abe C. Lavalais, Joyce Lee, Sa'Longo J.R. Lee, Carl E. Lewis, Harvey James Lewis, Matthew Lewis, Roy Lewis, Fern Logan, Edie Lynch, Peter Magubane, Jimmie Mannas, Louise Martin, Mickey Mathis, Carroll T. Maynard, Rhashidah Elaine McNeill, Marlene Montoute, Michelle Morgan, Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe, Marilyn Nance, Yvonne Payne, Patricia Phipps, Ellen Queen, Phillda Ragland, Arkili-Casundria Ramsess, Odetta Rogers, Veronica Saddler, Lloyd Saunders, Cheryl Shackelton, Victoria Simmons, Coreen Simpson, Lorna Simpson, Clarissa T. Sligh, Ming Smith, Toni Smith, Charlynn Spencer Pyne, Jo Moore Stewart, Celeste P. Stokes, Elisabeth Sunday, Elaine Tomlin, Sandra Turner-Bond, Jacqueline La Vetta Van Sertima, Dixie Vereen, William Onikwa Wallace, Sharon Watson-Mauro, Carrie Mae Weems, Dolores West, Judith C. White, Elizabeth "Tex" Williams, Lucy Williams, Pat Ward Williams, Deborah Willis, Carol R. Wilson, Jonni Mae Wingard, Ernest Withers, and many, many others. Not all listed in this description, but all individual photographers are cross-listed. Large stout 4to, pictorial boards, no d.j. (as issued). First ed. WILLIS, DEBORAH, ed. Reflections in Black: A History of Black Photographers 1840 to the Present. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2000. 348 pp., 81 color plates, 487 b&w illus., notes, bibliog., index. Foreword by Robin D.G. Kelley. Published to accompany the three-part traveling exhibition organized by the Smithsonian Institution. Important gathering of photographs of Black subjects by African American photographers from mid-nineteenth century through the present (roughly half from 1980s and 90s) by the pre-eminent historian of this subject. Photographers include: O'Neal Abel, Salima Ali, James Lattimer Allen, Winifred Hall Allen, Amalia Amaki, Linda L. Ammons, Ken D. Ashton, Thomas Askew, John B. Bailey, James Presley Ball, Sr., James Presley Ball, Jr., Thomas Ball, Anthony Barboza, Cornelius M. Battey, Anthony Beale, Arthur P. Bedou, Donald Bernard, Dawoud Bey, Howard Bingham, Caroll Parrott Blue, Terry Boddie, Rick Bolton, St. Clair Bourne, George O. Brown, John H. Brown, Jr., Keith M. Calhoun, Dennis Callwood, Don Camp, Roland Charles, Albert Chong, Carl Clark, Linda Day Clark, Allen Edward Cole, Florestine Perrault Collins, Herbert Collins, Adger Cowans, Renée Cox, Cary Beth Cryor, Steven Cummings, Gerald G. Cyrus, Jack Davis, C. Daniel Dawson, Roy DeCarava, Doris Derby, Stephanie Dinkins, Lou Draper, George Durr, Nekisha Durrett, Edward (Eddie) Eleha, Darrel Ellis, Jonathan Eubanks, Delphine A. Fawundu, Alfred Fayemi, Jeffrey Fearing, Joe Flowers, Collette Fournier, Jack T. Franklin, Elnora Frazier, Daniel Freeman, Roland L. Freeman, King Daniel Ganaway, Bill Gaskins, Glenalvin Goodridge, Wallace Goodridge, William Goodridge, Bob Gore, Lonnie Graham, Todd Gray, Camille Gustus, Robert Haggins, Austin Hansen, Edwin Harleston, Elise Forrest Harleston, Charles "Teenie" Harris, Doug Harris, Joe Harris, Lyle Ashton Harris, Thomas Allen Harris, Lucius Henderson, Craig Herndon, Leroy Henderson, Calvin Hicks, Chester Higgins, Jr., Milton Hinton, Raymond Holman, Earlie Hudnall, Jr., Curtis Humphrey, Reginald Jackson, Chris Johnson, Brent Jones, Kenneth George Jones, Lou Jones, Benny Joseph, Kamoinge Workshop, Perry A. Keith, Andrew T. Kelly, Roshini Kempadoo, Winston Kennedy, Keba Konte, Andree Lambertson, Bill Lathan, Carl E. Lewis, Nashomeh L. R. Lindo, Harlee Little, Fern Logan, Stephen Marc, Lynn Marshall-Linnemeier, Charles Martin, Louise Ozell Martin, Chandra McCormick, Robert H. McNeill, Bertrand Miles, Cheryl Miller, Robert (Bob) Moore, John W. Mosley, Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe, Ming Smith Murray (as Ming Smith), Mansa Mussa, Marilyn Nance, Sunny Nash, Constance Newman, David Ogburn, G. Dwoyid Olmstead, Kambui Olujimi, Villard Paddio, Gordon Parks, D.M. Pearson, Moira Pernambuco, Bonnie Phillips, John Pinderhughes, P. H. Polk, Paul Poole, Carl R. Pope, Marion James Porter, Sheila Pree, Eli Reed, Richard Roberts, Wilhelmina Williams Roberts, Orville Robertson, Herb Robinson, Eugene Roquemore, Susan J. Ross, Ken Royster, Jeffery St. Mary, Richard Saunders, Jeffrey Scales, Addison L. Scurlock, George H. Scurlock, Robert S. Scurlock, Robert A. Sengstacke, Harry Shepherd, Accra Shepp, Carl Sidle, Coreen Simpson, Lorna Simpson, Moneta Sleet, Clarissa Sligh, Beuford Smith, Marvin Smith, Morgan Smith, Frank Stallings, Charles (Chuck) Stewart, Gerald Straw, Ron Tarver, Hank Willis Thomas, Elaine Tomlin, June DeLairre Truesdale, Sheila Turner, Richard Aloysius Twine, James Vanderzee, Vincent Alan W., Christian Walker, Shawn W. Walker, Augustus Washington, Lewis Watts, Carrie Mae Weems, Ellie Lee Weems, Jean Weisinger, Edward West, Wendel A. White, Cynthia Wiggins, Carlton Wilkinson, Carla Williams, Charles Williams, Milton Williams, Pat Ward Williams, William Earle Williams, Ernest C. Withers, Mel Wright. Large 4to (31 cm.), cloth, d.j. First ed. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) is an African-American civil rights organization. SCLC is closely associated with its first president, Martin Luther King Jr., who had a large role in the American civil rights movement.[1] Contents 1 Founding 1.1 Citizenship Schools 1.2 Albany Movement 1.3 Birmingham campaign 1.4 March on Washington 1.5 St. Augustine protests 1.6 Selma Voting Rights Movement and the march to Montgomery 1.7 Grenada Freedom Movement 1.8 Jackson conference 1.9 Chicago Freedom Movement 1.10 Poor People's Campaign 2 1968–1997 3 1997 to present 4 Leadership 5 Relationships with other organizations 6 Notes 7 References 8 External links Founding On January 10, 1957, following the Montgomery Bus Boycott victory and consultations with Bayard Rustin, Ella Baker, and others, Martin Luther King Jr. invited about 60 black ministers and leaders to Ebenezer Church in Atlanta. Prior to this, Rustin, in New York City, conceived the idea of initiating such an effort and first sought C. K. Steele to make the call and take the lead role. Steele declined, but told Rustin he would be glad to work right beside him if he sought King in Montgomery for the role. Their goal was to form an organization to coordinate and support nonviolent direct action as a method of desegregating bus systems across the South. In addition to King, Rustin, Baker, and Steele, Fred Shuttlesworth of Birmingham, Joseph Lowery of Mobile, and Ralph Abernathy of Montgomery, all played key roles in this meeting.[2] On February 15, a follow-up meeting was held in New Orleans. Out of these two meetings came a new organization with King as its president. Initially called the "Negro Leaders Conference on Nonviolent Integration," then "Southern Negro Leaders Conference," the group eventually chose "Southern Christian Leadership Conference" (SCLC) as its name, and expanded its focus beyond buses to ending all forms of segregation.[3] A small office was established in the Prince Hall Masonic Temple Building on Auburn Avenue in Atlanta[4] with Ella Baker as SCLC's first—and for a long time only—staff member.[5] SCLC was governed by an elected Board, and established as an organization of affiliates, most of which were either individual churches or community organizations such as the Montgomery Improvement Association and the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights (ACMHR). This organizational form differed from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) who recruited individuals and formed them into local chapters. The organization also drew inspiration from the crusades of evangelist Billy Graham, who befriended King after he appeared at a Graham crusade in New York City in 1957. Despite tactical differences, which arose from Graham's willingness to continue affiliating himself with segregationists, the SCLC and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association had similar ambitions and Graham would privately advise the SCLC.[6] During its early years, SCLC struggled to gain footholds in black churches and communities across the South. Social activism in favor of racial equality faced fierce repression from police, White Citizens' Council and the Ku Klux Klan. Only a few churches had the courage to defy the white-dominated status-quo by affiliating with SCLC, and those that did risked economic retaliation against pastors and other church leaders, arson, and bombings. SCLC's advocacy of boycotts and other forms of nonviolent protest was controversial among both whites and blacks. Many black community leaders believed that segregation should be challenged in the courts and that direct action excited white resistance, hostility, and violence. Traditionally, leadership in black communities came from the educated elite—ministers, professionals, teachers, etc.—who spoke for and on behalf of the laborers, maids, farm-hands, and working poor who made up the bulk of the black population. Many of these traditional leaders were uneasy at involving ordinary blacks in mass activity such as boycotts and marches. SCLC's belief that churches should be involved in political activism against social ills was also deeply controversial. Many ministers and religious leaders—both black and white—thought that the role of the church was to focus on the spiritual needs of the congregation and perform charitable works to aid the needy. To some of them, the social-political activity of King and SCLC amounted to dangerous radicalism which they strongly opposed. SCLC and King were also sometimes criticized for lack of militancy by younger activists in groups such as Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and CORE who were participating in sit-ins and Freedom Rides. Citizenship Schools Originally started in 1954 by Esau Jenkins and Septima Clark on the Sea Islands off the coast of South Carolina and Georgia, the Citizenship Schools focused on teaching adults to read so they could pass the voter-registration literacy tests, fill out driver's license exams, use mail-order forms, and open checking accounts. Under the auspices of the Highlander Folk School (now Highlander Research and Education Center) the program was expanded across the South. The Johns Island Citizenship School was housed at The Progressive Club, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2007.[7][8] When the state of Tennessee revoked Highlander's charter and confiscated its land and property in 1961, SCLC rescued the citizenship school program and added Septima Clark, Bernice Robinson, and Andrew Young to its staff. Under the innocuous cover of adult-literacy classes, the schools secretly taught democracy and civil rights, community leadership and organizing, practical politicals, and the strategies and tactics of resistance and struggle, and in so doing built the human foundations of the mass community struggles to come. Eventually, close to 69,000 teachers, most of them unpaid volunteers and many with little formal education, taught Citizenship Schools throughout the South.[9] Many of the Civil Rights Movement's adult leaders such as Fannie Lou Hamer and Victoria Gray, and hundreds of other local leaders in black communities across the South attended and taught citizenship schools.[10] Albany Movement Main article: Albany Movement In 1961 and 1962, SCLC joined SNCC in the Albany Movement, a broad protest against segregation in Albany, Georgia. It is generally considered the organization's first major nonviolent campaign. At the time, it was considered by many to be unsuccessful: despite large demonstrations and many arrests, few changes were won, and the protests drew little national attention. Yet, despite the lack of immediate gains, much of the success of the subsequent Birmingham Campaign can be attributed to lessons learned in Albany.[11] Birmingham campaign Main article: Birmingham campaign By contrast, the 1963 SCLC campaign in Birmingham, Alabama, was an unqualified success. The campaign focused on a single goal—the desegregation of Birmingham's downtown merchants—rather than total desegregation, as in Albany. The brutal response of local police, led by Public Safety Commissioner "Bull" Connor, stood in stark contrast to the nonviolent civil disobedience of the activists. After his arrest in April, King wrote the "Letter from Birmingham Jail" in response to a group of clergy who had criticized the Birmingham campaign, writing that it was "directed and led in part by outsiders" and that the demonstrations were "unwise and untimely."[12] In his letter, King explained that, as president of SCLC, he had been asked to come to Birmingham by the local members: I think I should indicate why I am here in Birmingham, since you have been influenced by the view which argues against "outsiders coming in." I have the honor of serving as president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization operating in every southern state, with headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia. We have some eighty-five affiliated organizations across the South, and one of them is the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights. ... Several months ago the affiliate here in Birmingham asked us to be on call to engage in a nonviolent direct-action program if such were deemed necessary. We readily consented, and when the hour came we lived up to our promise. So I, along with several members of my staff, am here because I was invited here I am here because I have organizational ties here.[13] King also addressed the question of "timeliness": One of the basic points in your statement is that the action that I and my associates have taken in Birmingham is untimely. ... Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct-action campaign that was "well timed" in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word "Wait!" It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This "Wait" has almost always meant "Never." We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that "justice too long delayed is justice denied." We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God-given rights.[13] The most dramatic moments of the Birmingham campaign came on May 2, when, under the direction and leadership of James Bevel, who would soon officially become SCLC's Director of Direct Action and Director of Nonviolent Education, more than 1,000 Black children left school to join the demonstrations; hundreds were arrested. The following day, 2,500 more students joined and were met by Bull Connor with police dogs and high-pressure fire hoses. That evening, television news programs reported to the nation and the world scenes of fire hoses knocking down schoolchildren and dogs attacking individual demonstrators. Public outrage led the Kennedy administration to intervene more forcefully and a settlement was announced on May 10, under which the downtown businesses would desegregate and eliminate discriminatory hiring practices, and the city would release the jailed protesters. March on Washington Main article: March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom Martin Luther King Jr. at the March on Washington After the Birmingham Campaign, SCLC called for massive protests in Washington, DC, to push for new civil rights legislation that would outlaw segregation nationwide. A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin issued similar calls for a March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. On July 2, 1963, King, Randolph, and Rustin met with James Farmer Jr. of the Congress of Racial Equality, John Lewis of SNCC, Roy Wilkins of the NAACP, and Whitney Young of the Urban League to plan a united march on August 28. The media and political establishment viewed the march with great fear and trepidation over the possibility that protesters would run riot in the streets of the capital. But despite their fears, the March on Washington was a huge success, with no violence, and an estimated number of participants ranging from 200,000 to 300,000. It was also a logistical triumph—more than 2,000 buses, 21 special trains, 10 chartered aircraft, and uncounted autos converged on the city in the morning and departed without difficulty by nightfall. The crowning moment of the march was King's famous "I Have a Dream" speech in which he articulated the hopes and aspirations of the Civil Rights Movement and rooted it in two cherished gospels—the Old Testament and the unfulfilled promise of the American creed.[14] St. Augustine protests Main article: St. Augustine movement When civil rights activists protesting segregation in St. Augustine, Florida were met with arrests and Ku Klux Klan violence, the local SCLC affiliate appealed to King for assistance in the spring of 1964. SCLC sent staff to help organize and lead demonstrations and mobilized support for St. Augustine in the North. Hundreds were arrested on sit-ins and marches opposing segregation, so many that the jails were filled and the overflow prisoners had to be held in outdoor stockades. Among the northern supporters who endured arrest and incarceration were Mrs. Malcolm Peabody, the mother of the governor of Massachusetts and Mrs. John Burgess, wife of the Episcopal Bishop of Massachusetts.[15] Nightly marches to the Old Slave Market were attacked by white mobs, and when blacks attempted to integrate "white-only" beaches they were assaulted by police who beat them with clubs. On June 11, King and other SCLC leaders were arrested for trying to lunch at the Monson Motel restaurant, and when an integrated group of young protesters tried to use the motel swimming pool the owner poured acid into the water. TV and newspaper stories of the struggle for justice in St. Augustine helped build public support for the Civil Rights Act of 1964[16] that was then being debated in Congress.[17] Selma Voting Rights Movement and the march to Montgomery Main article: Selma to Montgomery marches When voter registration and civil rights activity in Selma, Alabama were blocked by an illegal injunction,[18] the Dallas County Voters League (DCVL) asked SCLC for assistance. King, SCLC, and DCVL chose Selma as the site for a major campaign around voting rights that would demand national voting rights legislation in the same way that the Birmingham and St. Augustine campaigns won passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.[16][19] In cooperation with SNCC who had been organizing in Selma since early 1963, the Voting Rights Campaign commenced with a rally in Brown Chapel on January 2, 1965 in defiance of the injunction. SCLC and SNCC organizers recruited and trained blacks to attempt to register to vote at the courthouse, where many of them were abused and arrested by Dallas County Sheriff Jim Clark — a staunch segregationist. Black voter applicants were subjected to economic retaliation by the White Citizens' Council, and threatened with physical violence by the Ku Klux Klan. Officials used the discriminatory literacy test[20] to keep blacks off the voter rolls. Nonviolent mass marches demanded the right to vote and the jails filled up with arrested protesters, many of them students. On February 1, King and Abernathy were arrested. Voter registration efforts and protest marches spread to the surrounding Black Belt counties — Perry, Wilcox, Marengo, Greene, and Hale. On February 18, an Alabama State Trooper shot and killed Jimmie Lee Jackson during a voting rights protest in Marion, county seat of Perry County. In response, James Bevel, who was directing SCLC's Selma actions, called for a march from Selma to Montgomery, and on March 7 close to 600 protesters attempted the march to present their grievances to Governor Wallace. Led by Reverend Hosea Williams of SCLC and John Lewis of SNCC, the marchers were attacked by State Troopers, deputy sheriffs, and mounted possemen who used tear-gas, horses, clubs, and bull whips to drive them back to Brown Chapel. News coverage of this brutal assault on nonviolent demonstrators protesting for the right to vote — which became known as "Bloody Sunday" — horrified the nation.[21] King, Bevel, Diane Nash and others called on clergy and people of conscience to support the black citizens of Selma. Thousands of religious leaders and ordinary Americans came to demand voting rights for all. One of them was James Reeb, a white Unitarian Universalist minister, who was savagely beaten to death on the street by Klansmen who severely injured two other ministers in the same attack. After more protests, arrests, and legal maneuvering, Federal Judge Frank M. Johnson ordered Alabama to allow the march to Montgomery. It began on March 21 and arrived in Montgomery on the 24th. On the 25th, an estimated 25,000[22] protesters marched to the steps of the Alabama capitol in support of voting rights where King spoke.[23] Within five months, Congress and President Lyndon Johnson responded to the enormous public pressure generated by the Selma Voting Rights Movement by enacting into law the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Grenada Freedom Movement When the Meredith Mississippi March Against Fear passed through Grenada, Mississippi on June 15, 1966, it sparked months of civil rights activity on the part of Grenada blacks. They formed the Grenada County Freedom Movement (GCFM) as an SCLC affiliate, and within days 1,300 blacks registered to vote.[24] Though the Civil Rights Act of 1964[16] had outlawed segregation of public facilities, the law had not been applied in Grenada which still maintained rigid segregation. After black students were arrested for trying to sit downstairs in the "white" section of the movie theater, SCLC and the GCFM demanded that all forms of segregation be eliminated, and called for a boycott of white merchants. Over the summer, the number of protests increased and many demonstrators and SCLC organizers were arrested as police enforced the old Jim Crow social order. In July and August, large mobs of white segregationists mobilized by the KKK violently attacked nonviolent marchers and news reporters with rocks, bottles, baseball bats and steel pipes. When the new school year began in September, SCLC and the GCFM encouraged more than 450 black students to register at the formerly white schools under a court desegregation order. This was by far the largest school integration attempt in Mississippi since the Brown v. Board of Education ruling in 1954. The all-white school board resisted fiercely, whites threatened black parents with economic retaliation if they did not withdraw their children, and by the first day of school the number of black children registered in the white schools had dropped to approximately 250. On the first day of class, September 12, a furious white mob organized by the Klan attacked the black children and their parents with clubs, chains, whips, and pipes as they walked to school, injuring many and hospitalizing several with broken bones. Police and Mississippi State Troopers made no effort to halt or deter the mob violence.[25] Over the following days, white mobs continued to attack the black children until public pressure and a Federal court order finally forced Mississippi lawmen to intervene. By the end of the first week, many black parents had withdrawn their children from the white schools out of fear for their safety, but approximately 150 black students continued to attend, still the largest school integration in state history at that point in time. Inside the schools, blacks were harassed by white teachers, threatened and attacked by white students, and many blacks were expelled on flimsy pretexts by school officials. By mid-October, the number of blacks attending the white schools had dropped to roughly 70. When school officials refused to meet with a delegation of black parents, black students began boycotting both the white and black schools in protest. Many children, parents, GCFM activists, and SCLC organizers were arrested for protesting the school situation. By the end of October, almost all of the 2600 black students in Grenada County were boycotting school. The boycott was not ended until early November when SCLC attorneys won a Federal court order that the school system treat everyone equal regardless of race and meet with black parents. Jackson conference In 1966, Allen Johnson hosted the Tenth Annual Southern Christian Leadership Conference at the Masonic Temple in Jackson, Mississippi.[26] The theme of the conference was human rights - the continuing struggle.[26] Those in attendance, among others, included: Edward Kennedy, James Bevel, Martin Luther King, Ralph Abernathy, Curtis W. Harris, Walter E. Fauntroy, C. T. Vivian, Andrew Young, The Freedom Singers, Charles Evers, Fred Shuttlesworth, Cleveland Robinson, Randolph Blackwell, Annie Bell Robinson Devine, Charles Kenzie Steele, Alfred Daniel Williams King, Benjamin Hooks, Aaron Henry and Bayard Rustin.[26] Chicago Freedom Movement Main article: Chicago Freedom Movement Poor People's Campaign Main article: Poor People's Campaign 1968–1997 In August 1967, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) instructed its program "COINTELPRO" to "neutralize" what the FBI called "black nationalist hate groups" and other dissident groups.[27] The initial targets included Martin Luther King Jr. and others associated with the SCLC.[28] After the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968, leadership was transferred to Ralph Abernathy, who presided until 1977. Abernathy was replaced by Joseph Lowery who was SCLC president until 1997. In 1997, MLK’s son, Martin Luther King III, became the president of SCLC. In 2004, for less than a year, it was Fred Shuttlesworth. After him, the president was Charles Steele Jr., and in 2009, Howard W. Creecy Jr. Next were Isaac Newton Farris Jr. and current president C. T. Vivian, who took office in 2012 and remains today. [icon] This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (December 2009) 1997 to present In 1997, Martin Luther King III was unanimously elected to head the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, replacing Joseph Lowery. Under King's leadership, the SCLC held hearings on police brutality, organized a rally for the 37th anniversary of the "I Have a Dream" speech and launched a successful campaign to change the Georgia state flag, which previously featured a large Confederate cross.[29] Within only a few months of taking the position, however, King was being criticized by the Conference board for alleged inactivity. He was accused of failing to answer correspondence from the board and take up issues important to the organization. The board also felt he failed to demonstrate against national issues the SCLC previously would have protested, like the disenfranchisement of black voters in the Florida election recount or time limits on welfare recipients implemented by then-President Bill Clinton.[30] King was further criticized for failing to join the battle against AIDS, allegedly because he feels uncomfortable talking about condoms.[29] He also hired Lamell J. McMorris, an executive director who, according to The New York Times, "rubbed board members the wrong way."[30] The Southern Christian Leadership Conference suspended King from the presidency in June 2001, concerned that he was letting the organization drift into inaction. In a June 25 letter to King, the group's national chairman at the time, Claud Young, wrote, "You have consistently been insubordinate and displayed inappropriate, obstinate behavior in the (negligent) carrying out of your duties as president of SCLC."[30] King was reinstated only one week later after promising to take a more active role. Young said of the suspension, "I felt we had to use a two-by-four to get his attention. Well, it got his attention all right."[30] After he was reinstated, King prepared a four-year plan outlining a stronger direction for the organization, agreeing to dismiss McMorris and announcing plans to present a strong challenge to the George W. Bush administration in an August convention in Montgomery, Alabama.[30] He also planned to concentrate on racial profiling, prisoners' rights, and closing the digital divide between whites and blacks.[29] However, King also suggested in a statement that the group needed a different approach than it had used in the past, stating, "We must not allow our lust for 'temporal gratification' to blind us from making difficult decisions to effect future generations."[30] Martin Luther King III resigned in 2004, upon which Fred Shuttlesworth was elected to replace him. Shuttlesworth resigned the same year that he was appointed, complaining that "deceit, mistrust, and a lack of spiritual discipline and truth have eaten at the core of this once-hallowed organization".[31] He was replaced by Charles Steele Jr. who served until October 2009. On October 30, 2009, Elder Bernice King, King's youngest child, was elected SCLC's new president, with James Bush III taking office in February 2010 as Acting President/CEO until Bernice King took office. However, on January 21, 2011, fifteen months after her election, Bernice King declined the position of president. In a written statement, she said that her decision came "after numerous attempts to connect with the official board leaders on how to move forward under my leadership, unfortunately, our visions did not align."[32] Leadership The best-known member of the SCLC was Martin Luther King Jr., who was president and chaired the organization until he was assassinated on April 4, 1968. Other prominent members of the organization have included Joseph Lowery, Ralph Abernathy, Ella Baker, James Bevel, Diane Nash, Dorothy Cotton, James Orange, C. O. Simpkins Sr, Charles Kenzie Steele, C. T. Vivian, Fred Shuttlesworth, Andrew Young, Hosea Williams, Jesse Jackson, Walter E. Fauntroy, Claud Young, Septima Clark, Martin Luther King III, Curtis W. Harris, Maya Angelou, and Golden Frinks. Presidents  • 1957–1968 Martin Luther King Jr.  • 1968–1977 Ralph Abernathy  • 1977–1997 Joseph Lowery  • 1997–2004 Martin Luther King III  • 2004 Fred Shuttlesworth  • 2004–2009 Charles Steele Jr.  • 2009–2011 Howard W. Creecy Jr.  • 2012–present Charles Steele Jr. Relationships with other organizations Because of its dedication to direct-action protests, civil disobedience, and mobilizing mass participation in boycotts and marches, SCLC was considered more "radical" than the older NAACP, which favored lawsuits, legislative lobbying, and education campaigns conducted by professionals. At the same time, it was generally considered less radical than Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) or the youth-led Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). To a certain extent during the period 1960–1964, SCLC had a mentoring relationship with SNCC before SNCC began moving away from nonviolence and integration in the late 1960s. Over time, SCLC and SNCC took different strategic paths, with SCLC focusing on large-scale campaigns such as Birmingham and Selma to win national legislation, and SNCC focusing on community-organizing to build political power on the local level. In many communities, there was tension between SCLC and SNCC because SCLC's base was the minister-led Black churches, and SNCC was trying to build rival community organizations led by the poor.[33] SCLC also had its own youth volunteer initiative, the SCOPE Project (Summer Community Organization on Political Education), which placed about 500 young people, mostly white students from nearly 100 colleges and universities, who registered about 49,000 voters in 120 counties in 6 southern states in 1965–66.[34] In August 1979, the head of the SCLC, Joseph Lowery, met with the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and endorsed Palestinian self-determination and urged the PLO to "consider" recognizing Israel's right to exist.[35] Haile Selassie I (Ge'ez: ቀዳማዊ ኃይለ ሥላሴ, romanized: qädamawi haylä səllasé,[nb 2] Amharic pronunciation: [ˈhaɪlə sɨlˈlase] (About this soundlisten);[nb 3] born Lij Tafari Makonnen; 23 July 1892 – 27 August 1975)[3] was the Emperor of Ethiopia from 1930 to 1974, and he had been Regent Plenipotentiary of Ethiopia from 1916. He is a defining figure in modern Ethiopian history.[4][5] He was a member of the Solomonic dynasty who traced his lineage to Emperor Menelik I. Selassie's internationalist views led to Ethiopia becoming a charter member of the United Nations.[6] At the League of Nations in 1936, he condemned Italy's use of chemical weapons against its people during the Second Italo-Ethiopian War.[7] He has been criticized by some historians for his suppression of rebellions among the landed aristocracy (the mesafint), which consistently opposed his reforms; some critics have also criticized Ethiopia's failure to modernize rapidly enough.[8][9] Among the Rastafari movement, whose followers are estimated to number between 700,000 and one million, Haile Selassie is revered as the returned messiah of the Bible, God incarnate.[10][11] Beginning in Jamaica in the 1930s, the Rastafari movement perceives Haile Selassie as a messianic figure who will lead a future golden age of eternal peace, righteousness, and prosperity.[12] He was an Ethiopian Orthodox Christian throughout his life. The 1973 famine in Ethiopia led to Selassie's removal from the throne.[13] He died on 27 August 1975 at age 83 following a coup d'état.[14] During his rule the Harari people were persecuted and many left the Harari Region.[15] His regime was also criticized by human rights groups, such as Human Rights Watch, as autocratic and illiberal.[9][16] Contents 1 Name 2 Biography 2.1 Early life 2.2 Governorship 2.3 Regency 2.3.1 Travel abroad 2.4 King and Emperor 2.5 Conflict with Italy 2.5.1 Mobilization 2.5.2 Progress of the war 2.5.3 Exile debate 2.5.4 Collective security and the League of Nations, 1936 2.5.5 Exile 2.6 1940s and 1950s 2.6.1 1958 famine of Tigray 2.7 1960s 2.8 1970s 2.8.1 Wollo famine 2.8.2 Revolution 2.8.3 Imprisonment 2.8.4 Death and interment 3 Descendants 4 Rastafari messiah 4.1 Selassie's position 5 Titles and styles 5.1 National orders 6 Ancestry 7 Military ranks 8 In popular culture 9 See also 10 Notes 11 References 11.1 Citations 11.2 Sources 12 Further reading 13 External links Name Styles of Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia Imperial coat of arms of Ethiopia (Haile Selassie).svg Reference style His Imperial Majesty Amharic: ግርማዊ; girmāwī Spoken style Your Imperial Majesty Amharic: ጃንሆይ; djānhoi lit. "O [esteemed] royal" Alternative style Our Lord (familiar) Amharic: ጌቶቹ; getochu lit. "Our master" (pl.) This article contains Ethiopic text. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Ethiopic characters. Haile Selassie was known as a child as Lij Tafari Makonnen (Amharic: ልጅ ተፈሪ መኮንን; lij teferī mekōnnin). Lij is translated as "child", and serves to indicate that a youth is of noble blood. His given name, Tafari, means "one who is respected or feared". Like most Ethiopians, his personal name "Tafari" is followed by that of his father Makonnen and that of his grandfather Woldemikael. His Ge'ez name Haile Selassie was given to him at his infant baptism and adopted again as part of his regnal name in 1930. As Governor of Harar, he became known as Ras Tafari Makonnen About this soundlisten (help·info). Ras is translated as "head"[17] and is a rank of nobility equivalent to Duke;[18] though it is often rendered in translation as "prince". In 1916, Empress Zewditu I appointed him to the position of Balemulu Silt'an Enderase (Regent Plenipotentiary). In 1928, she planned on granting him the throne of Shewa, however at the last moment opposition from certain provincial rulers caused a change and his title Negus or "King" was conferred without geographical qualification or definition.[19][20] On 2 November 1930, after the death of Empress Zewditu, Tafari was crowned Negusa Nagast, literally King of Kings, rendered in English as "Emperor".[21] Upon his ascension, he took as his regnal name Haile Selassie I. Haile means in Ge'ez "Power of" and Selassie means trinity—therefore Haile Selassie roughly translates to "Power of the Trinity".[22] Haile Selassie's full title in office was "By the Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah, His Imperial Majesty Haile Selassie I, King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Elect of God".[23][24][25][26][27][28][nb 4] This title reflects Ethiopian dynastic traditions, which hold that all monarchs must trace their lineage to Menelik I, who was the offspring of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba.[29] To Ethiopians, Haile Selassie has been known by many names, including Janhoy, Talaqu Meri, and Abba Tekel.[30] The Rastafari movement employs many of these appellations, also referring to him as Jah, Jah Jah, Jah Rastafari, and HIM (the abbreviation of "His Imperial Majesty").[30] Biography Early life Ras Makonnen Woldemikael and his son Lij Tafari Makonnen Haile Selassie's royal line (through his father's mother) descended from the Shewan Amhara Solomonic King, Sahle Selassie.[31] He was born on 23 July 1892, in the village of Ejersa Goro, in the Harar province of Ethiopia. His mother was Woizero ("Lady") Yeshimebet Ali Abba Jifar, daughter of a ruling chief from Wore Ilu in Wollo province, Dejazmach Ali Abba Jifar.[32] His maternal grandmother was of Gurage heritage.[33] Tafari's father was Ras Makonnen Wolde Mikael, the grandson of King Sahle Selassie and governor of Harar. Ras Makonnen served as a general in the First Italo–Ethiopian War, playing a key role at the Battle of Adwa;[32] Haile Selassie was thus able to ascend to the imperial throne through his paternal grandmother, Woizero Tenagnework Sahle Selassie, who was an aunt of Emperor Menelik II and daughter of the Solomonic Amhara King of Shewa, Negus Sahle Selassie. As such, Haile Selassie claimed direct descent from Makeda, the Queen of Sheba, and King Solomon of ancient Israel.[34] Ras Makonnen arranged for Tafari as well as his first cousin, Imru Haile Selassie, to receive instruction in Harar from Abba Samuel Wolde Kahin, an Ethiopian capuchin monk, and from Dr. Vitalien, a surgeon from Guadeloupe. Tafari was named Dejazmach (literally "commander of the gate", roughly equivalent to "count")[35] at the age of 13, on 1 November 1905.[36] Shortly thereafter, his father Ras Makonnen died at Kulibi, in 1906.[37] Governorship Dejazmatch Tafari, as governor of Harar Tafari assumed the titular governorship of Selale in 1906, a realm of marginal importance,[38] but one that enabled him to continue his studies.[36] In 1907, he was appointed governor over part of the province of Sidamo. It is alleged that during his late teens, Haile Selassie was married to Woizero Altayech, and that from this union, his daughter Princess Romanework was born.[39] Following the death of his brother Yelma in 1907, the governorate of Harar was left vacant,[38] and its administration was left to Menelik's loyal general, Dejazmach Balcha Safo. Balcha Safo's administration of Harar was ineffective, and so during the last illness of Menelik II, and the brief reign of Empress Taitu Bitul, Tafari was made governor of Harar in 1910[37] or 1911.[40] On 3 August, he married Menen Asfaw of Ambassel, niece of the heir to the throne Lij Iyasu. Regency The extent to which Tafari Makonnen contributed to the movement that would come to depose Lij Iyasu has been discussed extensively, particularly in Haile Selassie's own detailed account of the matter. Iyasu was the designated but uncrowned emperor of Ethiopia from 1913 to 1916. Iyasu's reputation for scandalous behavior and a disrespectful attitude towards the nobles at the court of his grandfather, Menelik II,[41] damaged his reputation. Iyasu's flirtation with Islam was considered treasonous among the Ethiopian Orthodox Christian leadership of the empire. On 27 September 1916, Iyasu was deposed.[42] Empress Zewditu with one of her trusted priests Ras Tafari at his investiture as regent on 11 February 1917 Contributing to the movement that deposed Iyasu were conservatives such as Fitawrari Habte Giyorgis, Menelik II's longtime Minister of War. The movement to depose Iyasu preferred Tafari, as he attracted support from both progressive and conservative factions. Ultimately, Iyasu was deposed on the grounds of conversion to Islam.[17][42] In his place, the daughter of Menelik II (the aunt of Iyasu) was named Empress Zewditu, while Tafari was elevated to the rank of Ras and was made heir apparent and Crown Prince. In the power arrangement that followed, Tafari accepted the role of Regent Plenipotentiary (Balemulu 'Inderase)[nb 5] and became the de facto ruler of the Ethiopian Empire (Mangista Ityop'p'ya). Zewditu would govern while Tafari would administer.[43] While Iyasu had been deposed on 27 September 1916, on 8 October he managed to escape into the Ogaden Desert and his father, Negus Mikael of Wollo, had time to come to his aid.[44] On 27 October, Negus Mikael and his army met an army under Fitawrari Habte Giyorgis loyal to Zewditu and Tafari. During the Battle of Segale, Negus Mikael was defeated and captured. Any chance that Iyasu would regain the throne was ended and he went into hiding. On 11 January 1921, after avoiding capture for about five years, Iyasu was taken into custody by Gugsa Araya Selassie. On 11 February 1917, the coronation for Zewditu took place. She pledged to rule justly through her Regent, Tafari. While Tafari was the more visible of the two, Zewditu was far from an honorary ruler. Her position required that she arbitrate the claims of competing factions. In other words, she had the last word. Tafari carried the burden of daily administration but, because his position was relatively weak, this was often an exercise in futility for him. Initially his personal army was poorly equipped, his finances were limited, and he had little leverage to withstand the combined influence of the Empress, the Minister of War, or the provincial governors.[44] During his Regency, the new Crown Prince developed the policy of cautious modernization initiated by Menelik II. Also, during this time, he survived the 1918 flu pandemic, having come down with the illness.[45] He secured Ethiopia's admission to the League of Nations in 1923 by promising to eradicate slavery; each emperor since Tewodros II had issued proclamations to halt slavery,[46] but without effect: the internationally scorned practice persisted well into Haile Selassie's reign with an estimated 2 million slaves in Ethiopia in the early 1930s.[47][48] Travel abroad In 1924, Ras Tafari toured Europe and the Middle East visiting Jerusalem, Alexandria, Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, Stockholm, London, Geneva, and Athens. With him on his tour was a group that included Ras Seyum Mangasha of western Tigray Province; Ras Hailu Tekle Haymanot of Gojjam province; Ras Mulugeta Yeggazu of Illubabor Province; Ras Makonnen Endelkachew; and Blattengeta Heruy Welde Sellase. The primary goal of the trip to Europe was for Ethiopia to gain access to the sea. In Paris, Tafari was to find out from the French Foreign Ministry (Quai d'Orsay) that this goal would not be realized.[49] However, failing this, he and his retinue inspected schools, hospitals, factories, and churches. Although patterning many reforms after European models, Tafari remained wary of European pressure. To guard against economic imperialism, Tafari required that all enterprises have at least partial local ownership.[50] Of his modernization campaign, he remarked, "We need European progress only because we are surrounded by it. That is at once a benefit and a misfortune."[51] Throughout Tafari's travels in Europe, the Levant, and Egypt, he and his entourage were greeted with enthusiasm and fascination. He was accompanied by Seyum Mangasha and Hailu Tekle Haymanot who, like Tafari, were sons of generals who contributed to the victorious war against Italy a quarter-century earlier at the Battle of Adwa.[52] Another member of his entourage, Mulugeta Yeggazu, actually fought at Adwa as a young man. The "Oriental Dignity" of the Ethiopians[53] and their "rich, picturesque court dress"[54] were sensationalized in the media; among his entourage he even included a pride of lions, which he distributed as gifts to President Alexandre Millerand and Prime Minister Raymond Poincaré of France, to King George V of the United Kingdom, and to the Zoological Garden (Jardin Zoologique) of Paris, France.[52] As one historian noted, "Rarely can a tour have inspired so many anecdotes".[52] In return for two lions, the United Kingdom presented Tafari with the imperial crown of Emperor Tewodros II for its safe return to Empress Zewditu. The crown had been taken by General Sir Robert Napier during the 1868 Expedition to Abyssinia.[55] In this period, the Crown Prince visited the Armenian monastery of Jerusalem. There, he adopted 40 Armenian orphans (አርባ ልጆች Arba Lijoch, "forty children"), who had lost their parents in Ottoman massacres. Tafari arranged for the musical education of the youths, and they came to form the imperial brass band.[56] King and Emperor See also: Modernization under Haile Selassie Tafari's authority was challenged in 1928 when Dejazmach Balcha Safo went to Addis Ababa with a sizeable armed force. When Tafari consolidated his hold over the provinces, many of Menelik's appointees refused to abide by the new regulations. Balcha Safo, the governor (Shum) of coffee-rich Sidamo Province, was particularly troublesome. The revenues he remitted to the central government did not reflect the accrued profits and Tafari recalled him to Addis Ababa. The old man came in high dudgeon and, insultingly, with a large army.[nb 6] The Dejazmatch paid homage to Empress Zewditu, but snubbed Tafari.[57][58] On 18 February, while Balcha Safo and his personal bodyguard[nb 7] were in Addis Ababa, Tafari had Ras Kassa Haile Darge buy off his army and arranged to have him displaced as the Shum of Sidamo Province[59] by Birru Wolde Gabriel who himself was replaced by Desta Damtew.[44] Even so, the gesture of Balcha Safo empowered Empress Zewditu politically and she attempted to have Tafari tried for treason. He was tried for his benevolent dealings with Italy including a 20-year peace accord which was signed on 2 August.[36] In September, a group of palace reactionaries including some courtiers of the empress, made a final bid to get rid of Tafari. The attempted coup d'état was tragic in its origins and comic in its end. When confronted by Tafari and a company of his troops, the ringleaders of the coup took refuge on the palace grounds in Menelik's mausoleum. Tafari and his men surrounded them only to be surrounded themselves by the personal guard of Zewditu. More of Tafari's khaki clad soldiers arrived and, with superiority of arms, decided the outcome in his favor.[60] Popular support, as well as the support of the police,[57] remained with Tafari. Ultimately, the Empress relented and, on 7 October 1928, she crowned Tafari as Negus (Amharic: "King"). The crowning of Tafari as King was controversial. He occupied the same territory as the empress rather than going off to a regional kingdom of the empire. Two monarchs, even with one being the vassal and the other the emperor (in this case empress), had never occupied the same location as their seat in Ethiopian history. Conservatives agitated to redress this perceived insult to the dignity of the crown, leading to the rebellion of Ras Gugsa Welle. Gugsa Welle was the husband of the empress and the Shum of Begemder Province. In early 1930, he raised an army and marched it from his governorate at Gondar towards Addis Ababa. On 31 March 1930, Gugsa Welle was met by forces loyal to Negus Tafari and was defeated at the Battle of Anchem. Gugsa Welle was killed in action.[61] News of Gugsa Welle's defeat and death had hardly spread through Addis Ababa when the empress died suddenly on 2 April 1930. Although it was long rumored that the empress was poisoned upon the defeat of her husband,[62] or alternately that she died from shock upon hearing of the death of her estranged yet beloved husband,[63] it has since been documented that the Empress succumbed to a flu-like fever and complications from diabetes.[64] Cover of Time magazine, 3 November 1930 With the passing of Zewditu, Tafari himself rose to emperor and was proclaimed Neguse Negest ze-'Ityopp'ya, "King of Kings of Ethiopia". He was crowned on 2 November 1930, at Addis Ababa's Cathedral of St. George. The coronation was by all accounts "a most splendid affair",[65] and it was attended by royals and dignitaries from all over the world. Among those in attendance were The Duke of Gloucester (King George V's son), Marshal Franchet d'Esperey of France, and the Prince of Udine representing King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy. Emissaries from the United States,[66] Egypt, Turkey, Sweden, Belgium, and Japan were also present.[65] British author Evelyn Waugh was also present, penning a contemporary report on the event, and American travel lecturer Burton Holmes shot the only known film footage of the event.[67] One newspaper report suggested that the celebration may have incurred a cost in excess of $3,000,000.[68] Many of those in attendance received lavish gifts;[69] in one instance, the Christian emperor even sent a gold-encased Bible to an American bishop who had not attended the coronation, but who had dedicated a prayer to the emperor on the day of the coronation.[70] Haile Selassie introduced Ethiopia's first written constitution on 16 July 1931,[71] providing for a bicameral legislature.[72] The constitution kept power in the hands of the nobility, but it did establish democratic standards among the nobility, envisaging a transition to democratic rule: it would prevail "until the people are in a position to elect themselves."[73] The constitution limited the succession to the throne to the descendants of Haile Selassie, a point that met with the disapprobation of other dynastic princes, including the princes of Tigrai and even the emperor's loyal cousin, Ras Kassa Haile Darge. In 1932, the Sultanate of Jimma was formally absorbed into Ethiopia following the death of Sultan Abba Jifar II of Jimma. Conflict with Italy See also: Abyssinia Crisis and Second Italo-Abyssinian War Ethiopia became the target of renewed Italian imperialist designs in the 1930s. Benito Mussolini's Fascist regime was keen to avenge the military defeats Italy had suffered to Ethiopia in the First Italo-Abyssinian War, and to efface the failed attempt by "liberal" Italy to conquer the country, as epitomised by the defeat at Adwa.[74][75][76] A conquest of Ethiopia could also empower the cause of fascism and embolden its rhetoric of empire.[76] Ethiopia would also provide a bridge between Italy's Eritrean and Italian Somaliland possessions. Ethiopia's position in the League of Nations did not dissuade the Italians from invading in 1935; the "collective security" envisaged by the League proved useless, and a scandal erupted when the Hoare-Laval Pact revealed that Ethiopia's League allies were scheming to appease Italy.[77] Mobilization Following 5 December 1934 Italian invasion of Ethiopia at Welwel, Ogaden Province, Haile Selassie joined his northern armies and set up headquarters at Desse in Wollo province. He issued his mobilization order on 3 October 1935: If you withhold from your country Ethiopia the death from cough or head-cold of which you would otherwise die, refusing to resist (in your district, in your patrimony, and in your home) our enemy who is coming from a distant country to attack us, and if you persist in not shedding your blood, you will be rebuked for it by your Creator and will be cursed by your offspring. Hence, without cooling your heart of accustomed valour, there emerges your decision to fight fiercely, mindful of your history that will last far into the future… If on your march you touch any property inside houses or cattle and crops outside, not even grass, straw, and dung excluded, it is like killing your brother who is dying with you… You, countryman, living at the various access routes, set up a market for the army at the places where it is camping and on the day your district-governor will indicate to you, lest the soldiers campaigning for Ethiopia's liberty should experience difficulty. You will not be charged excise duty, until the end of the campaign, for anything you are marketing at the military camps: I have granted you remission… After you have been ordered to go to war, but are then idly missing from the campaign, and when you are seized by the local chief or by an accuser, you will have punishment inflicted upon your inherited land, your property, and your body; to the accuser I shall grant a third of your property… On 19 October 1935, Haile Selassie gave more precise orders for his army to his Commander-in-Chief, Ras Kassa: When you set up tents, it is to be in caves and by trees and in a wood, if the place happens to be adjoining to these―and separated in the various platoons. Tents are to be set up at a distance of 30 cubits from each other. When an aeroplane is sighted, one should leave large open roads and wide meadows and march in valleys and trenches and by zigzag routes, along places which have trees and woods. When an aeroplane comes to drop bombs, it will not suit it to do so unless it comes down to about 100 metres; hence when it flies low for such action, one should fire a volley with a good and very long gun and then quickly disperse. When three or four bullets have hit it, the aeroplane is bound to fall down. But let only those fire who have been ordered to shoot with a weapon that has been selected for such firing, for if everyone shoots who possesses a gun, there is no advantage in this except to waste bullets and to disclose the men's whereabouts. Lest the aeroplane, when rising again, should detect the whereabouts of those who are dispersed, it is well to remain cautiously scattered as long as it is still fairly close. In time of war it suits the enemy to aim his guns at adorned shields, ornaments, silver and gold cloaks, silk shirts and all similar things. Whether one possesses a jacket or not, it is best to wear a narrow-sleeved shirt with faded colours. When we return, with God's help, you can wear your gold and silver decorations then. Now it is time to go and fight. We offer you all these words of advice in the hope that no great harm should befall you through lack of caution. At the same time, We are glad to assure you that in time of war. We are ready to shed Our blood in your midst for the sake of Ethiopia's freedom…"[78] Haile Selassie in 1934 Compared to the Ethiopians, the Italians had an advanced, modern military which included a large air force. The Italians would also come to employ chemical weapons extensively throughout the conflict, even targeting Red Cross field hospitals in violation of the Geneva Conventions.[79] Progress of the war Starting in early October 1935, the Italians invaded Ethiopia. But, by November, the pace of invasion had slowed appreciably and Haile Selassie's northern armies were able to launch what was known as the "Christmas Offensive". During this offensive, the Italians were forced back in places and put on the defensive. In early 1936, the First Battle of Tembien stopped the progress of the Ethiopian offensive and the Italians were ready to continue their offensive. Following the defeat and destruction of the northern Ethiopian armies at the Battle of Amba Aradam, the Second Battle of Tembien, and the Battle of Shire, Haile Selassie took the field with the last Ethiopian army on the northern front. On 31 March 1936, he launched a counterattack against the Italians himself at the Battle of Maychew in southern Tigray. The emperor's army was defeated and retreated in disarray. As Haile Selassie's army withdrew, the Italians attacked from the air along with rebellious Raya and Azebo tribesmen on the ground, who were armed and paid by the Italians.[80] When the struggle to resist Italy appeared doomed, Haile Selassie traveled to the rock-hewn churches of Lalibela for fasting and prayer.[81] Haile Selassie made a solitary pilgrimage to the churches at Lalibela, at considerable risk of capture, before returning to his capital.[82] After a stormy session of the council of state, it was agreed that because Addis Ababa could not be defended, the government would relocate to the southern town of Gore, and that in the interest of preserving the Imperial house, the emperor's wife Menen Asfaw and the rest of the imperial family should immediately depart for French Somaliland, and from there continue on to Jerusalem.[citation needed] Exile debate The emperor arrives in Jerusalem. May 1936 After further debate as to whether Haile Selassie should go to Gore or accompany his family into exile, it was agreed that he should leave Ethiopia with his family and present the case of Ethiopia to the League of Nations at Geneva. The decision was not unanimous and several participants, including the nobleman Blatta Tekle Wolde Hawariat, strenuously objected to the idea of an Ethiopian monarch fleeing before an invading force.[83] Haile Selassie appointed his cousin Ras Imru Haile Selassie as Prince Regent in his absence, departing with his family for French Somaliland on 2 May 1936. On 5 May, Marshal Pietro Badoglio led Italian troops into Addis Ababa, and Mussolini declared Ethiopia an Italian province. Victor Emanuel III was proclaimed as the new Emperor of Ethiopia. On the previous day, the Ethiopian exiles had left French Somaliland aboard the British cruiser HMS Enterprise. They were bound for Jerusalem in the British Mandate of Palestine, where the Ethiopian royal family maintained a residence. The Imperial family disembarked at Haifa and then went on to Jerusalem. Once there, Haile Selassie and his retinue prepared to make their case at Geneva. The choice of Jerusalem was highly symbolic, since the Solomonic Dynasty claimed descent from the House of David. Leaving the Holy Land, Haile Selassie and his entourage sailed aboard the British cruiser HMS Capetown for Gibraltar, where he stayed at the Rock Hotel. From Gibraltar, the exiles were transferred to an ordinary liner. By doing this, the government of the United Kingdom was spared the expense of a state reception.[84] Collective security and the League of Nations, 1936 Mussolini invaded Ethiopia and promptly declared his own "Italian Empire". After the League of Nations afforded Haile Selassie the opportunity to address the assembly, Italy withdrew its League delegation, on 12 May 1936.[85] It was in this context that Haile Selassie walked into the hall of the League of Nations, introduced by the President of the Assembly as "His Imperial Majesty, the Emperor of Ethiopia" (Sa Majesté Imperiale, l'Empereur d'Ethiopie). The introduction caused a great many Italian journalists in the galleries to erupt into jeering, heckling, and whistling. As it turned out, they had earlier been issued whistles by Mussolini's son-in-law, Count Galeazzo Ciano.[86] The Romanian delegate, Nicolae Titulescu, famously jumped to his feet in response and cried "To the door with the savages!", and the offending journalists were removed from the hall. Haile Selassie waited calmly for the hall to be cleared, and responded "majestically"[87] with a speech considered by some[by whom?] among the most stirring of the 20th century.[7] Although fluent in French, the working language of the League, Haile Selassie chose to deliver his historic speech in his native Amharic. He asserted that, because his "confidence in the League was absolute", his people were now being slaughtered. He pointed out that the same European states that found in Ethiopia's favor at the League of Nations were refusing Ethiopia credit and matériel while aiding Italy, which was employing chemical weapons on military and civilian targets alike. It was at the time when the operations for the encircling of Makale were taking place that the Italian command, fearing a rout, followed the procedure which it is now my duty to denounce to the world. Special sprayers were installed on board aircraft so that they could vaporize, over vast areas of territory, a fine, death-dealing rain. Groups of nine, fifteen, eighteen aircraft followed one another so that the fog issuing from them formed a continuous sheet. It was thus that, as from the end of January 1936, soldiers, women, children, cattle, rivers, lakes, and pastures were drenched continually with this deadly rain. In order to kill off systematically all living creatures, in order to more surely poison waters and pastures, the Italian command made its aircraft pass over and over again. That was its chief method of warfare.[88] Noting that his own "small people of 12 million inhabitants, without arms, without resources" could never withstand an attack by a large power such as Italy, with its 42 million people and "unlimited quantities of the most death-dealing weapons", he contended that all small states were threatened by the aggression, and that all small states were in effect reduced to vassal states in the absence of collective action. He admonished the League that "God and history will remember your judgment."[89] It is collective security: it is the very existence of the League of Nations. It is the confidence that each State is to place in international treaties… In a word, it is international morality that is at stake. Have the signatures appended to a Treaty value only in so far as the signatory Powers have a personal, direct and immediate interest involved? The speech made the emperor an icon for anti-fascists around the world, and Time named him "Man of the Year".[90] He failed, however, to get what he most needed: the League agreed to only partial and ineffective sanctions on Italy. Only six nations in 1937 did not recognize Italy's occupation: China, New Zealand, the Soviet Union, the Republic of Spain, Mexico and the United States.[75] It is often said the League of Nations effectively collapsed due to its failure to condemn Italy's invasion of Abyssinia. Exile A plate from the dinner service sold by Haile Selassie in England in 1937 Haile Selassie in 1942 Haile Selassie spent his exile years (1936–41) in Bath, England, in Fairfield House, which he bought. The emperor and Kassa Haile Darge took morning walks together behind the high walls of the 14-room Victorian house. Haile Selassie's favorite reading was "diplomatic history." But most of his serious hours were occupied with the 90,000-word story of his life that he was laboriously writing in Amharic.[91] Prior to Fairfield House, he briefly stayed at Warne's Hotel in Worthing[92] and in Parkside, Wimbledon.[93] A bust of Haile Selassie by Hilda Seligman stood in nearby Cannizaro Park to commemorate this time, and was a popular place of pilgrimage for London's Rastafari community, until it was destroyed by protestors on 30 June, 2020.[94] Haile Selassie stayed at the Abbey Hotel in Malvern in the 1930s and his granddaughters and daughters of court officials were educated at Clarendon School for Girls in North Malvern. During his time in Malvern he attended services at Holy Trinity Church, in Link Top. A blue plaque, commemorating his stay in Malvern, was unveiled on Saturday, 25 June 2011. As part of the ceremony, a delegation from the Rastafari movement gave a short address and a drum recital.[95][96][97][98][99] Haile Selassie's activity in this period was focused on countering Italian propaganda as to the state of Ethiopian resistance and the legality of the occupation.[100] He spoke out against the desecration of houses of worship and historical artifacts (including the theft of a 1,600-year-old imperial obelisk), and condemned the atrocities suffered by the Ethiopian civilian population.[101] He continued to plead for League intervention and to voice his certainty that "God's judgment will eventually visit the weak and the mighty alike",[102] though his attempts to gain support for the struggle against Italy were largely unsuccessful until Italy entered World War II on the German side in June 1940.[103] The emperor's pleas for international support did take root in the United States, particularly among African-American organizations sympathetic to the Ethiopian cause.[104] In 1937, Haile Selassie was to give a Christmas Day radio address to the American people to thank his supporters when his taxi was involved in a traffic accident, leaving him with a fractured knee.[105] Rather than canceling the radio broadcast, he delivered the address, in which he linked Christianity and goodwill with the Covenant of the League of Nations, and asserted that "War is not the only means to stop war":[105] With the birth of the Son of God, an unprecedented, an unrepeatable, and a long-anticipated phenomenon occurred. He was born in a stable instead of a palace, in a manger instead of a crib. The hearts of the Wise men were struck by fear and wonder due to His Majestic Humbleness. The kings prostrated themselves before Him and worshipped Him. 'Peace be to those who have good will'. This became the first message. ...Although the toils of wise people may earn them respect, it is a fact of life that the spirit of the wicked continues to cast its shadow on this world. The arrogant are seen visibly leading their people into crime and destruction. The laws of the League of Nations are constantly violated and wars and acts of aggression repeatedly take place… So that the spirit of the cursed will not gain predominance over the human race whom Christ redeemed with his blood, all peace-loving people should cooperate to stand firm in order to preserve and promote lawfulness and peace.[105] During this period, Haile Selassie suffered several personal tragedies. His two sons-in-law, Ras Desta Damtew and Dejazmach Beyene Merid, were both executed by the Italians.[102] The emperor's daughter, Princess Romanework, wife of Dejazmach Beyene Merid, was herself taken into captivity with her children, and she died in Italy in 1941.[106] His daughter Tsehai died during childbirth shortly after the restoration in 1942.[107] After his return to Ethiopia, he donated Fairfield House to the city of Bath as a residence for the aged.[108] 1940s and 1950s Newspaper illustration drawn by Charles H. Alston for the U.S. Office of War Information Domestic Operations Branch News Bureau, 1943 Meeting with Crown Prince Akihito in 1955 Haile Selassie with Brigadier Daniel Sandford (left) and Colonel Wingate (right) in Dambacha Fort, after its capture, 15 April 1941 Plaque commemorating the visit of Haile Selassie I to Mexico, 1954 – Etiopía Station, line 3 of the Mexico City Metro British forces, which consisted primarily of Ethiopian-backed African and South African colonial troops under the "Gideon Force" of Colonel Orde Wingate, coordinated the military effort to liberate Ethiopia. The emperor himself issued several imperial proclamations in this period, demonstrating that, while authority was not divided up in any formal way, British military might and the emperor's populist appeal could be joined in the concerted effort to liberate Ethiopia.[103] On 18 January 1941, during the East African Campaign, Haile Selassie crossed the border between Sudan and Ethiopia near the village of Um Iddla. The standard of the Lion of Judah was raised again. Two days later, he and a force of Ethiopian patriots joined Gideon Force which was already in Ethiopia and preparing the way.[109] Italy was defeated by a force of the United Kingdom, the Commonwealth of Nations, Free France, Free Belgium, and Ethiopian patriots. On 5 May 1941, Haile Selassie entered Addis Ababa and personally addressed the Ethiopian people, five years to the day since his 1936 exile: Today is the day on which we defeated our enemy. Therefore, when we say let us rejoice with our hearts, let not our rejoicing be in any other way but in the spirit of Christ. Do not return evil for evil. Do not indulge in the atrocities which the enemy has been practicing in his usual way, even to the last. Take care not to spoil the good name of Ethiopia by acts which are worthy of the enemy. We shall see that our enemies are disarmed and sent out the same way they came. As Saint George who killed the dragon is the Patron Saint of our army as well as of our allies, let us unite with our allies in everlasting friendship and amity in order to be able to stand against the godless and cruel dragon which has newly risen and which is oppressing mankind.[110] On 27 August 1942, Haile Selassie confirmed the legal basis for the abolition of slavery that had been enacted by Italy throughout the empire and imposed severe penalties, including death, for slave trading.[111] After World War II, Ethiopia became a charter member of the United Nations. In 1948, the Ogaden, a region disputed with both Italian Somaliland and British Somaliland, was granted to Ethiopia.[112] On 2 December 1950, the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 390 (V), establishing the federation of Eritrea (the former Italian colony) into Ethiopia.[113] Eritrea was to have its own constitution, which would provide for ethnic, linguistic, and cultural balance, while Ethiopia was to manage its finances, defense, and foreign policy.[113] Despite his centralization policies that had been made before World War II, Haile Selassie still found himself unable to push for all the programmes he wanted. In 1942, he attempted to institute a progressive tax scheme, but this failed due to opposition from the nobility, and only a flat tax was passed; in 1951, he agreed to reduce this as well.[114] Ethiopia was still "semi-feudal",[115] and the emperor's attempts to alter its social and economic form by reforming its modes of taxation met with resistance from the nobility and clergy, which were eager to resume their privileges in the post-war era.[114] Where Haile Selassie actually did succeed in effecting new land taxes, the burdens were often still passed by the landowners to the peasants.[114] Between 1941 and 1959, Haile Selassie worked to establish the autocephaly of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church.[116] The Ethiopian Orthodox Church had been headed by the Abuna, a bishop who answered to the Pope of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria. In 1942 and 1945, Haile Selassie applied to the Holy Synod of the Coptic Orthodox Church to establish the independence of Ethiopian bishops, and when his appeals were denied he threatened to sever relations with the Coptic Church of Alexandria.[116] Finally, in 1959, Pope Kyrillos VI elevated the Abuna to Patriarch-Catholicos.[116] The Ethiopian Church remained affiliated with the Alexandrian Church.[114] In addition to these efforts, Haile Selassie changed the Ethiopian church-state relationship by introducing taxation of church lands, and by restricting the legal privileges of the clergy, who had formerly been tried in their own courts for civil offenses.[114] In 1948, the Harari Muslims of Harar peacefully protested against religious oppression, however the state responded violently. Hundreds were arrested and the entire town of Harar was put under house arrest.[117] The government also took control of many assets and estates belonging to the people.[118][119] This led to a massive exodus of Hararis from the Harari Region, which had not occurred in their history prior.[15][120] The dissatisfaction of the Harari stemmed from the fact that they had never received limited autonomy of Harar, which was promised by Menelik II after his conquest of the kingdom. The promise was eroded by successive Amhara governors. According to historian Tim Carmicheal, Haile Selassie was directly involved in the suppression of the Harari movement through his policies.[121] In keeping with the principle of collective security, for which he was an outspoken proponent, Haile Selassie sent a contingent, under General Mulugueta Bulli, known as the Kagnew Battalion, to take part in the Korean War by supporting the United Nations Command. It was attached to the American 7th Infantry Division, and fought in a number of engagements including the Battle of Pork Chop Hill.[122] In a 1954 speech, the Selassie spoke of Ethiopian participation in the Korean War as a redemption of the principles of collective security: Nearly two decades ago, I personally assumed before history the responsibility of placing the fate of my beloved people on the issue of collective security, for surely, at that time and for the first time in world history, that issue was posed in all its clarity. My searching of conscience convinced me of the rightness of my course and if, after untold sufferings and, indeed, unaided resistance at the time of aggression, we now see the final vindication of that principle in our joint action in Korea, I can only be thankful that God gave me strength to persist in our faith until the moment of its recent glorious vindication.[123] Haile Selassie, Emperor of Ethiopia, photographed during a radio broadcast During the celebrations of his Silver Jubilee in November 1955, Haile Selassie introduced a revised constitution,[124] whereby he retained effective power, while extending political participation to the people by allowing the lower house of parliament to become an elected body. Party politics were not provided for. Modern educational methods were more widely spread throughout the Empire, and the country embarked on a development scheme and plans for modernization, tempered by Ethiopian traditions, and within the framework of the ancient monarchical structure of the state. Haile Selassie compromised, when practical, with the traditionalists in the nobility and church. He also tried to improve relations between the state and ethnic groups, and granted autonomy to Afar lands that were difficult to control. Still, his reforms to end feudalism were slow and weakened by the compromises he made with the entrenched aristocracy. The Revised Constitution of 1955 has been criticized for reasserting "the indisputable power of the monarch" and maintaining the relative powerlessness of the peasants.[125] Haile Selassie also maintained cordial relations with the government of the United Kingdom through charitable gestures. He sent aid to the British government in 1947 when Britain was affected by heavy flooding. His letter to Lord Meork, National Distress Fund, London said, "even though We are busy of helping our people who didn't recover from the crises of the war, We heard that your fertile and beautiful country is devastated by the unusually heavy rain, and your request for aid. Therefore, We are sending small amount of money, about one thousand pounds through our embassy to show our sympathy and cooperation."[126] He also left his home in exile, Fairfield House, Bath, to the City of Bath for the use of the aged in 1959. 1958 famine of Tigray In 1958, there was a widespread famine in the Tigray province of northern Ethiopia. Despite this, Emperor Haile Selassie refused to send significant emergency food aid, resulting in the deaths of approximately 100,000 people.[127][128][129] 1960s This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Haile Selassie" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (September 2017) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) Haile Selassie contributed Ethiopian troops to the United Nations Operation in the Congo peacekeeping force during the 1960 Congo Crisis, to preserve Congolese integrity, per United Nations Security Council Resolution 143. On 13 December 1960, while Haile Selassie was on a state visit to Brazil, his Kebur Zabagna (Imperial Guard) forces staged an unsuccessful coup, briefly proclaiming Haile Selassie's eldest son Asfa Wossen as emperor. The coup d'état was crushed by the regular army and police forces. The coup attempt lacked broad popular support, was denounced by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, and was unpopular with the army, air force and police. Nonetheless, the effort to depose the emperor had support among students and the educated classes.[130] The coup attempt has been characterized as a pivotal moment in Ethiopian history, the point at which Ethiopians "for the first time questioned the power of the king to rule without the people's consent".[131] Student populations began to empathize with the peasantry and poor, and to advocate on their behalf.[131] The coup spurred Haile Selassie to accelerate reform, which was manifested in the form of land grants to military and police officials. Haile Selassie with U.S. President John F. Kennedy, October 1963 The emperor continued to be a staunch ally of the West, while pursuing a firm policy of decolonization in Africa, which was still largely under European colonial rule. The United Nations conducted a lengthy inquiry regarding the status of Eritrea, with the superpowers each vying for a stake in the state's future. Britain, the administrator at the time, suggested the partition of Eritrea between Sudan and Ethiopia, separating Christians and Muslims. The idea was instantly rejected by Eritrean political parties, as well as the UN. A UN plebiscite voted 46 to 10 to have Eritrea be federated with Ethiopia, which was later stipulated on 2 December 1950 in resolution 390 (V). Eritrea would have its own parliament and administration and would be represented in what had been the Ethiopian parliament and would become the federal parliament.[132] Haile Selassie would have none of the European attempts to draft a separate Constitution under which Eritrea would be governed, and wanted his own 1955 Constitution protecting families to apply in both Ethiopia and Eritrea. In 1961 the 30-year Eritrean Struggle for Independence began, followed by Haile Selassie's dissolution of the federation and shutting down of Eritrea's parliament. Emperor Haile Selassie with President Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt in Addis Ababa for the Organisation of African Unity summit, 1963. In September 1961, Haile Selassie attended the Conference of Heads of State of Government of Non-Aligned Countries in Belgrade, FPR Yugoslavia. This is considered to be the founding conference of the Non-Aligned Movement. In 1961, tensions between independence-minded Eritreans and Ethiopian forces culminated in the Eritrean War of Independence. The emperor declared Eritrea the fourteenth province of Ethiopia in 1962.[133] The war would continue for 30 years, as first Haile Selassie, then the Soviet-backed junta that succeeded him, attempted to retain Eritrea by force. In 1963, Haile Selassie presided over the formation of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), the precursor of the continent-wide African Union (AU). The new organization would establish its headquarters in Addis Ababa. In May of that year, Haile Selassie was elected as the OAU's first official chairperson, a rotating seat. Along with Modibo Keïta of Mali, the Ethiopian leader would later help successfully negotiate the Bamako Accords, which brought an end to the border conflict between Morocco and Algeria. In 1964, Haile Selassie would initiate the concept of the United States of Africa, a proposition later taken up by Muammar Gaddafi.[134] On 4 October 1963, Haile Selassie addressed the General Assembly of the United Nations[135][136] referring in his address to his earlier speech to the League of Nations: Twenty-seven years ago, as Emperor of Ethiopia, I mounted the rostrum in Geneva, Switzerland, to address the League of Nations and to appeal for relief from the destruction which had been unleashed against my defenceless nation, by the fascist invader. I spoke then both to and for the conscience of the world. My words went unheeded, but history testifies to the accuracy of the warning that I gave in 1936. Today, I stand before the world organization which has succeeded to the mantle discarded by its discredited predecessor. In this body is enshrined the principle of collective security which I unsuccessfully invoked at Geneva. Here, in this Assembly, reposes the best – perhaps the last – hope for the peaceful survival of mankind.[137] Emperor Haile Selassie standing in front of throne c. 1965 On 25 November 1963, the emperor was among other heads of state, including France's President Charles de Gaulle, who traveled to Washington, D.C., and attended the funeral of assassinated President John F. Kennedy. In 1966, Haile Selassie attempted to replace the historical tax system with a single progressive income tax, which would significantly weaken the nobility who had previously avoided paying most of their taxes.[138] Even with alterations, this law led to a revolt in Gojjam, which was repressed although enforcement of the tax was abandoned. The revolt, having achieved its design in undermining the tax, encouraged other landowners to defy Haile Selassie. Haile Selassie on a state visit to Washington, 1963 While he had fully approved and assured Ethiopia's participation in UN-approved collective security operations, including Korea and Congo, Haile Selassie drew a distinction between it and the non-UN-approved foreign intervention in Indochina, consistently deploring it as needless suffering and calling for the Vietnam War to end on several occasions. At the same time he remained open toward the United States and commended it for making progress with African Americans' Civil Rights legislation in the 1950s and 1960s, while visiting the US several times during these years. In 1967, he visited Montréal, Canada, to open the Ethiopian Pavilion at the Expo '67 World's Fair where he received great acclaim among other World leaders there for the occasion. Student unrest became a regular feature of Ethiopian life in the 1960s and 1970s. Marxism took root in large segments of the Ethiopian intelligentsia, particularly among those who had studied abroad and had thus been exposed to radical and left-wing sentiments that were becoming popular in other parts of the globe.[130] Resistance by conservative elements at the Imperial Court and Parliament, and by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, made Haile Selassie's land reform proposals difficult to implement, and also damaged the standing of the government, costing Haile Selassie much of the goodwill he had once enjoyed. This bred resentment among the peasant population. Efforts to weaken unions also hurt his image. As these issues began to pile up, Haile Selassie left much of domestic governance to his Prime Minister, Aklilu Habte Wold, and concentrated more on foreign affairs. 1970s Haile Selassie I in Toledo (Spain) in April 1971. Picture by Eduardo Butragueño. Outside of Ethiopia, Haile Selassie continued to enjoy enormous prestige and respect. As the longest-serving head of state in power, he was often given precedence over other leaders at state events, such as the state funerals of John F. Kennedy and Charles de Gaulle, the summits of the Non-Aligned Movement, and the 1971 celebration of the 2,500 years of the Persian Empire. In 1970 he visited Italy as a guest of President Giuseppe Saragat, and in Milan he met Giordano Dell'Amore, President of Italian Savings Banks Association. He visited China in October 1971, and was the first foreign head of state to meet Mao Zedong following the death of Mao's designated successor Lin Biao in a plane crash in Mongolia. Human rights in Ethiopia under Selassie's regime were poor. Civil liberties and political rights were low with Freedom House giving Ethiopia a "Not Free" score for both civil liberties and political rights in the last years of Selassie's rule.[139] Common human right abuses included imprisonment and torture of political prisoners and very poor prison conditions.[16] The Imperial Ethiopian Army also carried out a number of these atrocities while fighting the Eritrean separatists. This was due to a policy of destroying Eritrean villages that supported the rebels. There were a number of mass killings of hundreds of civilians during the war in the late 1960s and early '70s.[140][141][142][143] Wollo famine Famine—mostly in Wollo, north-eastern Ethiopia, as well as in some parts of Tigray—is estimated to have killed 40,000 to 80,000 Ethiopians[9][144] between 1972 and 1974. A BBC News report[145] has cited a 1973 estimate that 200,000 deaths occurred, based on a contemporaneous estimate from the Ethiopian Nutrition Institute. While this figure is still repeated in some texts and media sources, it was an estimate that was later found to be "over-pessimistic".[147] Although the region is infamous for recurrent crop failures and continuous food shortage and starvation risk, this episode was remarkably severe. A 1973 production of the ITV programme The Unknown Famine by Jonathan Dimbleby[148][149] relied on the unverified estimate of 200,000 dead,[145][150] stimulating a massive influx of aid while at the same time destabilizing Haile Selassie's regime.[144] Against that background, a group of dissident army officers instigated a creeping coup against the emperor's faltering regime. To guard against a public backlash in favour of Haile Selassie (who was still widely revered), they contrived to obtain a copy of The Unknown Famine which they intercut with images of Africa's grand old man presiding at a wedding feast in the grounds of his palace. Retitled The Hidden Hunger, this film noir was shown round the clock on Ethiopian television to coincide with the day that they finally summoned the nerve to seize the emperor himself. — Jonathan Dimbleby, "Feeding on Ethiopia's famine"[151] The 1973 oil crisis, the severity of which is demonstrated by this graph, hit Ethiopia amidst a devastating famine, compounding its effect and undermining support for the emperor.[125] Some reports suggest that the emperor was unaware of the extent of the famine,[145] while others assert that he was well aware of it.[152][153] In addition to the exposure of attempts by corrupt local officials to cover up the famine from the imperial government, the Kremlin's depiction of Haile Selassie's Ethiopia as backwards and inept (relative to the purported utopia of Marxism-Leninism) contributed to the popular uprising that led to its downfall and the rise of Mengistu Haile Mariam.[154] The famine and its image in the media undermined popular support of the government, and Haile Selassie's once unassailable personal popularity fell.[155] The crisis was exacerbated by military mutinies and high oil prices, the latter a result of the 1973 oil crisis. The international economic crisis triggered by the oil crisis caused the costs of imported goods, gasoline, and food to skyrocket, while unemployment spiked.[125] Revolution In February 1974, four days of serious riots in Addis Ababa against a sudden economic inflation left five dead. The emperor responded by announcing on national television a reduction in petrol prices and a freeze on the cost of basic commodities. This calmed the public, but the promised 33% military wage hike was not substantial enough to pacify the army, which then mutinied, beginning in Asmara and spreading throughout the empire. This mutiny led to the resignation of Prime Minister Aklilu Habte-Wold on 27 February 1974.[156] Haile Selassie again went on television to agree to the army's demands for still greater pay, and named Endelkachew Makonnen as his new Prime Minister. Despite Endalkatchew's many concessions, discontent continued in March with a four-day general strike that paralyzed the nation. Imprisonment The deposition of Emperor Haile Selassie I (above rear window) from the Jubilee Palace on 12 September 1974, marking the coup d'état's action on that day and the assumption of power by the Derg. The Derg, a committee of low-ranking military officers and enlisted men, set up in June to investigate the military's demands, took advantage of the government's disarray to depose the 82-year-old Selassie on 12 September.[157] General Aman Mikael Andom, a Protestant of Eritrean origin,[156] served briefly as provisional head of state pending the return of Crown Prince Asfa Wossen, who was then receiving medical treatment abroad. Selassie was placed under house arrest briefly at the 4th Army Division in Addis Ababa,[156] while most of his family was detained at the late Duke of Harar's residence in the north of the capital. The last months of the emperor's life were spent in imprisonment, in the Grand Palace.[158] Reportedly, his mental condition was such that he believed he was still Emperor of Ethiopia.[159] Later, most of the imperial family was imprisoned in the Addis Ababa prison Kerchele, also known as "Alem Bekagne", or "I've had Enough of This World". On 23 November 60 former high officials of the imperial government were executed by firing squad without trial,[160] which included Selassie's grandson Iskinder Desta, a rear admiral, as well as General Andom and two former prime ministers.[158][161] These killings, known to Ethiopians as "Bloody Saturday", were condemned by Crown Prince Asfa Wossen; the Derg responded to his rebuke by revoking its acknowledgment of his imperial legitimacy, and announcing the end of the Solomonic dynasty.[160] Death and interment On 28 August 1975, the state media reported that Selassie had died on 27 August of "respiratory failure" following complications from a prostate examination followed up by a prostate operation.[162] Dr. Asrat Woldeyes denied that complications had occurred and rejected the government version of his death. The prostate operation in question apparently had taken place months before the state media claimed, and Selassie had apparently enjoyed strong health in his last days.[163] In 1994, an Ethiopian court found several former military officers guilty of strangling the emperor in his bed in 1975. Three years after the military socialist Derg regime was overthrown[164] the court charged them with genocide and murder, claiming that it had obtained documents attesting to a high-level order from the military regime to assassinate Selassie for leading a "feudal regime".[165] Documents have been widely circulated online showing the Derg's final assassination order and bearing the military regime's seal and signature.[166][167] The veracity of these documents has been corroborated by multiple former members of the military Derg regime.[168][169] The Soviet-backed PDRE fell in 1991. In 1992, Selassie's bones were found under a concrete slab on the palace grounds,[170] though some reports suggest that his remains were discovered beneath a latrine.[171] Selassie's coffin rested in Bhata Church for nearly a decade, near his great-uncle Menelik II's resting place.[172] On 5 November 2000, the Ethiopian Orthodox church gave him a funeral, but the government refused calls to declare the ceremony an official imperial funeral.[172] Prominent Rastafari figures such as Rita Marley participated in the funeral, but most Rastafari rejected the event and refused to accept that the bones were the remains of Selassie. There is some debate within the Rastafari movement whether he actually died in 1975.[173] Descendants Prince Makonnen, son of Haile Selassie I By Menen Asfaw, Haile Selassie had six children: Princess Tenagnework, Crown Prince Asfaw Wossen, Princess Zenebework, Princess Tsehai, Prince Makonnen, and Prince Sahle Selassie. There is some controversy as to the motherhood of Haile Selassie's eldest daughter, Princess Romanework. While the living members of the royal family state that Romanework is the eldest daughter of Empress Menen,[174] it has been asserted that Princess Romanework is actually the daughter of a previous union of the emperor with a Woizero Altayech.[175] This may be a nickname she used, as nobleman Blata Merse Hazen Wolde Kirkos, a contemporary source prominent in both the Imperial Court and the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church names her as Woizero Woinetu Amede. The emperor's own autobiography makes no mention of this previous marriage or having fathered children with anyone other than Empress Menen, although he mentions the death of this daughter in captivity at Turin. Other sources such as Blata Merse Hazen Wolde Kirkos mentions Princess Romanework's mother Woizero Woinetu Amede as attending the wedding of her daughter to Dejazmatch Beyene Merid in a firsthand account in his book about the years before the Italian occupation. Prince Asfaw Wossen was first married to Princess Wolete Israel Seyoum and then following their divorce to Princess Medferiashwork Abebe. Prince Makonnen was married to Princess Sara Gizaw. Prince Sahle Selassie was married to Princess Mahisente Habte Mariam. Princess Romanework married Dejazmatch Beyene Merid. Princess Tenagnework first married Ras Desta Damtew, and after she was widowed later married Ras Andargachew Messai. Princess Zenebework married Dejazmatch Haile Selassie Gugsa. Princess Tsehai married Lt. General Abiye Abebe. A public rift between some of the descendants ensued when the late Emperor's Patek Philippe watch came up for auction in 2017. In the end it was sold for $2.9 million by leading international auction house Christie's.[176] Rastafari messiah …Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God. — Psalms 68:31 Today, Haile Selassie is worshipped as God incarnate[177] among some followers of the Rastafari movement (taken from Haile Selassie's pre-imperial name Ras—meaning Head, a title looking equivalent to Duke—Tafari Makonnen), which emerged in Jamaica during the 1930s under the influence of Leonard Howell, a follower of Marcus Garvey's "African Redemption" movement. He is viewed as the messiah who will lead the peoples of Africa and the African diaspora to freedom.[178] His official titles are Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah and King of Kings of Ethiopia and Elect of God, and his traditional lineage is thought to be from Solomon and Sheba.[179] These notions are perceived by Rastafari as confirmation of the return of the messiah in the prophetic Book of Revelation in the New Testament: King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah, and Root of David. Rastafari faith in the incarnate divinity of Haile Selassie[180] began after news reports of his coronation reached Jamaica,[181] particularly via the two Time magazine articles on the coronation the week before and the week after the event. Haile Selassie's own perspectives permeate the philosophy of the movement.[181][182] In 1961, the Jamaican government sent a delegation composed of both Rastafari and non-Rastafari leaders to Ethiopia to discuss the matter of repatriation, among other issues, with the emperor. He reportedly told the Rastafari delegation (which included Mortimer Planno), "Tell the Brethren to be not dismayed, I personally will give my assistance in the matter of repatriation."[183] Haile Selassie visited Jamaica on 21 April 1966, and approximately one hundred thousand Rastafari from all over Jamaica descended on Palisadoes Airport in Kingston to greet him.[181] Spliffs[184] and chalices[185] were openly[186] smoked, causing "a haze of ganja smoke" to drift through the air.[187][188][189] Haile Selassie arrived at the airport but was unable to come down the mobile steps of the airplane, as the crowd rushed the tarmac. He then returned into the plane, disappearing for several more minutes. Finally, Jamaican authorities were obliged to request Ras Mortimer Planno, a well-known Rasta leader, to climb the steps, enter the plane, and negotiate the emperor's descent.[190] Planno re-emerged and announced to the crowd: "The Emperor has instructed me to tell you to be calm. Step back and let the Emperor land".[191] This day is widely held by scholars to be a major turning point for the movement,[192][193][194] and it is still commemorated by Rastafari as Grounation Day, the anniversary of which is celebrated as the second holiest holiday after 2 November, the emperor's Coronation Day. From then on, as a result of Planno's actions, the Jamaican authorities were asked to ensure that Rastafari representatives were present at all state functions attended by the emperor,[193][194] and Rastafari elders also ensured that they obtained a private audience with the emperor,[193] where he reportedly told them that they should not emigrate to Ethiopia until they had first liberated the people of Jamaica. This dictum came to be known as "liberation before repatriation". Haile Selassie defied expectations of the Jamaican authorities[195] and never rebuked the Rastafari for their belief in him as the returned Jesus. Instead, he presented the movement's faithful elders with gold medallions—the only recipients of such an honor on this visit.[196][197] During PNP leader (later Jamaican Prime Minister) Michael Manley's visit to Ethiopia in October 1969, the emperor allegedly still recalled his 1966 reception with amazement, and stated that he felt that he had to be respectful of their beliefs.[198] This was the visit when Manley received the Rod of Correction or Rod of Joshua as a present from the emperor, which is thought to have helped him to win the 1972 election in Jamaica. Rita Marley, Bob Marley's wife, converted to the Rastafari faith after seeing Haile Selassie on his Jamaican trip. She claimed in interviews (and in her book No Woman, No Cry) that she saw a stigmata print on the palm of Haile Selassie's hand as he waved to the crowd which resembled the markings on Christ's hands from being nailed to the cross—a claim that was not supported by other sources, but was used as evidence for her and other Rastafari to suggest that Haile Selassie I was indeed their messiah.[199] She was also influential in the conversion of Bob Marley, who then became internationally recognized. As a result, Rastafari became much better known throughout much of the world.[200] Bob Marley's posthumously released song "Iron Lion Zion" refers to Haile Selassie. Selassie's position In a 1967 recorded interview with the CBC, Haile Selassie appeared to deny his alleged divinity. In the interview Bill McNeil says: "there are millions of Christians throughout the world, your Imperial Majesty, who regard you as the reincarnation of Jesus Christ." Selassie replied in his native language: I have heard of that idea. I also met certain Rastafarians. I told them clearly that I am a man, that I am mortal, and that I will be replaced by the oncoming generation, and that they should never make a mistake in assuming or pretending that a human being is emanated from a deity.[201] For many Rastafari the CBC interview is not interpreted as a denial of his divinity, and according to Robert Earl Hood, Haile Selassie neither denied nor affirmed his divinity either way.[202] In Reggae Routes: The Story of Jamaican Music, Kevin Chang and Wayne Chen note: It's often said, though no definite date is ever cited, that Haile Selassie himself denied his divinity. Former senator and Gleaner editor, Hector Wynter, tells of asking him, during his visit to Jamaica in 1966, when he was going to tell Rastafari he was not God. "Who am I to disturb their belief?" replied the emperor.[195] After his return to Ethiopia, he dispatched Archbishop Abuna Yesehaq Mandefro to the Caribbean to help draw Rastafari and other West Indians to the Ethiopian church and, according to some sources, denied his divinity.[203][204][205][206] In 1948, Haile Selassie donated a piece of land at Shashamane, 250 kilometres (160 mi) south of Addis Ababa, for the use of people of African descent from the West Indies. Numerous Rastafari families settled there and still live as a community to this day.[207] Titles and styles Main article: List of titles and honours of Haile Selassie 23 July 1892 – 1 November 1905: Lij Tafari Makonnen 1 November 1905 – 8 September 1911: Dejazmach Tafari Makonnen 8 September 1911 – 7 October 1928: Ras Tafari Makonnen 7 October 1928 – 2 November 1930: Negus Tafari Makonnen 2 November 1930 – 12 September 1974: His Imperial Majesty the King of Kings of Ethiopia, Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah, Elect of God. National orders ETH Order of the Star of Ethiopia - Grand Cross BAR.png Chief Commander of the Order of the Star of Ethiopia (1909)[208] ETH Order of Solomon BAR.png Grand Cordon of the Order of Solomon (1930)[209] ETH Order of Solomon BAR.png Grand Collar of the Order of the Seal of Solomon[208] Order of The Queen of Sheba (Ethiopia) ribbon.gif Grand Cordon of the Order of the Queen of Sheba[208] Order of the Holy Trinity (Ethiopia) - ribbon bar.gif Grand Cordon of the Order of the Holy Trinity (Ethiopia)[208] ETH Order of Menelik II - Grand Cross BAR.png Grand Cordon of the Order of Menelik II[208] ' Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr.; January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an African American minister and activist who became the most visible spokesperson and leader in the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968. King is best known for advancing civil rights through nonviolence and civil disobedience, inspired by his Christian beliefs and the nonviolent activism of Mahatma Gandhi. King led the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott and later became the first president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). As president of the SCLC, he then led an unsuccessful 1962 struggle against segregation in Albany, Georgia, and helped organize the nonviolent 1963 protests in Birmingham, Alabama. He helped organize the 1963 March on Washington, where he delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. On October 14, 1964, King won the Nobel Peace Prize for combating racial inequality through nonviolent resistance. In 1965, he helped organize the Selma to Montgomery marches. In his final years, he expanded his focus to include opposition towards poverty, capitalism, and the Vietnam War. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover considered him a radical and made him an object of the FBI's COINTELPRO from 1963 on. FBI agents investigated him for possible communist ties, recorded his extramarital liaisons and reported on them to government officials, and, in 1964, mailed King a threatening anonymous letter, which he interpreted as an attempt to make him commit suicide.[1] King was planning a national occupation of Washington, D.C., to be called the Poor People's Campaign, when he was assassinated on April 4 in Memphis, Tennessee. His death was followed by riots in many U.S. cities. Allegations that James Earl Ray, the man convicted of killing King, had been framed or acted in concert with government agents persisted for decades after the shooting. King was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal. Martin Luther King Jr. Day was established as a holiday in cities and states throughout the United States beginning in 1971; the holiday was enacted at the federal level by legislation signed by President Ronald Reagan in 1986. Hundreds of streets in the U.S. have been renamed in his honor, and a county in Washington was rededicated for him. The Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., was dedicated in 2011. Contents 1 Early life and education 1.1 Birth 1.2 Early childhood 1.3 Adolescence 1.4 Morehouse College 2 Religious education, ministry, marriage and family 2.1 Crozer Theological Seminary 2.2 Boston University 2.3 Marriage and family 3 Montgomery bus boycott, 1955 4 Southern Christian Leadership Conference 4.1 Albany Movement, 1961 4.2 Birmingham campaign, 1963 4.3 St. Augustine, Florida, 1964 4.4 Selma, Alabama, 1964 4.5 New York City, 1964 5 March on Washington, 1963 5.1 I Have a Dream 6 Selma voting rights movement and "Bloody Sunday", 1965 7 Chicago open housing movement, 1966 8 Opposition to the Vietnam War 8.1 Correspondence with Thích Nhất Hạnh 9 Poor People's Campaign, 1968 9.1 After King's death 10 Assassination and aftermath 10.1 Aftermath 10.2 Allegations of conspiracy 11 Legacy 11.1 South Africa 11.2 United Kingdom 11.3 United States 11.3.1 Martin Luther King Jr. Day 12 Ideas, influences, and political stances 12.1 Christianity 12.2 Nonviolence 12.3 Activism and involvement with Native Americans 12.4 Politics 12.5 Compensation 12.6 Family planning 12.7 Television 13 State surveillance and coercion 13.1 FBI surveillance and wiretapping 13.2 NSA monitoring of King's communications 13.3 Allegations of communism 13.4 CIA surveillance 13.5 Adultery 13.6 Police observation during the assassination 14 Awards and recognition 14.1 Five-dollar bill 15 Works 16 See also 17 References 17.1 Notes 17.2 Citations 17.3 Sources 17.4 Further reading 18 External links Early life and education Birth King was born Michael King Jr. on January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia, the second of three children to the Reverend Michael King Sr. and Alberta King (née Williams).[2][3][4] King's mother named him Michael, which was entered onto the birth certificate by the attending physician.[5] King Sr. stated that "Michael" was a mistake by the physician.[6] King's older sister is Christine King Farris and his younger brother was A.D. King.[7] King's maternal grandfather Adam Daniel Williams,[8] who was a minister in rural Georgia, moved to Atlanta in 1893,[4] and became pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in the following year.[9] Williams was of African-Irish descent.[10][11][12] Williams married Jennie Celeste Parks, who gave birth to King's mother, Alberta.[4] King's father was born to sharecroppers, James Albert and Delia King of Stockbridge, Georgia.[3][4] In his adolescent years, King Sr. left his parents' farm and walked to Atlanta where he attained a high school education.[13][14][15] King Sr. then enrolled in Morehouse College and studied to enter the ministry.[15] King Sr. and Alberta began dating in 1920, and married on November 25, 1926.[16][17] Until Jennie's death in 1941, they lived together on the second floor of her parent's two story Victorian house, where King was born.[5][17][18][16] Shortly after marrying Alberta, King Sr. became assistant pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church.[17] Adam Daniel Williams died of a stroke in the spring of 1931.[17] That fall, King's father took over the role of pastor at the church, where he would in time raise the attendance from six hundred to several thousand.[17][4] In 1934, the church sent King Sr. on a multinational trip to Rome, Tunisia, Egypt, Jerusalem, Bethlehem, then Berlin for the meeting of the Baptist World Alliance (BWA).[19] The trip ended with visits to sites in Berlin associated with the Protestant reformation leader, Martin Luther.[19] While there, Michael King Sr. witnessed the rise of Nazism.[19] In reaction, the BWA conference issued a resolution which stated, "This Congress deplores and condemns as a violation of the law of God the Heavenly Father, all racial animosity, and every form of oppression or unfair discrimination toward the Jews, toward coloured people, or toward subject races in any part of the world."[20] He returned home in August 1934, and in that same year began referring to himself as Martin Luther King Sr., and his son as Martin Luther King Jr.[19][21][16] King's birth certificate was altered to read "Martin Luther King Jr." on July 23, 1957, when he was 28 years old.[22][19][20] Early childhood At his childhood home, King and his two siblings would read aloud Biblical scripture as instructed by their father.[23] After dinners there, King's grandmother Jennie, who he affectionately referred to as "Mama", would tell lively stories from the Bible to her grandchildren.[23] King's father would regularly use whippings to discipline his children.[24] At times, King Sr. would also have his children whip each other.[24] King's father later remarked, "[King] was the most peculiar child whenever you whipped him. He'd stand there, and the tears would run down, and he'd never cry."[25] Once when King witnessed his brother A.D. emotionally upset his sister Christine, he took a telephone and knocked out A.D. with it.[24][26] When he and his brother were playing at their home, A.D. slid from a banister and hit into their grandmother, Jennie, causing her to fall down unresponsive.[27][26] King, believing her dead, blamed himself and attempted suicide by jumping from a second-story window.[28][26] Upon hearing that his grandmother was alive, King rose and left the ground where he had fallen.[28] King became friends with a white boy whose father owned a business across the street from his family's home.[29] In September 1935, when the boys were about six years old, they started school.[29][30] King had to attend a school for black children, Younge Street Elementary School,[29][31] while his close playmate went to a separate school for white children only.[29][31] Soon afterwards, the parents of the white boy stopped allowing King to play with their son, stating to him "we are white, and you are colored".[29][32] When King relayed the happenings to his parents, they had a long discussion with him about the history of slavery and racism in America.[29][33] Upon learning of the hatred, violence and oppression that black people had faced in the U.S., King would later state that he was "determined to hate every white person".[29] His parents instructed him that it was his Christian duty to love everyone.[33] King witnessed his father stand up against segregation and various forms of discrimination.[34] Once, when stopped by a police officer who referred to King Sr. as "boy", King's father responded sharply that King was a boy but he was a man.[34] When King's father took him into a shoe store in downtown Atlanta, the clerk told them they needed to sit in the back.[35] King's father refused, stating "we'll either buy shoes sitting here or we won't buy any shoes at all", before taking King and leaving the store.[14] He told King afterwards, "I don't care how long I have to live with this system, I will never accept it."[14] In 1936, King's father led hundreds of African-Americans in a civil rights march to the city hall in Atlanta, to protest voting rights discrimination.[24] King later remarked that King Sr. was "a real father" to him.[36] King memorized and sang hymns, and stated verses from the Bible, by the time he was five years old.[28] Over the next year, he began to go to church events with his mother and sing hymns while she played piano.[28] His favorite hymn to sing was "I Want to Be More and More Like Jesus"; he moved attendees with his singing.[28] King later became a member of the junior choir in his church.[37] King enjoyed opera, and played the piano.[38] As he grew up, King garnered a large vocabulary from reading dictionaries and consistently used his expanding lexicon.[26] He got into physical altercations with boys in his neighborhood, but oftentimes used his knowledge of words to stymie fights.[26][38] King showed a lack of interest in grammar and spelling, a trait which he carried throughout his life.[38] In 1939, King sang as a member of his church choir in slave costume, for the all-white audience at the Atlanta premiere of the film Gone with the Wind.[39][40] On May 18, 1941, when King had snuck away from studying at home to watch a parade, King was informed that something had happened to his maternal grandmother.[36] Upon returning home, he found out that she had suffered a heart attack and died while being transported to a hospital.[18] He took the death very hard, and believed that his deception of going to see the parade may have been responsible for God taking her.[18] King jumped out of a second-story window at his home, but again survived an attempt to kill himself.[18][25][26] His father instructed him in his bedroom that King shouldn't blame himself for her death, and that she had been called home to God as part of God's plan which could not be changed.[18][41] King struggled with this, and could not fully believe that his parents knew where his grandmother had gone.[18] Shortly thereafter, King's father decided to move the family to a two-story brick home on a hill that overlooked downtown Atlanta.[18] Adolescence The high school that King attended was named after African-American educator Booker T. Washington. In his adolescent years, he initially felt resentment against whites due to the "racial humiliation" that he, his family, and his neighbors often had to endure in the segregated South.[42] In 1942, when King was 13 years old, he became the youngest assistant manager of a newspaper delivery station for the Atlanta Journal.[43] That year, King skipped the ninth grade and was enrolled in Booker T. Washington High School.[41] The high school was the only one in the city for African American students.[17] It had been formed after local black leaders including King's grandfather (Williams), urged the city government of Atlanta to create it.[17] King became known for his public-speaking ability and was part of the school's debate team.[44] During his junior year, he won first prize in an oratorical contest sponsored by the Negro Elks Club in Dublin, Georgia. In his speech he stated, "black America still wears chains. The finest negro is at the mercy of the meanest white man."[45] On the ride home to Atlanta by bus, he and his teacher were ordered by the driver to stand so that white passengers could sit down. King initially refused but complied after his teacher told him that he would be breaking the law if he did not submit. During this incident, King said that he was "the angriest I have ever been in my life."[46] King was initially skeptical of many of Christianity's claims. At the age of 13, he denied the bodily resurrection of Jesus during Sunday school.[47] At this point, he stated, "doubts began to spring forth unrelentingly."[48][47] He concurrently found himself unable to identify with the emotional displays and gestures people would make at his church, and started to wonder if he would ever attain personal satisfaction from religion.[49] Morehouse College During King's junior year in high school, Morehouse College—a respected historically black college—announced that it would accept any high school juniors who could pass its entrance exam. At that time, many students had abandoned further studies to enlist in World War II. Due to this, Morehouse was eager to fill its classrooms. At the age of 15, King passed the exam and entered Morehouse. He played freshman football there. The summer before his last year at Morehouse, in 1947, the 18-year-old King chose to enter the ministry. Throughout his time in college, King studied under the mentorship of its president, Baptist minister Benjamin Mays, who he would later credit with being his "spiritual mentor."[50] King had concluded that the church offered the most assuring way to answer "an inner urge to serve humanity." His "inner urge" had begun developing, and he made peace with the Baptist Church, as he believed he would be a "rational" minister with sermons that were "a respectful force for ideas, even social protest."[51] King graduated from Morehouse with a bachelor of arts (BA) in sociology in 1948, aged nineteen.[52] Religious education, ministry, marriage and family Crozer Theological Seminary A large facade of a building King received a Bachelor of Divinity degree at Crozer Theological Seminary (pictured in 2009). King enrolled in Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania.[53][54] King's father fully supported his decision to continue his education and made arrangements for King to work with J. Pius Barbour, a family friend who pastored at Calvary Baptist Church in Chester.[55] King became known as one of the "Sons of Calvary", an honor he shared with William Augustus Jones Jr. and Samuel D. Proctor who both went on to become well-known preachers in the black church.[56] While attending Crozer, King was joined by Walter McCall, a former classmate at Morehouse.[57] At Crozer, King was elected president of the student body.[58] The African-American students of Crozer for the most part conducted their social activity on Edwards Street. King became fond of the street because a classmate had an aunt who prepared collard greens for them, which they both relished.[59] King once reproved another student for keeping beer in his room, saying they had shared responsibility as African Americans to bear "the burdens of the Negro race." For a time, he was interested in Walter Rauschenbusch's "social gospel."[58] In his third year at Crozer, King became romantically involved with the white daughter of an immigrant German woman who worked as a cook in the cafeteria. The woman had been involved with a professor prior to her relationship with King. King planned to marry her, but friends advised against it, saying that an interracial marriage would provoke animosity from both blacks and whites, potentially damaging his chances of ever pastoring a church in the South. King tearfully told a friend that he could not endure his mother's pain over the marriage and broke the relationship off six months later. He continued to have lingering feelings toward the woman he left; one friend was quoted as saying, "He never recovered."[58] King graduated with a B.Div. degree in 1951.[53] Boston University See also: Martin Luther King Jr. authorship issues In 1951, King began doctoral studies in systematic theology at Boston University.[60] While pursuing doctoral studies, King worked as an assistant minister at Boston's historic Twelfth Baptist Church with Rev. William Hunter Hester. Hester was an old friend of King's father, and was an important influence on King.[61] In Boston, King befriended a small cadre of local ministers his age, and sometimes guest pastored at their churches, including the Reverend Michael Haynes, associate pastor at Twelfth Baptist Church in Roxbury (and younger brother of jazz drummer Roy Haynes). The young men often held bull sessions in their various apartments, discussing theology, sermon style, and social issues. King attended philosophy classes at Harvard University as an audit student in 1952 and 1953.[62] At the age of 25 in 1954, King was called as pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama.[63] King received his Ph.D. degree on June 5, 1955, with a dissertation (initially supervised by Edgar S. Brightman and, upon the latter's death, by Lotan Harold DeWolf) titled A Comparison of the Conceptions of God in the Thinking of Paul Tillich and Henry Nelson Wieman.[64][60] An academic inquiry in October 1991 concluded that portions of his doctoral dissertation had been plagiarized and he had acted improperly. However, "[d]espite its finding, the committee said that 'no thought should be given to the revocation of Dr. King's doctoral degree,' an action that the panel said would serve no purpose."[6][60][65] The committee found that the dissertation still "makes an intelligent contribution to scholarship." A letter is now attached to the copy of King's dissertation held in the university library, noting that numerous passages were included without the appropriate quotations and citations of sources.[66] Significant debate exists on how to interpret King's plagiarism.[67] Marriage and family While studying at Boston University, he asked a friend from Atlanta named Mary Powell, who was a student at the New England Conservatory of Music, if she knew any nice Southern girls. Powell asked fellow student Coretta Scott if she was interested in meeting a Southern friend studying divinity. Scott was not interested in dating preachers, but eventually agreed to allow Martin to telephone her based on Powell's description and vouching. On their first phone call, King told Scott "I am like Napoleon at Waterloo before your charms," to which she replied "You haven't even met me." They went out for dates in his green Chevy. After the second date, King was certain Scott possessed the qualities he sought in a wife. She had been an activist at Antioch in undergrad, where Carol and Rod Serling were schoolmates. King married Coretta Scott on June 18, 1953, on the lawn of her parents' house in her hometown of Heiberger, Alabama.[68] They became the parents of four children: Yolanda King (1955–2007), Martin Luther King III (b. 1957), Dexter Scott King (b. 1961), and Bernice King (b. 1963).[69] During their marriage, King limited Coretta's role in the civil rights movement, expecting her to be a housewife and mother.[70] Montgomery bus boycott, 1955 Main articles: Montgomery bus boycott and Jim Crow laws § Public arena Rosa Parks with King, 1955 In March 1955, Claudette Colvin—a fifteen-year-old black schoolgirl in Montgomery—refused to give up her bus seat to a white man in violation of Jim Crow laws, local laws in the Southern United States that enforced racial segregation. King was on the committee from the Birmingham African-American community that looked into the case; E. D. Nixon and Clifford Durr decided to wait for a better case to pursue because the incident involved a minor.[71] Nine months later on December 1, 1955, a similar incident occurred when Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a city bus.[72] The two incidents led to the Montgomery bus boycott, which was urged and planned by Nixon and led by King.[73] The boycott lasted for 385 days,[74] and the situation became so tense that King's house was bombed.[75] King was arrested during this campaign, which concluded with a United States District Court ruling in Browder v. Gayle that ended racial segregation on all Montgomery public buses.[76][77] King's role in the bus boycott transformed him into a national figure and the best-known spokesman of the civil rights movement.[78] Southern Christian Leadership Conference In 1957, King, Ralph Abernathy, Fred Shuttlesworth, Joseph Lowery, and other civil rights activists founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). The group was created to harness the moral authority and organizing power of black churches to conduct nonviolent protests in the service of civil rights reform. The group was inspired by the crusades of evangelist Billy Graham, who befriended King,[79] as well as the national organizing of the group In Friendship, founded by King allies Stanley Levison and Ella Baker.[80] King led the SCLC until his death.[81] The SCLC's 1957 Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom was the first time King addressed a national audience.[82] Other civil rights leaders involved in the SCLC with King included: James Bevel, Allen Johnson, Curtis W. Harris, Walter E. Fauntroy, C. T. Vivian, Andrew Young, The Freedom Singers, Cleveland Robinson, Randolph Blackwell, Annie Bell Robinson Devine, Charles Kenzie Steele, Alfred Daniel Williams King, Benjamin Hooks, Aaron Henry and Bayard Rustin.[83] On September 20, 1958, King was signing copies of his book Stride Toward Freedom in Blumstein's department store in Harlem[84] when he narrowly escaped death. Izola Curry—a mentally ill black woman who thought that King was conspiring against her with communists—stabbed him in the chest with a letter opener. King underwent emergency surgery with three doctors: Aubre de Lambert Maynard, Emil Naclerio and John W. V. Cordice; he remained hospitalized for several weeks. Curry was later found mentally incompetent to stand trial.[85][86] In 1959, King published a short book called The Measure of A Man, which contained his sermons "What is Man?" and "The Dimensions of a Complete Life." The sermons argued for man's need for God's love and criticized the racial injustices of Western civilization.[87] Harry Wachtel joined King's legal advisor Clarence B. Jones in defending four ministers of the SCLC in the libel case New York Times Co. v. Sullivan; the case was litigated in reference to the newspaper advertisement "Heed Their Rising Voices". Wachtel founded a tax-exempt fund to cover the expenses of the suit and to assist the nonviolent civil rights movement through a more effective means of fundraising. This organization was named the "Gandhi Society for Human Rights." King served as honorary president for the group. He was displeased with the pace that President Kennedy was using to address the issue of segregation. In 1962, King and the Gandhi Society produced a document that called on the President to follow in the footsteps of Abraham Lincoln and issue an executive order to deliver a blow for civil rights as a kind of Second Emancipation Proclamation. Kennedy did not execute the order.[88] Lyndon B. Johnson and Robert F. Kennedy with King, Benjamin Mays, and other civil rights leaders, June 22, 1963 The FBI was under written directive from Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy when it began tapping King's telephone line in the fall of 1963.[89] Kennedy was concerned that public allegations of communists in the SCLC would derail the administration's civil rights initiatives. He warned King to discontinue these associations and later felt compelled to issue the written directive that authorized the FBI to wiretap King and other SCLC leaders.[90] FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover feared the civil rights movement and investigated the allegations of communist infiltration. When no evidence emerged to support this, the FBI used the incidental details caught on tape over the next five years in attempts to force King out of his leadership position in the COINTELPRO program.[1] King believed that organized, nonviolent protest against the system of southern segregation known as Jim Crow laws would lead to extensive media coverage of the struggle for black equality and voting rights. Journalistic accounts and televised footage of the daily deprivation and indignities suffered by Southern blacks, and of segregationist violence and harassment of civil rights workers and marchers, produced a wave of sympathetic public opinion that convinced the majority of Americans that the civil rights movement was the most important issue in American politics in the early 1960s.[91][92] King organized and led marches for blacks' right to vote, desegregation, labor rights, and other basic civil rights.[77] Most of these rights were successfully enacted into the law of the United States with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the 1965 Voting Rights Act.[93][94] King and the SCLC put into practice many of the principles of the Christian Left and applied the tactics of nonviolent protest with great success by strategically choosing the method of protest and the places in which protests were carried out. There were often dramatic stand-offs with segregationist authorities, who sometimes turned violent.[95] King was criticized by other black leaders during the course of his participation in the civil rights movement. This included opposition by more militant blacks such as Nation of Islam member Malcolm X.[96] Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee founder Ella Baker regarded King as a charismatic media figure who lost touch with the grassroots of the movement[97] as he became close to elite figures like Nelson Rockefeller.[98] Stokely Carmichael, a protege of Baker's, became a black separatist and disagreed with King's plea for racial integration because he considered it an insult to a uniquely African-American culture.[99][100] Albany Movement, 1961 Main article: Albany Movement The Albany Movement was a desegregation coalition formed in Albany, Georgia, in November 1961. In December, King and the SCLC became involved. The movement mobilized thousands of citizens for a broad-front nonviolent attack on every aspect of segregation within the city and attracted nationwide attention. When King first visited on December 15, 1961, he "had planned to stay a day or so and return home after giving counsel."[101] The following day he was swept up in a mass arrest of peaceful demonstrators, and he declined bail until the city made concessions. According to King, "that agreement was dishonored and violated by the city" after he left town.[101] King returned in July 1962 and was given the option of forty-five days in jail or a $178 fine (equivalent to $1,500 in 2019); he chose jail. Three days into his sentence, Police Chief Laurie Pritchett discreetly arranged for King's fine to be paid and ordered his release. "We had witnessed persons being kicked off lunch counter stools ... ejected from churches ... and thrown into jail ... But for the first time, we witnessed being kicked out of jail."[102] It was later acknowledged by the King Center that Billy Graham was the one who bailed King out of jail during this time.[103] After nearly a year of intense activism with few tangible results, the movement began to deteriorate. King requested a halt to all demonstrations and a "Day of Penance" to promote nonviolence and maintain the moral high ground. Divisions within the black community and the canny, low-key response by local government defeated efforts.[104] Though the Albany effort proved a key lesson in tactics for King and the national civil rights movement,[105] the national media was highly critical of King's role in the defeat, and the SCLC's lack of results contributed to a growing gulf between the organization and the more radical SNCC. After Albany, King sought to choose engagements for the SCLC in which he could control the circumstances, rather than entering into pre-existing situations.[106] Birmingham campaign, 1963 Main article: Birmingham campaign King was arrested in 1963 for protesting the treatment of blacks in Birmingham. In April 1963, the SCLC began a campaign against racial segregation and economic injustice in Birmingham, Alabama. The campaign used nonviolent but intentionally confrontational tactics, developed in part by Rev. Wyatt Tee Walker. Black people in Birmingham, organizing with the SCLC, occupied public spaces with marches and sit-ins, openly violating laws that they considered unjust. King's intent was to provoke mass arrests and "create a situation so crisis-packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation."[107] The campaign's early volunteers did not succeed in shutting down the city, or in drawing media attention to the police's actions. Over the concerns of an uncertain King, SCLC strategist James Bevel changed the course of the campaign by recruiting children and young adults to join in the demonstrations.[108] Newsweek called this strategy a Children's Crusade.[109][110] During the protests, the Birmingham Police Department, led by Eugene "Bull" Connor, used high-pressure water jets and police dogs against protesters, including children. Footage of the police response was broadcast on national television news and dominated the nation's attention, shocking many white Americans and consolidating black Americans behind the movement.[111] Not all of the demonstrators were peaceful, despite the avowed intentions of the SCLC. In some cases, bystanders attacked the police, who responded with force. King and the SCLC were criticized for putting children in harm's way. But the campaign was a success: Connor lost his job, the "Jim Crow" signs came down, and public places became more open to blacks. King's reputation improved immensely.[109] King was arrested and jailed early in the campaign—his 13th arrest[112] out of 29.[113] From his cell, he composed the now-famous Letter from Birmingham Jail that responds to calls on the movement to pursue legal channels for social change. King argues that the crisis of racism is too urgent, and the current system too entrenched: "We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed."[114] He points out that the Boston Tea Party, a celebrated act of rebellion in the American colonies, was illegal civil disobedience, and that, conversely, "everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was 'legal'."[114] Walter Reuther, president of the United Auto Workers, arranged for $160,000 to bail out King and his fellow protestors.[115] "I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." —Martin Luther King Jr.[114] File:Bezoek ds Martin Luther King-selectionclip.ogv Martin Luther King Jr. speaking in an interview in the Netherlands, 1964 St. Augustine, Florida, 1964 Main article: St. Augustine movement In March 1964, King and the SCLC joined forces with Robert Hayling's then-controversial movement in St. Augustine, Florida. Hayling's group had been affiliated with the NAACP but was forced out of the organization for advocating armed self-defense alongside nonviolent tactics. However, the pacifist SCLC accepted them.[116][117] King and the SCLC worked to bring white Northern activists to St. Augustine, including a delegation of rabbis and the 72-year-old mother of the governor of Massachusetts, all of whom were arrested.[118][119] During June, the movement marched nightly through the city, "often facing counter demonstrations by the Klan, and provoking violence that garnered national media attention." Hundreds of the marchers were arrested and jailed. During the course of this movement, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed.[120] Selma, Alabama, 1964 Main article: Selma to Montgomery marches In December 1964, King and the SCLC joined forces with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in Selma, Alabama, where the SNCC had been working on voter registration for several months.[121] A local judge issued an injunction that barred any gathering of three or more people affiliated with the SNCC, SCLC, DCVL, or any of 41 named civil rights leaders. This injunction temporarily halted civil rights activity until King defied it by speaking at Brown Chapel on January 2, 1965.[122] During the 1965 march to Montgomery, Alabama, violence by state police and others against the peaceful marchers resulted in much publicity, which made Alabama's racism visible nationwide. New York City, 1964 On February 6, 1964, King delivered the inaugural speech of a lecture series initiated at the New School called "The American Race Crisis." No audio record of his speech has been found, but in August 2013, almost 50 years later, the school discovered an audiotape with 15 minutes of a question-and-answer session that followed King's address. In these remarks, King referred to a conversation he had recently had with Jawaharlal Nehru in which he compared the sad condition of many African Americans to that of India's untouchables.[123] March on Washington, 1963 Main article: March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom Leaders of the March on Washington posing in front of the Lincoln Memorial The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom (1963) King, representing the SCLC, was among the leaders of the "Big Six" civil rights organizations who were instrumental in the organization of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, which took place on August 28, 1963. The other leaders and organizations comprising the Big Six were Roy Wilkins from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People; Whitney Young, National Urban League; A. Philip Randolph, Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters; John Lewis, SNCC; and James L. Farmer Jr., of the Congress of Racial Equality.[124] Bayard Rustin's open homosexuality, support of democratic socialism, and his former ties to the Communist Party USA caused many white and African-American leaders to demand King distance himself from Rustin,[125] which King agreed to do.[126] However, he did collaborate in the 1963 March on Washington, for which Rustin was the primary logistical and strategic organizer.[127][128] For King, this role was another which courted controversy, since he was one of the key figures who acceded to the wishes of United States President John F. Kennedy in changing the focus of the march.[129][130] Kennedy initially opposed the march outright, because he was concerned it would negatively impact the drive for passage of civil rights legislation. However, the organizers were firm that the march would proceed.[131] With the march going forward, the Kennedys decided it was important to work to ensure its success. President Kennedy was concerned the turnout would be less than 100,000. Therefore, he enlisted the aid of additional church leaders and Walter Reuther, president of the United Automobile Workers, to help mobilize demonstrators for the cause.[132] File:The March (1964 film).webm The March, a documentary film produced by the United States Information Agency. King's speech has been redacted from this video because of the copyright held by King's estate. The march originally was conceived as an event to dramatize the desperate condition of blacks in the southern U.S. and an opportunity to place organizers' concerns and grievances squarely before the seat of power in the nation's capital. Organizers intended to denounce the federal government for its failure to safeguard the civil rights and physical safety of civil rights workers and blacks. The group acquiesced to presidential pressure and influence, and the event ultimately took on a far less strident tone.[133] As a result, some civil rights activists felt it presented an inaccurate, sanitized pageant of racial harmony; Malcolm X called it the "Farce on Washington", and the Nation of Islam forbade its members from attending the march.[133][134] King gave his most famous speech, "I Have a Dream", before the Lincoln Memorial during the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. I Have a Dream MENU0:00 30-second sample from "I Have a Dream" speech by Martin Luther King Jr. at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on August 28, 1963 Problems playing this file? See media help. The march made specific demands: an end to racial segregation in public schools; meaningful civil rights legislation, including a law prohibiting racial discrimination in employment; protection of civil rights workers from police brutality; a $2 minimum wage for all workers (equivalent to $17 in 2019); and self-government for Washington, D.C., then governed by congressional committee.[135][136][137] Despite tensions, the march was a resounding success.[138] More than a quarter of a million people of diverse ethnicities attended the event, sprawling from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial onto the National Mall and around the reflecting pool. At the time, it was the largest gathering of protesters in Washington, D.C.'s history.[138] I Have a Dream Main article: I Have a Dream King delivered a 17-minute speech, later known as "I Have a Dream". In the speech's most famous passage – in which he departed from his prepared text, possibly at the prompting of Mahalia Jackson, who shouted behind him, "Tell them about the dream!"[139][140] – King said:[141] I say to you today, my friends, so even 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.' I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today. I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers. I have a dream today. "I Have a Dream" came to be regarded as one of the finest speeches in the history of American oratory.[142] The March, and especially King's speech, helped put civil rights at the top of the agenda of reformers in the United States and facilitated passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.[143][144] The original typewritten copy of the speech, including King's handwritten notes on it, was discovered in 1984 to be in the hands of George Raveling, the first African-American basketball coach of the University of Iowa. In 1963, Raveling, then 26 years old, was standing near the podium, and immediately after the oration, impulsively asked King if he could have his copy of the speech. He got it.[145] Selma voting rights movement and "Bloody Sunday", 1965 Main article: Selma to Montgomery marches The civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, in 1965 Acting on James Bevel's call for a march from Selma to Montgomery, King, Bevel, and the SCLC, in partial collaboration with SNCC, attempted to organize the march to the state's capital. The first attempt to march on March 7, 1965, was aborted because of mob and police violence against the demonstrators. This day has become known as Bloody Sunday and was a major turning point in the effort to gain public support for the civil rights movement. It was the clearest demonstration up to that time of the dramatic potential of King's nonviolence strategy. King, however, was not present.[48] On March 5, King met with officials in the Johnson Administration in order to request an injunction against any prosecution of the demonstrators. He did not attend the march due to church duties, but he later wrote, "If I had any idea that the state troopers would use the kind of brutality they did, I would have felt compelled to give up my church duties altogether to lead the line."[146] Footage of police brutality against the protesters was broadcast extensively and aroused national public outrage.[147] King next attempted to organize a march for March 9. The SCLC petitioned for an injunction in federal court against the State of Alabama; this was denied and the judge issued an order blocking the march until after a hearing. Nonetheless, King led marchers on March 9 to the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, then held a short prayer session before turning the marchers around and asking them to disperse so as not to violate the court order. The unexpected ending of this second march aroused the surprise and anger of many within the local movement.[148] The march finally went ahead fully on March 25, 1965.[149][150] At the conclusion of the march on the steps of the state capitol, King delivered a speech that became known as "How Long, Not Long." In it, King stated that equal rights for African Americans could not be far away, "because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice" and "you shall reap what you sow".[a][151][152][153] Chicago open housing movement, 1966 Main article: Chicago Freedom Movement King stands behind President Johnson as he signs the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In 1966, after several successes in the south, King, Bevel, and others in the civil rights organizations took the movement to the North, with Chicago as their first destination. King and Ralph Abernathy, both from the middle class, moved into a building at 1550 S. Hamlin Avenue, in the slums of North Lawndale[154] on Chicago's West Side, as an educational experience and to demonstrate their support and empathy for the poor.[155] The SCLC formed a coalition with CCCO, Coordinating Council of Community Organizations, an organization founded by Albert Raby, and the combined organizations' efforts were fostered under the aegis of the Chicago Freedom Movement.[156] During that spring, several white couple/black couple tests of real estate offices uncovered racial steering: discriminatory processing of housing requests by couples who were exact matches in income, background, number of children, and other attributes.[157] Several larger marches were planned and executed: in Bogan, Belmont Cragin, Jefferson Park, Evergreen Park (a suburb southwest of Chicago), Gage Park, Marquette Park, and others.[156][158][159] President Lyndon B. Johnson meeting with King in the White House Cabinet Room, 1966 King later stated and Abernathy wrote that the movement received a worse reception in Chicago than in the South. Marches, especially the one through Marquette Park on August 5, 1966, were met by thrown bottles and screaming throngs. Rioting seemed very possible.[160][161] King's beliefs militated against his staging a violent event, and he negotiated an agreement with Mayor Richard J. Daley to cancel a march in order to avoid the violence that he feared would result.[162] King was hit by a brick during one march, but continued to lead marches in the face of personal danger.[163] When King and his allies returned to the South, they left Jesse Jackson, a seminary student who had previously joined the movement in the South, in charge of their organization.[164] Jackson continued their struggle for civil rights by organizing the Operation Breadbasket movement that targeted chain stores that did not deal fairly with blacks.[165] A 1967 CIA document declassified in 2017 downplayed King's role in the "black militant situation" in Chicago, with a source stating that King "sought at least constructive, positive projects."[166] Opposition to the Vietnam War The black revolution is much more than a struggle for the rights of Negroes. It is forcing America to face all its interrelated flaws—racism, poverty, militarism, and materialism. It is exposing evils that are rooted deeply in the whole structure of our society. It reveals systemic rather than superficial flaws and suggests that radical reconstruction of society itself is the real issue to be faced —Martin Luther King Jr.[167] We must recognize that we can’t solve our problem now until there is a radical redistribution of economic and political power... this means a revolution of values and other things. We must see now that the evils of racism, economic exploitation and militarism are all tied together… you can’t really get rid of one without getting rid of the others… the whole structure of American life must be changed. America is a hypocritical nation and [we] must put [our] own house in order. —Martin Luther King Jr.[168] See also: Opposition to United States involvement in the Vietnam War External audio  You can listen to the speech, "Why I Am Opposed to the War in Vietnam", by Martin Luther King here. King was long opposed to American involvement in the Vietnam War,[169] but at first avoided the topic in public speeches in order to avoid the interference with civil rights goals that criticism of President Johnson's policies might have created.[169] At the urging of SCLC's former Director of Direct Action and now the head of the Spring Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, James Bevel, and inspired by the outspokenness of Muhammad Ali,[170] King eventually agreed to publicly oppose the war as opposition was growing among the American public.[169] During an April 4, 1967, appearance at the New York City Riverside Church—exactly one year before his death—King delivered a speech titled "Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence."[171] He spoke strongly against the U.S.'s role in the war, arguing that the U.S. was in Vietnam "to occupy it as an American colony"[172] and calling the U.S. government "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today."[173] He connected the war with economic injustice, arguing that the country needed serious moral change: A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say: "This is not just."[174] King opposed the Vietnam War because it took money and resources that could have been spent on social welfare at home. The United States Congress was spending more and more on the military and less and less on anti-poverty programs at the same time. He summed up this aspect by saying, "A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death."[174] He stated that North Vietnam "did not begin to send in any large number of supplies or men until American forces had arrived in the tens of thousands",[175] and accused the U.S. of having killed a million Vietnamese, "mostly children."[176] King also criticized American opposition to North Vietnam's land reforms.[177] King's opposition cost him significant support among white allies, including President Johnson, Billy Graham,[178] union leaders and powerful publishers.[179] "The press is being stacked against me", King said,[180] complaining of what he described as a double standard that applauded his nonviolence at home, but deplored it when applied "toward little brown Vietnamese children."[181] Life magazine called the speech "demagogic slander that sounded like a script for Radio Hanoi",[174] and The Washington Post declared that King had "diminished his usefulness to his cause, his country, his people."[181][182] King speaking to an anti-Vietnam war rally at the University of Minnesota in St. Paul, April 27, 1967 The "Beyond Vietnam" speech reflected King's evolving political advocacy in his later years, which paralleled the teachings of the progressive Highlander Research and Education Center, with which he was affiliated.[183][184] King began to speak of the need for fundamental changes in the political and economic life of the nation, and more frequently expressed his opposition to the war and his desire to see a redistribution of resources to correct racial and economic injustice.[185] He guarded his language in public to avoid being linked to communism by his enemies, but in private he sometimes spoke of his support for democratic socialism.[186][187] In a 1952 letter to Coretta Scott, he said: "I imagine you already know that I am much more socialistic in my economic theory than capitalistic ..."[188] In one speech, he stated that "something is wrong with capitalism" and claimed, "There must be a better distribution of wealth, and maybe America must move toward a democratic socialism."[189] King had read Marx while at Morehouse, but while he rejected "traditional capitalism", he rejected communism because of its "materialistic interpretation of history" that denied religion, its "ethical relativism", and its "political totalitarianism."[190] King stated in "Beyond Vietnam" that "true compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar ... it comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring."[191] King quoted a United States official who said that from Vietnam to Latin America, the country was "on the wrong side of a world revolution."[191] King condemned America's "alliance with the landed gentry of Latin America", and said that the U.S. should support "the shirtless and barefoot people" in the Third World rather than suppressing their attempts at revolution.[191] King's stance on Vietnam encouraged Allard K. Lowenstein, William Sloane Coffin and Norman Thomas, with the support of anti-war Democrats, to attempt to persuade King to run against President Johnson in the 1968 United States presidential election. King contemplated but ultimately decided against the proposal on the grounds that he felt uneasy with politics and considered himself better suited for his morally unambiguous role as an activist.[192] On April 15, 1967, King participated and spoke at an anti-war march from Manhattan's Central Park to the United Nations. The march was organized by the Spring Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam and initiated by its chairman, James Bevel. At the U.N. King brought up issues of civil rights and the draft: I have not urged a mechanical fusion of the civil rights and peace movements. There are people who have come to see the moral imperative of equality, but who cannot yet see the moral imperative of world brotherhood. I would like to see the fervor of the civil-rights movement imbued into the peace movement to instill it with greater strength. And I believe everyone has a duty to be in both the civil-rights and peace movements. But for those who presently choose but one, I would hope they will finally come to see the moral roots common to both.[193] Seeing an opportunity to unite civil rights activists and anti-war activists,[170] Bevel convinced King to become even more active in the anti-war effort.[170] Despite his growing public opposition towards the Vietnam War, King was not fond of the hippie culture which developed from the anti-war movement.[194] In his 1967 Massey Lecture, King stated: The importance of the hippies is not in their unconventional behavior, but in the fact that hundreds of thousands of young people, in turning to a flight from reality, are expressing a profoundly discrediting view on the society they emerge from.[194] On January 13, 1968 (the day after President Johnson's State of the Union Address), King called for a large march on Washington against "one of history's most cruel and senseless wars."[195][196] We need to make clear in this political year, to congressmen on both sides of the aisle and to the president of the United States, that we will no longer tolerate, we will no longer vote for men who continue to see the killings of Vietnamese and Americans as the best way of advancing the goals of freedom and self-determination in Southeast Asia.[195][196] Correspondence with Thích Nhất Hạnh Thích Nhất Hạnh was an influential Vietnamese Buddhist who taught at Princeton University and Columbia University. He had written a letter to Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1965 entitled: "In Search of the Enemy of Man". It was during his 1966 stay in the US that Nhất Hạnh met with King and urged him to publicly denounce the Vietnam War.[197] In 1967, Dr. King gave a famous speech at the Riverside Church in New York City, his first to publicly question the U.S. involvement in Vietnam.[198] Later that year, Dr. King nominated Nhất Hạnh for the 1967 Nobel Peace Prize. In his nomination Dr. King said, "I do not personally know of anyone more worthy of [this prize] than this gentle monk from Vietnam. His ideas for peace, if applied, would build a monument to ecumenism, to world brotherhood, to humanity".[199] Poor People's Campaign, 1968 Main article: Poor People's Campaign Rows of tents A shantytown established in Washington, D. C. to protest economic conditions as a part of the Poor People's Campaign In 1968, King and the SCLC organized the "Poor People's Campaign" to address issues of economic justice. King traveled the country to assemble "a multiracial army of the poor" that would march on Washington to engage in nonviolent civil disobedience at the Capitol until Congress created an "economic bill of rights" for poor Americans.[200][201] The campaign was preceded by King's final book, Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? which laid out his view of how to address social issues and poverty. King quoted from Henry George and George's book, Progress and Poverty, particularly in support of a guaranteed basic income.[202][203][204] The campaign culminated in a march on Washington, D.C., demanding economic aid to the poorest communities of the United States. King and the SCLC called on the government to invest in rebuilding America's cities. He felt that Congress had shown "hostility to the poor" by spending "military funds with alacrity and generosity." He contrasted this with the situation faced by poor Americans, claiming that Congress had merely provided "poverty funds with miserliness."[201] His vision was for change that was more revolutionary than mere reform: he cited systematic flaws of "racism, poverty, militarism and materialism", and argued that "reconstruction of society itself is the real issue to be faced."[205] The Poor People's Campaign was controversial even within the civil rights movement. Rustin resigned from the march, stating that the goals of the campaign were too broad, that its demands were unrealizable, and that he thought that these campaigns would accelerate the backlash and repression on the poor and the black.[206] After King's death The plan to set up a shantytown in Washington, D.C., was carried out soon after the April 4 assassination. Criticism of King's plan was subdued in the wake of his death, and the SCLC received an unprecedented wave of donations for the purpose of carrying it out. The campaign officially began in Memphis, on May 2, at the hotel where King was murdered.[207] Thousands of demonstrators arrived on the National Mall and stayed for six weeks, establishing a camp they called "Resurrection City."[208] Assassination and aftermath Main article: Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. The Lorraine Motel, where King was assassinated, is now the site of the National Civil Rights Museum. I've Been to the Mountaintop MENU0:00 Final 30 seconds of "I've Been to the Mountaintop" speech by Martin Luther King Jr. Problems playing this file? See media help. On March 29, 1968, King went to Memphis, Tennessee, in support of the black sanitary public works employees, who were represented by AFSCME Local 1733. The workers had been on strike since March 12 for higher wages and better treatment. In one incident, black street repairmen received pay for two hours when they were sent home because of bad weather, but white employees were paid for the full day.[209][210][211] On April 3, King addressed a rally and delivered his "I've Been to the Mountaintop" address at Mason Temple, the world headquarters of the Church of God in Christ. King's flight to Memphis had been delayed by a bomb threat against his plane.[212] In the prophetic peroration of the last speech of his life, in reference to the bomb threat, King said the following: And then I got to Memphis. And some began to say the threats, or talk about the threats that were out. 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 doesn't matter 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. 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.[213] King was booked in Room 306 at the Lorraine Motel (owned by Walter Bailey) in Memphis. Ralph Abernathy, who was present at the assassination, testified to the United States House Select Committee on Assassinations that King and his entourage stayed at Room 306 so often that it was known as the "King-Abernathy suite."[214] According to Jesse Jackson, who was present, King's last words on the balcony before his assassination were spoken to musician Ben Branch, who was scheduled to perform that night at an event King was attending: "Ben, make sure you play 'Take My Hand, Precious Lord' in the meeting tonight. Play it real pretty."[215] King was fatally shot by James Earl Ray at 6:01 p.m., April 4, 1968, as he stood on the motel's second-floor balcony. The bullet entered through his right cheek, smashing his jaw, then traveled down his spinal cord before lodging in his shoulder.[216][217] Abernathy heard the shot from inside the motel room and ran to the balcony to find King on the floor.[218] Jackson stated after the shooting that he cradled King's head as King lay on the balcony, but this account was disputed by other colleagues of King; Jackson later changed his statement to say that he had "reached out" for King.[219] After emergency chest surgery, King died at St. Joseph's Hospital at 7:05 p.m.[220] According to biographer Taylor Branch, King's autopsy revealed that though only 39 years old, he "had the heart of a 60 year old", which Branch attributed to the stress of 13 years in the civil rights movement.[221] King is buried within Martin Luther King Jr. National Historical Park.[222] Aftermath Further information: King assassination riots Jackson standing onstage in a long white dress King's friend Mahalia Jackson (seen here in 1964) sang at his funeral. The assassination led to a nationwide wave of race riots in Washington, D.C., Chicago, Baltimore, Louisville, Kansas City, and dozens of other cities.[223][224] Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy was on his way to Indianapolis for a campaign rally when he was informed of King's death. He gave a short, improvised speech to the gathering of supporters informing them of the tragedy and urging them to continue King's ideal of nonviolence.[225] The following day, he delivered a prepared response in Cleveland.[226] James Farmer Jr. and other civil rights leaders also called for non-violent action, while the more militant Stokely Carmichael called for a more forceful response.[227] The city of Memphis quickly settled the strike on terms favorable to the sanitation workers.[228] President Lyndon B. Johnson declared April 7 a national day of mourning for the civil rights leader.[229] Vice President Hubert Humphrey attended King's funeral on behalf of the President, as there were fears that Johnson's presence might incite protests and perhaps violence.[230] At his widow's request, King's last sermon at Ebenezer Baptist Church was played at the funeral,[231] a recording of his "Drum Major" sermon, given on February 4, 1968. In that sermon, King made a request that at his funeral no mention of his awards and honors be made, but that it be said that he tried to "feed the hungry", "clothe the naked", "be right on the [Vietnam] war question", and "love and serve humanity."[232] His good friend Mahalia Jackson sang his favorite hymn, "Take My Hand, Precious Lord", at the funeral.[233] Two months after King's death, James Earl Ray—who was on the loose from a previous prison escape—was captured at London Heathrow Airport while trying to leave England on a false Canadian passport. He was using the alias Ramon George Sneyd on his way to white-ruled Rhodesia.[234] Ray was quickly extradited to Tennessee and charged with King's murder. He confessed to the assassination on March 10, 1969, though he recanted this confession three days later.[235] On the advice of his attorney Percy Foreman, Ray pleaded guilty to avoid a trial conviction and thus the possibility of receiving the death penalty. He was sentenced to a 99-year prison term.[235][236] Ray later claimed a man he met in Montreal, Quebec, with the alias "Raoul" was involved and that the assassination was the result of a conspiracy.[237][238] He spent the remainder of his life attempting, unsuccessfully, to withdraw his guilty plea and secure the trial he never had.[236] Ray died in 1998 at age 70.[239] Allegations of conspiracy The sarcophagus of Martin Luther King and Coretta Scott King at the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site in Atlanta, Georgia Ray's lawyers maintained he was a scapegoat similar to the way that John F. Kennedy's assassin Lee Harvey Oswald is seen by conspiracy theorists.[240] Supporters of this assertion said that Ray's confession was given under pressure and that he had been threatened with the death penalty.[236][241] They admitted that Ray was a thief and burglar, but claimed that he had no record of committing violent crimes with a weapon.[238] However, prison records in different U.S. cities have shown that he was incarcerated on numerous occasions for charges of armed robbery.[242] In a 2008 interview with CNN, Jerry Ray, the younger brother of James Earl Ray, claimed that James was smart and was sometimes able to get away with armed robbery. Jerry Ray said that he had assisted his brother on one such robbery. "I never been with nobody as bold as he is," Jerry said. "He just walked in and put that gun on somebody, it was just like it's an everyday thing."[242] Those suspecting a conspiracy in the assassination point to the two successive ballistics tests which proved that a rifle similar to Ray's Remington Gamemaster had been the murder weapon. Those tests did not implicate Ray's specific rifle.[236][243] Witnesses near King at the moment of his death said that the shot came from another location. They said that it came from behind thick shrubbery near the boarding house—which had been cut away in the days following the assassination—and not from the boarding house window.[244] However, Ray's fingerprints were found on various objects (a rifle, a pair of binoculars, articles of clothing, a newspaper) that were left in the bathroom where it was determined the gunfire came from.[242] An examination of the rifle containing Ray's fingerprints determined that at least one shot was fired from the firearm at the time of the assassination.[242] In 1997, King's son Dexter Scott King met with Ray, and publicly supported Ray's efforts to obtain a new trial.[245] Two years later, King's widow Coretta Scott King and the couple's children won a wrongful death claim against Loyd Jowers and "other unknown co-conspirators." Jowers claimed to have received $100,000 to arrange King's assassination. The jury of six whites and six blacks found in favor of the King family, finding Jowers to be complicit in a conspiracy against King and that government agencies were party to the assassination.[246][247]  William F. Pepper represented the King family in the trial.[248] In 2000, the U.S. Department of Justice completed the investigation into Jowers' claims but did not find evidence to support allegations about conspiracy. The investigation report recommended no further investigation unless some new reliable facts are presented.[249] A sister of Jowers admitted that he had fabricated the story so he could make $300,000 from selling the story, and she in turn corroborated his story in order to get some money to pay her income tax.[250][251] In 2002, The New York Times reported that a church minister, Rev. Ronald Denton Wilson, claimed his father, Henry Clay Wilson—not James Earl Ray—assassinated King. He stated, "It wasn't a racist thing; he thought Martin Luther King was connected with communism, and he wanted to get him out of the way." Wilson provided no evidence to back up his claims.[252] King researchers David Garrow and Gerald Posner disagreed with William F. Pepper's claims that the government killed King.[253] In 2003, Pepper published a book about the long investigation and trial, as well as his representation of James Earl Ray in his bid for a trial, laying out the evidence and criticizing other accounts.[254][255] King's friend and colleague, James Bevel, also disputed the argument that Ray acted alone, stating, "There is no way a ten-cent white boy could develop a plan to kill a million-dollar black man."[256] In 2004, Jesse Jackson stated: The fact is there were saboteurs to disrupt the march. And within our own organization, we found a very key person who was on the government payroll. So infiltration within, saboteurs from without and the press attacks. ... I will never believe that James Earl Ray had the motive, the money and the mobility to have done it himself. Our government was very involved in setting the stage for and I think the escape route for James Earl Ray.[257] Legacy See also: Memorials to Martin Luther King Jr. and List of streets named after Martin Luther King Jr. Martin Luther King Jr. statue over the west entrance of Westminster Abbey, installed in 1998 South Africa See also: Black Consciousness Movement King's legacy includes influences on the Black Consciousness Movement and civil rights movement in South Africa.[258][259] King's work was cited by, and served as, an inspiration for South African leader Albert Lutuli, who fought for racial justice in his country and was later awarded the Nobel Prize.[260] United Kingdom See also: Northern Ireland civil rights movement King influenced Irish politician and activist John Hume. Hume, the former leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Party, cited King's legacy as quintessential to the Northern Irish civil rights movement and the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, calling him "one of my great heroes of the century."[261][262][263] In the United Kingdom, The Northumbria and Newcastle Universities Martin Luther King Peace Committee[264] exists to honor King's legacy, as represented by his final visit to the UK to receive an honorary degree from Newcastle University in 1967.[265][266] The Peace Committee operates out of the chaplaincies of the city's two universities, Northumbria and Newcastle, both of which remain centres for the study of Martin Luther King and the US civil rights movement. Inspired by King's vision, it undertakes a range of activities across the UK as it seeks to "build cultures of peace." In 2017, Newcastle University unveiled a bronze statue of King to celebrate the 50th anniversary of his honorary doctorate ceremony.[267] The Students Union also voted to rename their bar 'Luthers'.[268] United States Banner at the 2012 Republican National Convention King's main legacy was to secure progress on civil rights in the U.S. Just days after King's assassination, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1968.[269] Title VIII of the Act, commonly known as the Fair Housing Act, prohibited discrimination in housing and housing-related transactions on the basis of race, religion, or national origin (later expanded to include sex, familial status, and disability). This legislation was seen as a tribute to King's struggle in his final years to combat residential discrimination in the U.S.[269] The day following King's assassination, school teacher Jane Elliott conducted her first "Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes" exercise with her class of elementary school students in Riceville, Iowa. Her purpose was to help them understand King's death as it related to racism, something they little understood as they lived in a predominantly white community.[270] King has become a national icon in the history of American liberalism and American progressivism.[271] King's wife Coretta Scott King followed in her husband's footsteps and was active in matters of social justice and civil rights until her death in 2006. The same year that Martin Luther King was assassinated, she established the King Center in Atlanta, Georgia, dedicated to preserving his legacy and the work of championing nonviolent conflict resolution and tolerance worldwide.[272] Their son, Dexter King, serves as the center's chairman.[273][274] Daughter Yolanda King, who died in 2007, was a motivational speaker, author and founder of Higher Ground Productions, an organization specializing in diversity training.[275] Even within the King family, members disagree about his religious and political views about gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people. King's widow Coretta publicly said that she believed her husband would have supported gay rights.[276] However, his youngest child, Bernice King, has said publicly that he would have been opposed to gay marriage.[277] On February 4, 1968, at the Ebenezer Baptist Church, in speaking about how he wished to be remembered after his death, King stated: I'd like somebody to mention that day that Martin Luther King Jr. tried to give his life serving others. I'd like for somebody to say that day that Martin Luther King Jr. tried to love somebody. I want you to say that day that I tried to be right on the war question. I want you to be able to say that day that I did try to feed the hungry. I want you to be able to say that day that I did try in my life to clothe those who were naked. I want you to say on that day that I did try in my life to visit those who were in prison. And I want you to say that I tried to love and serve humanity. Yes, if you want to say that I was a drum major. Say that I was a drum major for justice. Say that I was a drum major for peace. I was a drum major for righteousness. And all of the other shallow things will not matter. I won't have any money to leave behind. I won't have the fine and luxurious things of life to leave behind. But I just want to leave a committed life behind.[227][278] King is remembered as a martyr by the Episcopal Church in the United States of America with an annual feast day on the anniversary of his death, April 4.[279] The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America commemorates King liturgically on the anniversary of his birth, January 15.[280] On June 25, 2019, The New York Times Magazine listed Martin Luther King Jr. among hundreds of artists whose material was reportedly destroyed in the 2008 Universal Studios fire.[281] Martin Luther King Jr. Day Main article: Martin Luther King Jr. Day Beginning in 1971, cities such as St. Louis, Missouri, and states established annual holidays to honor King.[282] At the White House Rose Garden on November 2, 1983, President Ronald Reagan signed a bill creating a federal holiday to honor King. Observed for the first time on January 20, 1986, it is called Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Following President George H. W. Bush's 1992 proclamation, the holiday is observed on the third Monday of January each year, near the time of King's birthday.[283][284] On January 17, 2000, for the first time, Martin Luther King Jr. Day was officially observed in all fifty U.S. states.[285] Arizona (1992), New Hampshire (1999) and Utah (2000) were the last three states to recognize the holiday. Utah previously celebrated the holiday at the same time but under the name Human Rights Day.[286] Ideas, influences, and political stances Christianity King at the 1963 Civil Rights March in Washington, D.C. As a Christian minister, King's main influence was Jesus Christ and the Christian gospels, which he would almost always quote in his religious meetings, speeches at church, and in public discourses. King's faith was strongly based in Jesus' commandment of loving your neighbor as yourself, loving God above all, and loving your enemies, praying for them and blessing them. His nonviolent thought was also based in the injunction to turn the other cheek in the Sermon on the Mount, and Jesus' teaching of putting the sword back into its place (Matthew 26:52).[287] In his famous Letter from Birmingham Jail, King urged action consistent with what he describes as Jesus' "extremist" love, and also quoted numerous other Christian pacifist authors, which was very usual for him. In another sermon, he stated: Before I was a civil rights leader, I was a preacher of the Gospel. This was my first calling and it still remains my greatest commitment. You know, actually all that I do in civil rights I do because I consider it a part of my ministry. I have no other ambitions in life but to achieve excellence in the Christian ministry. I don't plan to run for any political office. I don't plan to do anything but remain a preacher. And what I'm doing in this struggle, along with many others, grows out of my feeling that the preacher must be concerned about the whole man.[288][289] King's private writings show that he rejected biblical literalism; he described the Bible as "mythological," doubted that Jesus was born of a virgin and did not believe that the story of Jonah and the whale was true.[290] Nonviolence A close-up of Rustin King worked alongside Quakers such as Bayard Rustin to develop nonviolent tactics. World peace through nonviolent means is neither absurd nor unattainable. All other methods have failed. Thus we must begin anew. Nonviolence is a good starting point. Those of us who believe in this method can be voices of reason, sanity, and understanding amid the voices of violence, hatred, and emotion. We can very well set a mood of peace out of which a system of peace can be built. —Martin Luther King Jr.[291] Veteran African-American civil rights activist Bayard Rustin was King's first regular advisor on nonviolence.[292] King was also advised by the white activists Harris Wofford and Glenn Smiley.[293] Rustin and Smiley came from the Christian pacifist tradition, and Wofford and Rustin both studied Mahatma Gandhi's teachings. Rustin had applied nonviolence with the Journey of Reconciliation campaign in the 1940s,[294] and Wofford had been promoting Gandhism to Southern blacks since the early 1950s.[293] King had initially known little about Gandhi and rarely used the term "nonviolence" during his early years of activism in the early 1950s. King initially believed in and practiced self-defense, even obtaining guns in his household as a means of defense against possible attackers. The pacifists guided King by showing him the alternative of nonviolent resistance, arguing that this would be a better means to accomplish his goals of civil rights than self-defense. King then vowed to no longer personally use arms.[295][296] In the aftermath of the boycott, King wrote Stride Toward Freedom, which included the chapter Pilgrimage to Nonviolence. King outlined his understanding of nonviolence, which seeks to win an opponent to friendship, rather than to humiliate or defeat him. The chapter draws from an address by Wofford, with Rustin and Stanley Levison also providing guidance and ghostwriting.[297] King was inspired by Gandhi and his success with nonviolent activism, and as a theology student, King described Gandhi as being one of the "individuals who greatly reveal the working of the Spirit of God".[298] King had "for a long time ... wanted to take a trip to India."[299] With assistance from Harris Wofford, the American Friends Service Committee, and other supporters, he was able to fund the journey in April 1959.[300][301] The trip to India affected King, deepening his understanding of nonviolent resistance and his commitment to America's struggle for civil rights. In a radio address made during his final evening in India, King reflected, "Since being in India, I am more convinced than ever before that the method of nonviolent resistance is the most potent weapon available to oppressed people in their struggle for justice and human dignity." King's admiration of Gandhi's nonviolence did not diminish in later years. He went so far as to hold up his example when receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, hailing the "successful precedent" of using nonviolence "in a magnificent way by Mohandas K. Gandhi to challenge the might of the British Empire ... He struggled only with the weapons of truth, soul force, non-injury and courage."[302] Another influence for King's nonviolent method was Henry David Thoreau's essay On Civil Disobedience and its theme of refusing to cooperate with an evil system.[303] He also was greatly influenced by the works of Protestant theologians Reinhold Niebuhr and Paul Tillich,[304] and said that Walter Rauschenbusch's Christianity and the Social Crisis left an "indelible imprint" on his thinking by giving him a theological grounding for his social concerns.[305][306] King was moved by Rauschenbusch's vision of Christians spreading social unrest in "perpetual but friendly conflict" with the state, simultaneously critiquing it and calling it to act as an instrument of justice.[307] He was apparently unaware of the American tradition of Christian pacifism exemplified by Adin Ballou and William Lloyd Garrison[308] King frequently referred to Jesus' Sermon on the Mount as central for his work.[306][309][310][311] King also sometimes used the concept of "agape" (brotherly Christian love).[312] However, after 1960, he ceased employing it in his writings.[313] Even after renouncing his personal use of guns, King had a complex relationship with the phenomenon of self-defense in the movement. He publicly discouraged it as a widespread practice, but acknowledged that it was sometimes necessary.[314] Throughout his career King was frequently protected by other civil rights activists who carried arms, such as Colonel Stone Johnson,[315] Robert Hayling, and the Deacons for Defense and Justice.[316][317] Activism and involvement with Native Americans King was an avid supporter of Native American rights. Native Americans were also active supporters of King's civil rights movement which included the active participation of Native Americans.[318] In fact, the Native American Rights Fund (NARF) was patterned after the NAACP's Legal Defense and Education Fund.[319] The National Indian Youth Council (NIYC) was especially supportive in King's campaigns especially the Poor People's Campaign in 1968.[320] In King's book "Why We Can't Wait" he writes: Our nation was born in genocide when it embraced the doctrine that the original American, the Indian, was an inferior race. Even before there were large numbers of Negroes on our shores, the scar of racial hatred had already disfigured colonial society. From the sixteenth century forward, blood flowed in battles over racial supremacy. We are perhaps the only nation which tried as a matter of national policy to wipe out its indigenous population. Moreover, we elevated that tragic experience into a noble crusade. Indeed, even today we have not permitted ourselves to reject or to feel remorse for this shameful episode. Our literature, our films, our drama, our folklore all exalt it.[321] King assisted Native American people in south Alabama in the late 1950s.[319] At that time the remaining Creek in Alabama were trying to completely desegregate schools in their area. The South had many egregious racial problems: In this case, light-complexioned Native children were allowed to ride school buses to previously all white schools, while dark-skinned Native children from the same band were barred from riding the same buses.[319] Tribal leaders, upon hearing of King's desegregation campaign in Birmingham, Alabama, contacted him for assistance. He promptly responded and through his intervention the problem was quickly resolved.[319] In September 1959, King flew from Los Angeles, California, to Tucson, Arizona.[322] After giving a speech at the University of Arizona on the ideals of using nonviolent methods in creating social change. He put into words his belief that one must not use force in this struggle "but match the violence of his opponents with his suffering."[322] King then went to Southside Presbyterian, a predominantly Native American church, and was fascinated by their photos. On the spur of the moment Dr. King wanted to go to an Indian Reservation to meet the people so Reverend Casper Glenn took King to the Papago Indian Reservation.[322] At the reservation King met with all the tribal leaders, and others on the reservation then ate with them.[322] King then visited another Presbyterian church near the reservation, and preached there attracting a Native American crowd.[322] He later returned to Old Pueblo in March 1962 where he preached again to a Native American congregation, and then went on to give another speech at the University of Arizona.[322] King would continue to attract the attention of Native Americans throughout the civil rights movement. During the 1963 March on Washington there was a sizable Native American contingent, including many from South Dakota, and many from the Navajo nation.[319][323] Native Americans were also active participants in the Poor People's Campaign in 1968.[320] King was a major inspiration along with the civil rights movement which inspired the Native American rights movement of the 1960s and many of its leaders.[319] John Echohawk a member of the Pawnee tribe and the executive director and one of the founders of the Native American Rights Fund stated: Inspired by Dr. King, who was advancing the civil rights agenda of equality under the laws of this country, we thought that we could also use the laws to advance our Indianship, to live as tribes in our territories governed by our own laws under the principles of tribal sovereignty that had been with us ever since 1831. We believed that we could fight for a policy of self-determination that was consistent with U.S. law and that we could govern our own affairs, define our own ways and continue to survive in this society.[324] Politics As the leader of the SCLC, King maintained a policy of not publicly endorsing a U.S. political party or candidate: "I feel someone must remain in the position of non-alignment, so that he can look objectively at both parties and be the conscience of both—not the servant or master of either."[325] In a 1958 interview, he expressed his view that neither party was perfect, saying, "I don't think the Republican party is a party full of the almighty God nor is the Democratic party. They both have weaknesses ... And I'm not inextricably bound to either party."[326] King did praise Democratic Senator Paul Douglas of Illinois as being the "greatest of all senators" because of his fierce advocacy for civil rights causes over the years.[327] King critiqued both parties' performance on promoting racial equality: Actually, the Negro has been betrayed by both the Republican and the Democratic party. The Democrats have betrayed him by capitulating to the whims and caprices of the Southern Dixiecrats. The Republicans have betrayed him by capitulating to the blatant hypocrisy of reactionary right wing northern Republicans. And this coalition of southern Dixiecrats and right wing reactionary northern Republicans defeats every bill and every move towards liberal legislation in the area of civil rights.[328] Although King never publicly supported a political party or candidate for president, in a letter to a civil rights supporter in October 1956 he said that he had not decided whether he would vote for Adlai Stevenson II or Dwight D. Eisenhower at the 1956 presidential election, but that "In the past I always voted the Democratic ticket."[329] In his autobiography, King says that in 1960 he privately voted for Democratic candidate John F. Kennedy: "I felt that Kennedy would make the best president. I never came out with an endorsement. My father did, but I never made one." King adds that he likely would have made an exception to his non-endorsement policy for a second Kennedy term, saying "Had President Kennedy lived, I would probably have endorsed him in 1964."[330] In 1964, King urged his supporters "and all people of goodwill" to vote against Republican Senator Barry Goldwater for president, saying that his election "would be a tragedy, and certainly suicidal almost, for the nation and the world."[331] King supported the ideals of democratic socialism, although he was reluctant to speak directly of this support due to the anti-communist sentiment being projected throughout the United States at the time, and the association of socialism with communism. King believed that capitalism could not adequately provide the basic necessities of many American people, particularly the African-American community.[188] Compensation See also: Reparations for slavery debate in the United States King stated that black Americans, as well as other disadvantaged Americans, should be compensated for historical wrongs. In an interview conducted for Playboy in 1965, he said that granting black Americans only equality could not realistically close the economic gap between them and whites. King said that he did not seek a full restitution of wages lost to slavery, which he believed impossible, but proposed a government compensatory program of $50 billion over ten years to all disadvantaged groups.[332] He posited that "the money spent would be more than amply justified by the benefits that would accrue to the nation through a spectacular decline in school dropouts, family breakups, crime rates, illegitimacy, swollen relief rolls, rioting and other social evils."[333] He presented this idea as an application of the common law regarding settlement of unpaid labor, but clarified that he felt that the money should not be spent exclusively on blacks. He stated, "It should benefit the disadvantaged of all races."[334] Family planning On being awarded the Planned Parenthood Federation of America's Margaret Sanger Award on May 5, 1966, King said: Recently, the press has been filled with reports of sightings of flying saucers. While we need not give credence to these stories, they allow our imagination to speculate on how visitors from outer space would judge us. I am afraid they would be stupefied at our conduct. They would observe that for death planning we spend billions to create engines and strategies for war. They would also observe that we spend millions to prevent death by disease and other causes. Finally they would observe that we spend paltry sums for population planning, even though its spontaneous growth is an urgent threat to life on our planet. Our visitors from outer space could be forgiven if they reported home that our planet is inhabited by a race of insane men whose future is bleak and uncertain. There is no human circumstance more tragic than the persisting existence of a harmful condition for which a remedy is readily available. Family planning, to relate population to world resources, is possible, practical and necessary. Unlike plagues of the dark ages or contemporary diseases we do not yet understand, the modern plague of overpopulation is soluble by means we have discovered and with resources we possess. What is lacking is not sufficient knowledge of the solution but universal consciousness of the gravity of the problem and education of the billions who are its victims ...[335][336][third-party source needed] Television Actress Nichelle Nichols planned to leave the science-fiction television series Star Trek in 1967 after its first season, wanting to return to musical theater.[337] She changed her mind after talking to King[338] who was a fan of the show. King explained that her character signified a future of greater racial harmony and cooperation.[339] King told Nichols, "You are our image of where we're going, you're 300 years from now, and that means that's where we are and it takes place now. Keep doing what you're doing, you are our inspiration."[340] As Nichols recounted, "Star Trek was one of the only shows that [King] and his wife Coretta would allow their little children to watch. And I thanked him and I told him I was leaving the show. All the smile came off his face. And he said, 'Don't you understand for the first time we're seen as we should be seen. You don't have a black role. You have an equal role.'"[337] For his part, the series' creator, Gene Roddenberry, was deeply moved upon learning of King's support.[341] State surveillance and coercion FBI surveillance and wiretapping Memo describing FBI attempts to disrupt the Poor People's Campaign with fraudulent claims about King‍—‌part of the COINTELPRO campaign against the anti-war and civil rights movements FBI director J. Edgar Hoover personally ordered surveillance of King, with the intent to undermine his power as a civil rights leader.[342][343] The Church Committee, a 1975 investigation by the U.S. Congress, found that "From December 1963 until his death in 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. was the target of an intensive campaign by the Federal Bureau of Investigation to 'neutralize' him as an effective civil rights leader."[344] In the fall of 1963, the FBI received authorization from Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy to proceed with wiretapping of King's phone lines, purportedly due to his association with Stanley Levison.[345] The Bureau informed President John F. Kennedy. He and his brother unsuccessfully tried to persuade King to dissociate himself from Levison, a New York lawyer who had been involved with Communist Party USA.[346][347] Although Robert Kennedy only gave written approval for limited wiretapping of King's telephone lines "on a trial basis, for a month or so",[348] Hoover extended the clearance so his men were "unshackled" to look for evidence in any areas of King's life they deemed worthy.[90] The Bureau placed wiretaps on the home and office phone lines of both Levison and King, and bugged King's rooms in hotels as he traveled across the country.[346][349] In 1967, Hoover listed the SCLC as a black nationalist hate group, with the instructions: "No opportunity should be missed to exploit through counterintelligence techniques the organizational and personal conflicts of the leaderships of the groups ... to insure the targeted group is disrupted, ridiculed, or discredited."[343][350] NSA monitoring of King's communications In a secret operation code-named "Minaret", the National Security Agency monitored the communications of leading Americans, including King, who were critical of the U.S. war in Vietnam.[351] A review by the NSA itself concluded that Minaret was "disreputable if not outright illegal."[351] Allegations of communism For years, Hoover had been suspicious of potential influence of communists in social movements such as labor unions and civil rights.[352] Hoover directed the FBI to track King in 1957, and the SCLC when it was established.[1] Due to the relationship between King and Stanley Levison, the FBI feared Levison was working as an "agent of influence" over King, in spite of its own reports in 1963 that Levison had left the Party and was no longer associated in business dealings with them.[353] Another King lieutenant, Jack O'Dell, was also linked to the Communist Party by sworn testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC).[354] Despite the extensive surveillance conducted, by 1976 the FBI had acknowledged that it had not obtained any evidence that King himself or the SCLC were actually involved with any communist organizations.[344] For his part, King adamantly denied having any connections to communism. In a 1965 Playboy interview, he stated that "there are as many Communists in this freedom movement as there are Eskimos in Florida."[355] He argued that Hoover was "following the path of appeasement of political powers in the South" and that his concern for communist infiltration of the civil rights movement was meant to "aid and abet the salacious claims of southern racists and the extreme right-wing elements."[344] Hoover did not believe King's pledge of innocence and replied by saying that King was "the most notorious liar in the country."[356] After King gave his "I Have A Dream" speech during the March on Washington on August 28, 1963, the FBI described King as "the most dangerous and effective Negro leader in the country."[349] It alleged that he was "knowingly, willingly and regularly cooperating with and taking guidance from communists."[357] The attempts to prove that King was a communist was related to the feeling of many segregationists that blacks in the South were content with the status quo, but had been stirred up by "communists" and "outside agitators."[358] As context, the civil rights movement in 1950s and '60s arose from activism within the black community dating back to before World War I. King said that "the Negro revolution is a genuine revolution, born from the same womb that produces all massive social upheavals—the womb of intolerable conditions and unendurable situations."[359] CIA surveillance CIA files declassified in 2017 revealed that the agency was investigating possible links between King and Communism after a Washington Post article dated November 4, 1964 claimed he was invited to the Soviet Union and that Ralph Abernathy, as spokesman for King, refused to comment on the source of the invitation.[360] Mail belonging to King and other civil rights activists was intercepted by the CIA program HTLINGUAL.[361] Adultery King and Malcolm X, March 26, 1964 The FBI having concluded that King was dangerous due to communist infiltration, attempts to discredit King began through revelations regarding his private life. FBI surveillance of King, some of it since made public, attempted to demonstrate that he also had numerous extramarital affairs.[349] Lyndon B. Johnson once said that King was a "hypocritical preacher".[362] In his 1989 autobiography And the Walls Came Tumbling Down, Ralph Abernathy stated that King had a "weakness for women", although they "all understood and believed in the biblical prohibition against sex outside of marriage. It was just that he had a particularly difficult time with that temptation."[363] In a later interview, Abernathy said that he only wrote the term "womanizing", that he did not specifically say King had extramarital sex and that the infidelities King had were emotional rather than sexual.[364] Abernathy criticized the media for sensationalizing the statements he wrote about King's affairs,[364] such as the allegation that he admitted in his book that King had a sexual affair the night before he was assassinated.[364] In his original wording, Abernathy had stated that he saw King coming out of his room with a woman when he awoke the next morning and later said that "he may have been in there discussing and debating and trying to get her to go along with the movement, I don't know."[364] In his 1986 book Bearing the Cross, David Garrow wrote about a number of extramarital affairs, including one woman King saw almost daily. According to Garrow, "that relationship ... increasingly became the emotional centerpiece of King's life, but it did not eliminate the incidental couplings ... of King's travels." He alleged that King explained his extramarital affairs as "a form of anxiety reduction." Garrow asserted that King's supposed promiscuity caused him "painful and at times overwhelming guilt."[365] King's wife Coretta appeared to have accepted his affairs with equanimity, saying once that "all that other business just doesn't have a place in the very high level relationship we enjoyed."[366] Shortly after Bearing the Cross was released, civil rights author Howell Raines gave the book a positive review but opined that Garrow's allegations about King's sex life were "sensational" and stated that Garrow was "amassing facts rather than analyzing them."[367] The FBI distributed reports regarding such affairs to the executive branch, friendly reporters, potential coalition partners and funding sources of the SCLC, and King's family.[368] The bureau also sent anonymous letters to King threatening to reveal information if he did not cease his civil rights work.[369] The FBI–King suicide letter sent to King just before he received the Nobel Peace Prize read, in part: The FBI–King suicide letter,[370] mailed anonymously by the FBI The American public, the church organizations that have been helping—Protestants, Catholics and Jews will know you for what you are—an evil beast. So will others who have backed you. You are done. King, there is only one thing left for you to do. You know what it is. You have just 34 days in which to do (this exact number has been selected for a specific reason, it has definite practical significant [sic]). You are done. There is but one way out for you. You better take it before your filthy fraudulent self is bared to the nation.[371] The letter was accompanied by a tape recording—excerpted from FBI wiretaps—of several of King's extramarital liaisons.[372] King interpreted this package as an attempt to drive him to suicide,[373] although William Sullivan, head of the Domestic Intelligence Division at the time, argued that it may have only been intended to "convince Dr. King to resign from the SCLC."[344] King refused to give in to the FBI's threats.[349] In 1977, Judge John Lewis Smith Jr. ordered all known copies of the recorded audiotapes and written transcripts resulting from the FBI's electronic surveillance of King between 1963 and 1968 to be held in the National Archives and sealed from public access until 2027.[374] In May 2019, FBI files emerged indicating that King "looked on, laughed and offered advice" as one of his friends raped a woman. His biographer, David Garrow, wrote that "the suggestion... that he either actively tolerated or personally employed violence against any woman, even while drunk, poses so fundamental a challenge to his historical stature as to require the most complete and extensive historical review possible".[375] These allegations sparked a heated debate among historians.[376] Clayborne Carson, Martin Luther King biographer and overseer of the Dr. King records at Stanford University states that he came to the opposite conclusion of Garrow saying "None of this is new. Garrow is talking about a recently added summary of a transcript of a 1964 recording from the Willard Hotel that others, including Mrs. King, have said they did not hear Martin's voice on it. The added summary was four layers removed from the actual recording. This supposedly new information comes from an anonymous source in a single paragraph in an FBI report. You have to ask how could anyone conclude King looked at a rape from an audio recording in a room where he was not present."[377] Carson bases his position of Coretta Scott King's memoirs where she states "I set up our reel-to-reel recorder and listened. I have read scores of reports talking about the scurrilous activities of my husband but once again, there was nothing at all incriminating on the tape. It was a social event with people laughing and telling dirty jokes. But I did not hear Martin's voice on it, and there was nothing about sex or anything else resembling the lies J. Edgar and the FBI were spreading." The tapes that could confirm or refute the allegation are scheduled to be declassified in 2027.[378][379] Police observation during the assassination A fire station was located across from the Lorraine Motel, next to the boarding house in which James Earl Ray was staying. Police officers were stationed in the fire station to keep King under surveillance.[380] Agents were watching King at the time he was shot.[381] Immediately following the shooting, officers rushed out of the station to the motel. Marrell McCollough, an undercover police officer, was the first person to administer first aid to King.[382] The antagonism between King and the FBI, the lack of an all points bulletin to find the killer, and the police presence nearby led to speculation that the FBI was involved in the assassination.[383] Awards and recognition King showing his medallion, which he received from Mayor Wagner Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, where King ministered, was renamed Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church in 1978. King was awarded at least fifty honorary degrees from colleges and universities.[384] On October 14, 1964, King became the (at the time) youngest winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, which was awarded to him for leading nonviolent resistance to racial prejudice in the U.S.[385][386] In 1965, he was awarded the American Liberties Medallion by the American Jewish Committee for his "exceptional advancement of the principles of human liberty."[384][387] In his acceptance remarks, King said, "Freedom is one thing. You have it all or you are not free."[388] In 1957, he was awarded the Spingarn Medal from the NAACP.[389] Two years later, he won the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for his book Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story.[390] In 1966, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America awarded King the Margaret Sanger Award for "his courageous resistance to bigotry and his lifelong dedication to the advancement of social justice and human dignity."[391] Also in 1966, King was elected as a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.[392] In November 1967 he made a 24-hour trip to the United Kingdom to receive an honorary degree from Newcastle University, being the first African-American to be so honoured by Newcastle.[266] In a moving impromptu acceptance speech,[265] he said There are three urgent and indeed great problems that we face not only in the United States of America but all over the world today. That is the problem of racism, the problem of poverty and the problem of war. In addition to being nominated for three Grammy Awards, the civil rights leader posthumously won for Best Spoken Word Recording in 1971 for "Why I Oppose The War In Vietnam".[393] In 1977, the Presidential Medal of Freedom was posthumously awarded to King by President Jimmy Carter. The citation read: Martin Luther King Jr. was the conscience of his generation. He gazed upon the great wall of segregation and saw that the power of love could bring it down. From the pain and exhaustion of his fight to fulfill the promises of our founding fathers for our humblest citizens, he wrung his eloquent statement of his dream for America. He made our nation stronger because he made it better. His dream sustains us yet.[394] King and his wife were also awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in 2004.[395] King was second in Gallup's List of Most Widely Admired People of the 20th Century.[396] In 1963, he was named Time Person of the Year, and in 2000, he was voted sixth in an online "Person of the Century" poll by the same magazine.[397] King placed third in the Greatest American contest conducted by the Discovery Channel and AOL.[398] Five-dollar bill On April 20, 2016, Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew announced that the $5, $10, and $20 bills would all undergo redesign prior to 2020. Lew said that while Lincoln would remain on the front of the $5 bill, the reverse would be redesigned to depict various historical events that had occurred at the Lincoln Memorial. Among the planned designs are images from King's "I Have a Dream" speech and the 1939 concert by opera singer Marian Anderson.[399]
PHOTOS LISTED ARE OF SELASSIE FAMILY AND MLK JR. FAMILY AND FRIENDS VISITING THE TOMB OF MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. IN SOUTH VIEW CEMETARY. N.P. (ATLANTA) N.D. (1969) BEFORE IT WAS  was later moved to the King National Historic Park in Atlanta.
Martin Luther King, Jr. is remembered for his achievements in civil rights and for the methods he used to get there — namely, nonviolence. More than just a catchphrase, more than just the “absence of violence,” and more than just a tactic, nonviolence was a philosophy that King honed over the course of his adult life. It has had a profound, lasting influence on social justice movements at home and abroad. In September 1962, King convened a meeting of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), the main organizational force behind his civil rights activism, in Birmingham, Alabama. King was giving a talk on the need for nonviolent action in the face of violent white racism when a white man jumped on stage and, without a word, punched him in the face repeatedly. King naturally put up his hands to deflect the blows. But after a few punches, he let his hands fall to his side. The man, who turned out to be an American Nazi Party member, continued to flail. The integrated audience at first thought the whole thing was staged, a mock demonstration of King’s nonviolent philosophy in action. But as King reeled, and real blood spurted from his face, they began to realize it was no act. Finally, several SCLC members rushed the stage to stop the attack. But they stopped short when King shouted, “Don’t touch him! Don’t touch him! We have to pray for him.” The SCLC men pulled the Nazi off King, who was beaten so badly he couldn’t continue the speech. Precisely because the attack wasn’t staged, it left an immense impression on the convention attendees, and anyone else who heard about it in the coming days. King © 2017, Constitutional Rights Foundation, Los Angeles. All Constitutional Rights Foundation materials and publications, including Bill of Rights in Action, are protected by copyright. However, we hereby grant to all recipients a license to reproduce all material contained herein for distribution to students, other school site personnel, and district administrators. (ISSN: 1534-9799) SUMMER 2017 Volume 32 No4 CHALLENGING IDEAS This edition of Bill of Rights in Action focuses on ideas that provoke change. The first article traces the development of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s nonviolent philosophy in the civil rights movement. The second article reviews political and economic changes in Vietnam since the end of the Vietnam War. The third article analyzes conflicts over free speech on today’s college campuses. U.S. History: Martin Luther King and the Philosophy of Nonviolence by guest writer and New York Times deputy op-ed editor Clay Risen World History: Vietnam Today by longtime contributor Carlton Martz U.S. Government/Current Issues: Free Speech on Campus: Trigger Warnings, Safe Spaces, and Controversial Speech at U.S. Colleges by guest writer Aimée Koeplin, Ph.D. Constitutional Rights Foundation Wikimedia Commons Bill of Rights in Action MARTIN LUTHER KINGAND THE PHILOSOPHY OF NONVIOLENCE Martin Luther King, Jr. addressing the crowd of about 250,000 people at the March on Washington in August 1963. BRIA 32:4 (Summer 2017) U.S. HISTORY 2 hadn’t been just preaching nonviolence; confronted, without warning, by racist violence, he lived it, even at great risk to himself. King did not invent nonviolence as a doctrine for achieving social justice. But he adapted it for an American context, and showed how compelling yet flexible it could be. Influences on King’s Nonviolence King’s earliest exposure to the ideas that would coalesce in his nonviolent philosophy occurred when he was an undergraduate at Morehouse College, in Atlanta. He read Henry David Thoreau’s “Essay on Civil Disobedience,” which outlined the idea of resisting an unjust government through nonviolent resistance, several times. And yet he had a hard time seeing how Thoreau’s highly intellectual New England mentality could provide much of a model for the problem of blacks in the American South, where lynching and plain murder were common fates for African Americans who challenged white supremacy. King continued his academic studies, and his personal research into nonviolence, at Pennsylvania’s Crozier Theological Seminary, where he began his graduate studies in 1948. There he read deeply the growing literature around Christianity as a social movement, which placed the demands of political and economic justice at the heart of a Christian’s religious calling. But it was not until he began to study the life and works of Mahatma Gandhi that he began to see the possibility of applying nonviolence to the specific problems of African Americans, especially in the South. As he later told it, in Philadelphia he listened to a sermon by the president of Howard University, Mordecai Johnson, who spoke at length about the teachings and actions of Gandhi, and in particular his use of nonviolent mass protest to challenge British control over India. King left the sermon transfixed. Though Gandhi was Hindu, King saw immediately the similarity with the teachings of Jesus Christ, and the possibility of applying Gandhian nonviolence in an American and Christian context. King had struggled to see how the lessons of the New Testament could be useful in the struggle for racial justice. “Prior to reading Gandhi, I had about concluded that the ethics of Jesus were only effective in individual relationship,” he wrote. “But after reading Gandhi, I saw how utterly mistaken I was.” Would Nonviolence Work? For King, the heart of Gandhi’s nonviolence was love, in the spiritual, transcendent form of the word. In the face of coercive, racist British rule, Gandhi so loved his oppressors that he refused to take up arms against them. But Gandhi was not without his critics. Some observers said he was lucky that the British were the ones doing the oppressing and questioned whether the Nazis – or racist American whites – would have allowed similar flouting of the law, however nonviolent. King was willing to take a chance that, at least in America, the answer was yes. King also had to deal with another criticism. Some, like the theologian Reinhold Neibuhr, said that nonviolence too often became a way of sealing off one’s moral superiority, of accepting suffering at the hands of one’s oppressors as a form of soul-cleansing, while losing sight of the goal of social justice. “All too many had an unwarranted optimism concerning man and leaned unconsciously toward self-righteousness,” King wrote. It was a point he took to heart – and it was one reason, he said, “why I never joined a pacifist organization.” But nonviolence, he argued, was anything but passive. “Nonviolent resistance is not a method of cowardice,” he said. “It does resist. It is not a method of stagnant passivity and deadening complacency. The nonviolent resister is just as opposed to the evil that he is standing against as the violent resister but he resists without violence.” What did King mean by nonviolence? It was not merely the refusal to hit back, an insistence on turning the other cheek. It was, in its own way, aggressive. It meant putting oneself in the face of violence, of actively confronting it and, responding with love to the jabs and punches. It also meant organizing thousands across the South in specific mass actions that would force face-to-face encounters with white, racist power. Doing so, King taught, would demonstrate both the impotence of white violence and show the country that the black community was not afraid to insist on its rights. For King, responding to violence in kind would show the weakness of the black community, not its strength. Nonviolence would also strengthen the activist community through shared suffering and struggle. Wikimedia Commons Mahatma Gandhi was a major leader of the movement for Indian independence from Great Britain from 1915 until 1947, when Britain granted independence. His nonviolent philosophy was a central influence on Martin Luther King. This experience would expand outward to encompass the black community broadly and, King hoped, all Americans in what he called “the beloved community.” Of course, King also understood the practical reasons for nonviolence. Given that blacks were a minority, and that Southern whites often had the power of the local and state police behind them, violence was a dead end. Even demonstrating the possibility of a violent response would elicit a massive backlash, potentially destroying the civil rights movement. And it would negate whatever good will the movement was building in the national community, and especially in Washington, where King and other leaders hoped to see federal civil rights legislation. Testing Nonviolence King’s first foray into nonviolent protest was with the Montgomery bus boycott, which began in 1955 when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white person while riding home from work. She was arrested, leading to an organized effort by Montgomery blacks to avoid riding the bus system, relying instead on carpools. The boycott was a classic Gandhian move: a demonstration of economic independence as a way of eliciting concessions from the white establishment. It was also classic King: intricately organized, well-publicized, and while noble in itself, also leading in a lengthy negotiation with the local white political establishment to desegregate the bus service. And it worked. It would be several years before King’s next major action, but already others followed his model. The 1961 Freedom Riders, who traveled across the Deep South on desegregated interstate buses, demonstrated King’s highest ideal when they reached Montgomery, Alabama, where a mob of angry whites attacked and beat them savagely. Not a single rider, black or white, hit back. Meanwhile, King was leading seminars and workshops on nonviolence. While King was trying to build a mass movement, he also was preparing a vanguard of experts in nonviolence who could walk in the front of marches and absorb the brunt of any assault. They also could do their own training in seminars across the South. Perhaps the most noteworthy trainee to come out of King’s workshops was John Lewis. Lewis was a young seminarian who became a leading activist in Nashville, participated in the Freedom Rides, spoke at the 1963 March on Washington and, most famously, was beaten severely in the so-called Bloody Sunday incident in Selma, Alabama, in 1965. From Birmingham to D.C. As the ranks of the Southern civil rights movement grew, King began to set his sights higher. Nonviolent protest on a large enough scale would overwhelm any possible response. Police could arrest several dozen marchers, but not several thousand. In late spring 1963, King decided to focus on organizing a boycott by black shoppers of the downtown retailers in Birmingham, Alabama, calling for integration of the city’s shops and restaurants. When talks between King’s SCLC, the city government, and local business leaders faltered, King organized hundreds of school children to march through downtown Birmingham, despite not having a permit. The city police and fire departments, under the command of Theophilus “Bull” Connor, met them with dogs and fire hoses. The water pressure was so high it stripped the clothes off the children’s backs. Those who didn’t turn around were arrested. King and his associates had trained the students in nonviolence, however, and not a single one struck out. Images from Birmingham appeared in newspapers and on evening news programs around the world. Not only did the protests force the city’s leaders to reach a compromise with King and the SCLC, but the fear of more incidents such as the one in Birmingham spurred President Kennedy (and later President Lyndon Johnson) to push for the landmark 1964 Civil Rights Act, ending segregation across the South. King followed up on his success in Birmingham with the August 1963 March on Washington. Despite widespread fears of violence, the march of a quarter of a million people who came to the city to hear King, Lewis, and other civil rights leaders speak was entirely peaceful, a demonstration that Birmingham was no fluke and that nonviolence could indeed become a mass movement. From Selma to Chicago Perhaps the most powerful moment in the civil rights movement came a little over a year later, in early 1965, when King and Lewis joined local leaders James Bevel and Amelia Boynton in organizing a march from Selma, Alabama, to Montgomery. The march would protest the lack of voting rights protections in the South. King was unable to join the protesters when they first set off on Sunday, March 7, across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, headed east out of town. As they reached the far side, they were met by dozens of state troopers. They pressed on and the officers set on them, raining down billy clubs and boot kicks. Lewis had his head split open. Eventually the marchers fled back over the bridge. This incident became known as “Bloody Sunday.” King arrived to lead a second march three days later but turned back at the last minute, fearing a trap. Finally, with federal protection, the peaceful march set off on March 21 and reached Montgomery three days later. That BRIA 32:4 (Summer 2017) U.S. HISTORY 3 Nonviolence,King argued,was anything but passive. 4 U.S. HISTORY BRIA 32:4 (Summer 2017) summer, with images of Bloody Sunday still fresh in the nation’s mind, Congress passed the Voting Rights Act. As a philosophy, nonviolence was unassailable. As a tactic, it worked well in the context of an embattled South, where national attention focused on the shrinking hard core of white racists who refused to give ground to the civil rights movement. But nonviolence proved less effective as King tried to take his movement national. In 1966, he launched the Chicago campaign, a combination of marches and education intended to highlight the entrenched, but complex, racial disparities in the Windy City. The marchers again encountered white racists who shouted epithets at them, but many Northern whites saw racial disparities as merely the unfortunate outcome of economic disparities. Markets, not men, were to blame, and they refused to see the moral appeal behind King’s nonviolent activism. At the same time, while King dominated the civil rights story in the media during the late 1950s and early 1960s, other leaders and other factions of the movement were often just as active in demanding change but significantly less committed to nonviolence. As the 1960s progressed, these groups, especially the next generation emerging from college, began to gain prominence by taking a more aggressive, even violent stance, embracing armed self-defense complete with automatic weapons. King disparaged these activists, like Stokely Carmichael and H. Rap Brown, as immature and unsophisticated. But he could see as well as anyone the diminishing appeal of nonviolence in a country where violence was spreading both at home and in the Vietnam War. Indeed, Brown memorably argued that “violence is necessary. It’s as American as cherry pie.” From Memphis to Today King’s last attempt at a nonviolent movement came in Memphis in 1968, where a garbage workers’ strike was dragging on. In late March, King arrived in the city to lead a protest march, but he couldn’t control it. Hoodlums on the edges of the march began shattering windows, and the police moved in. Dozens were injured, and one boy was killed. King returned to the city a few days later to try again, hoping that success in Memphis could illustrate the continued power of nonviolence. Instead, on the early evening of April 4, 1968, he was shot and killed by James Earl Ray, a white drifter, while standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel. In the days that followed, riots broke out in more than 100 cities across America; scores were killed and thousands injured; and active-duty military forces occupied Washington, Baltimore, and Chicago. As skeptics noted, it was a very violent end to the life of a proponent of nonviolence. Despite his violent end, nonviolent protest did not die with King. In fact, protest movements have adopted it time and again in America and around the world – the gay rights movement, the Solidarity trade union in Poland, the Green Revolution in Iran, and recent demonstrations throughout the U.S. (such as Occupy Wall Street and the Women’s March on Washington). Not all of them have referenced King specifically. But that’s all the more to his credit: Their reliance on the philosophy of nonviolence as the cornerstone of protest politics is the greatest tribute that the world could give to Martin Luther King, Jr. WRITING & DISCUSSION 1. What did the violent incident with the American Nazi in 1962 reveal about Martin Luther King’s philosophy? What did it reveal about his character? 2. Describe the influences on Martin Luther King’s philosophy of nonviolence. How did he interpret those influences in an American context? 3. How was King’s philosophy of nonviolence more than just an “absence of violence”? Use examples from the article. 4. What do you think was the greatest success of the civil rights movement described in the article. How did King’s philosophy of nonviolence play a part in its success? The class is a group of civil rights protesters planning an action in a Southern town in 1962 calling for desegregation of a local lunch counter. Divide students into groups of four. Each group will discuss and then answer the following questions: A. What is the best method to protest? (Choices include: sitting at the lunch counter without moving (a sit-in), marching down the center of the town, boycotting the lunch counter, starting a petition to deliver to the owner of the lunch counter, etc.) B. What sort of response do they expect from the owners and authorities? C. Who are some local allies they can engage with? D. What is the best way to publicize the action? E. What sort of training is necessary? After answering the questions, each group’s spokesperson will share: • The method of protest his or her group chose, and • Reasons for the choice (incorporating answers to the questions as part of the rationale).MARTIN LUTHER KING FJ ® PLAYBOY INTERVIEW: a candid conversation with the nobel prize-winning leader of the civil rights movement On December 5, 1955, to the amused annoyance of the white citizens of Montgornery, Alabama, an obscure young Baptist minister named Martin Luther King, ]1-., called a city-wide Negro boycolt of its segregated bus system. To thei1· constemation, however, it was almost 100 pe1·cent successful; it lasted for 381 days and nearly bankrupted the bus line. When King's home was bombed dming the siege, thousands of enraged Negroes wae ready to riot, but the soft-spoken clergyman prevailed on them to channel their anger into nonviolent protest-and became world· 1·enowned as a champion of Gandhi's philosophy of passive resistance. Within a year the Supreme Court had ruled jim Crow seating unlawful on JVI.on tgomery's buses, and King found himself, at 27, on the front lines of a nonviolent Negro revolution against mcial injustice. Moving to Atlanta, he formed the Southern ChTistian Leadership Conference, an alliance of chuTCh-affiliated civil rights oTganizations which joined such activist gToups as CORE and SNCC in a widening campaign of sit-in demonstrations and freedom rides throughout the South. Dissatisfied with the slow pace of the protest movement, King decided to create a c1·isis in 1963 that would " dramatize the Negro plight and galvanize the national conscience." He was abundantly successful, for his mass nonviolent demonstmtion in arch-segregationist Bi1·mingham resulted in · the arrest of moTe than 3300 Negroes, including King "Measures must be taken at the· Federal level to wrb the reign of terror in the South. It's getting so anybody can kill a Negro and get away with it, as long as they go through the motions of a trial." himself; and millions were outraged by front-page pictures of Negro demonstrators being brutalized by the billy sticks, police dogs and fire hoses of police chief Bull Connor. In the months that followed, mass sitins and demonstrations erupted in 800 Southern cities; Presiden t Kennedy proposed a Civil Rights Bill aimed at the enforcement of voting rights, equal employment opportunities, and the desegregation of public facilities; and the now-famous march on Washington, 200,- 000 strong, was eloquently addressed by King on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. By the end of that "long hot summer," Ame1·ica's Negroes had won more tangible gains than in any year since 1865-and Mm·tin Luther King had become their aclmowledged leader and most respected spokesman. He earned it the hard way: In the course of his civil rights work he has been jailed 14 times and stabbed once in the chest; his home has been bombed three times; and his daily mail brings a steady flow of death threats and obscenities. Undeterred, he works 20 hours a day, travels 325,000 miles anrl'makes 450 speeches a year throughout the country on behalf of the Negro cause. 1mmdated by calls, callers and correspondence at his S.C. L. C. office in Atlanta, he also finds time somehow to preach, visit the sick and help th e poor among his congregation at the city's Ebeneza Baptist Church, of which he and his father are the pastors. "I'm getting sicli and tired of people saying that this movement has been infiltrated by Communists. There are as many Communists in this freedom movement as there are Eskimos in Florida." Reprinted from the January 1965 issue of PLAYBOY @1 965 HM H Publishing Co., Inc. So heavy, in fact, were his commitments when we called him last summer for an interview, that two months elapsed before he was able to accept Ottr request for an appointment. We kept it -only to spend a week in Atlanta waiting vainly for him to find a moment for more than an apology and a hun·ied handshal<e: A bit less pressed when we 1·etumed for a second visit, King was finally able to sandwich in a series of hour and half-hour conversations with us among the other demands of a grueling week. The resultant interview is the longest he has ever granted to any publication. Though he spoke with heartfelt and often eloqu ent sincerity, his tone was one of bwinesslike detachment. And his mood, except for one or two flickering smiles of irony, was gravely se1·ious-never more so than the moment, during a rare evening with his family on our first night in town, when his four children chided him affectionately for "not being home enough." After dinner, we began the interview on this per-sonal note. PLAYBOY: Dr. King, are your children old enough to be aware of the issues at stake in the civil rights movement, and of your role in it? KING: Yes, they are-especially my oldest child, Yolanda. Two years ago, I remember, I returned home after serving one of my terms in the Albany, Georgia, jail, and she asked me, "Daddy, why do "The Nobel award Tecognizes the amazing discipline of the Negro. Though we have had 1·iots, the bloodshed we would have lin own without the discipline of nonviolence would have been frightening." you have to go to jail so much?" I told her that I was involved in a struggle to make conditions better for the colored people, and thus for all people. I explained that because things are as they are, someone has to take a stand, that it is necessary for someone to go to jail, because many Southern officials seek to maintain the barriers that have historically been erected to exclude the colored people. I tried to make her understand that someone had to do this to make the world better-for all children. She was only six at that time, but she was already aware of segregation because of an experience that we had had. PLAYBOY: Would you mind telling us about it? KING: Not at all. The family often used to ride with me to the Atlanta airport, and on our way, we always passed Funtown, a sort of miniature Disneyland with mechanical rides and that sort of thing. Yolanda would inevitably say, "I want to go to Funtown," and I would always evade a direct reply. I really didn't know how to explain to her why she couldn't go. Then one day at home, she ran downstairs exclaiming that a TV commercial was urging people to come to Funtown. Then my wife and I had to sit down with her between us and try to explain it. I have won some applause as a speaker, but my tongue twisted a'nd my speech stammered seeking to explain to my six-year-old daughter why the public invitation on television didn't include her, and others like her. Dne of the most painful experiences I have ever faced was to see her tears when I told her that Funtown was closed to colored children, for I realized that at that moment the first dark cloud of inferiority had floated into her little mental sky, that at that moment her personality had begun to warp with that-first unconscious bitterness toward white people. It was the first time that prejudice based upon skin color had been explained to her. But it was of paramount importance to me that she not grow up bitter. So I told her that although many white people were against her going to Funtown, there were many others who did want colored children to go. It helped somewhat. Pleasantly, word came to me later that Funtown had quietly desegregated, so I took Yolanda. A number of white persons there asked, "Aren't. you Dr. King, and isn't this your daughter?" I said we were, and she heard them say how glad they were to see us there. PLAYBOY: As one who grew up in the economically comfortable, socially insulated environment of a middle-income home in Atlanta, can you recall when it was that you yourself first became painfully and personally aware of racial prejudice? KING: Very clearly. When I was 14, I had traveled from Atlanta to Dublin, Georgia, with a dear teacher of mine, Mrs. Bradley; she's dead now. I had participated there in an oratorical contest sponsored by the Negro Elks. It turned out to be a memorable day, for I had succeeded in winning the contest. My subject, I recall, ironically enough, was "The Negro and the Constitution." Anyway, that night, Mrs. Bradley and I were on a bus returning to Atlanta, and at a small town along the way, some white passengers boarded the bus, and the white driver ordered us to get up and. give the whites our seats. We didn't move quickly enough to suit him, so he began cursing us, calling us "black sons of bitches." I intended to stay right in that scat, but Mrs. Bradley finally urged me up, saying we had to obey the law. And so we stood up in the aisle for the 90 miles to Atlanta. That night will never leave my memory. It was the angriest I have ever been in my life. PLAYBOY: Wasn't it another such incident on a bus, years later, that thrust you into your present role as a civil rights leader? KING: Yes, it was-in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1955. E. D. Nixon, a Pullman porter long identified with the NAACP, telephoned me late one night to tell me that Mrs. Rosa Parks had been arrested around seven-thirty that evening when a bus driver demanded that she give up her seat, and she refused-because her feet hurt. Nixon had already bonded Mrs. Parks out of prison. He said, "It's time this stops; we ought to boycott the buses." I agreed and said, "Now." The next night we called a meeting of Negro community leaders to discuss it, and on Saturday and Sunday we appealed to the Negro community, with leaflets and from the pulpits, to boycott the buses on Monday. We had in mind a one-day boycott, and we were banking on 60-percent success. But the boycott saw instantaneous 99-percent success. We were so pleasantly surprised and impressed that we continued, and for the next 381 days the boycott of Montgomery's buses by Negroes was 991 YJ 0 successful. PLAYBOY: Were you sure you'd win? KING: There was one dark moment when we doubted it. We had been struggling to make the boycott a success when the city of Montgomery successfully obtained an injunction from the court to stop our car pool. I didn't know what to say to our people. They had backed us up, and we had let them down. It was a desolate moment. I saw, all of us saw, that the court was leaning against us. I remember telling a group of those working closest with me to spread in the Negro community the message, "We must have the faith that things will work out somehow, that God will make a way for us when there seems no way." It was about noontime, I remember, when Rex Thomas of the Associated Press rushed over to where I was sitting and told me of the news flash that the U. S. Supreme Court had declared that bus segregation in Montgomery was unconstitutional. It had literally been the darkest hour before the dawn. PLAYBOY: You and your followers were criticized, after your arrest for participating in the boycott, for accepting bail and leaving jail. Do you feel, in retrospect, that you did the right thing? KING: No; I think it was a mistake, a tactical error for me to have left jail, by accepting bail, after being indicted along with 125 others, mainly drivers of our car pool, under an old law of doubtful constitutionality, an "antiboycott" ordinance. I should have stayed in prison. It would have nationally dramatized and deepened our movement even earlier, and it would have more quickly aroused and keened America's conscience. PLAYBOY: Do you feel you've been guilty of any comparable errors in judgment since then? KING: Yes, I do-in Albany, Georgia, in 1962. If I had that to do again, I would guide that community's Negro leadership differently than I did. The mistake I made there was to protest against segregation generally rather than against a single and distinct facet of it. Our protest was so vague that we got nothing, and the people were left very depressed and in despair. It would have been much better to have concentrated upon integrating the buses or the lunch counters. One victory of this kind would have been symbolic, would have galvanized support and boosted morale. But I don't mean that our work in Albany ended in failure. The Negro people there straightened up their bent backs; you can't ride a man's back unless it's bent. Also, thousands of Negroes registered to vote who never had voted before, and because of the expanded Negro vote in the next election lor governor of Georgia-which pitted a moderate candidate against a rabid segregationist-Georgia elected its first governor who had pledged to respect and enforce the law impartially. And what we learned from our mistakes in Albany helped our later campaigns in other cities to be more effective. We have never since scattered our efforts in a general attack on segregation, but have focused upon specific, symbolic objectives. PLAYBOY: Can you recall any other mistakes you've made in leading the movement? KING: Well, the most pervasive mistake I have made was in believing that because our cause was just, we could be sure that the white ministers of the South, once their Christian consciences were challenged, would rise to our aid. I felt that white ministers would take our cause to the white power structures. I ended up, of course, chastened and disillusioned. As our movement unfolded, ami cl:rect appeals were made to white ministers, most folded their hands--and some even took stands against us. PLAYBOY: Their stated reason for refusing to help was that it was not the proper role of the church to "intervene in secular affairs." Do you disagree with this view? KING: Most emphatically. The essence of the Epistles of Paul is that Christians should rejoice at being deemed worthy to suffer for: what they believe. The projection of a soci al gospel, in my opinion, is the true witness of a Christian life. This is the meaning of the true ekklesia-the inner, spiritual church. The church once changed society. It was then a thermostat of society. But today I feel that too much of the church is merely a thermometer, which measures rather than molds popular opinion. PLAYBOY: Are you speaking of the church in general-or the white church in particular? KING: The white church, I'm sorry to say. Its leadership has greatly disappointed me. Let me h asten to say there are some outstanding exceptions. As one whose Christian roots go back through three generations of ministers-my father, grandfather and great-grandfather -I will remain true to the church as long as I live. But the laxity of the white church collectively has caused me to weep tears of love. There cannot be deep disappointment without deep love. Time and again in my travels, as I have seen the outward beauty of white churches, I have had to ask myself, "What kind of people worship there? Who is their God? Is their God the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and is their Savior the Savior who hung on the cross a t Golgotha? Where were their voices when a black race took upon itself the cross of protest against man's injustice to man? Where were their voices when defiance and hatred were called for by white men who sat in these very churches?" As the Negro struggles against grave injustice, most white churchmen offer pious irrelevancies and sanctimonious trivialities. As you say, they claim that the gospel of Christ should have no concern with social issues. Yet white churchgoers, who insist that they are Christians, practice segregation as rigidly in the house of God as they do in moviehouses. Too much of the white church is timid and ineffectual, and some of it is shrill in its defense of bigotry and prejudice. In most communities, the spirit of status quo is endorsed by the churches. i\ly personal disillusionment with the church began when I was thrust into the leadership of the bus protest in Montgomery. I was confident that the white ministers, priests and rabbis of the South would prove strong allies in our just cause. But some became open adversaries, some cautiously shrank from the issue, and others hid behind silence. My optimism about help from the white church was shattered; and on too many occasions since, my hopes for the white church have been dashed. There are many signs th at the judgment of God is upon the church as never before. Unless the early sacrificial spirit is recaptured, I am very much afraid that today's Christian church will lose its authenticity, for· feit t-he loyalty of millions, and we will see the Christian church dismissed as a social club with no meaning or effectiveness for our time, as a form without substance, as salt without savor. The real tragedy, though, is not Martin Luther King's disillusionment with the churchfor I am sustained by its spiritual blessings as a minister of the gospel with a lifelong commitment; the tragedy is that in my travels, I meet young people of all races whose disenchantment with the church has soured into outright disgust. PLAYBOY: Do you feel that the Negro church has come any closer to "the projection of a social gospel" in its commitment to the cause? KING: I must say that when my Southern Christian Leadership Conference began its work in Birmingham, we encountered numerous Negro church reactions that had to be overcome. Negro ministers were among other Negro leaders who felt they were being pulled into something that they had not helped to organize. This is almost always a problem. Negro community unity was the first requisite if our goals were to be realized. I talked with many groups, including one group of 200 ministers, my theme to them being that a minister cannot preach the glories of heaven while ignoring social conditions in his own community that cause men an earthly hell. I stressed that the Negro minister had particular freedom and independence to provide strong, firm leadership, and I asked how the Negro would ever gain freedom without his minister's guidance, support and inspiration. These ministers finally decided to entrust our movement with their support, and as a result, the role of the Negro church today, by and large, is a glorious example in the history of Christendom. For never in Christian history, within a Christian country, have Christian churches been on the receiving end of such naked brutality and violence as we are witnessing here in America today. Not since the days of the Christians in the catacombs has God's house, as a symbol, weathered such attack as the Negro churches. I shall never forget the grief and bitterness I felt on that terrible September morning when a bomb blew out the lives of those four little, innocent girls sitting in their Sunday-school class in the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham. I think of how a woman cried out, crunching through broken glass, "My God, we're not even safe in church!" I think of how that explosion blew the face of Jesus Christ from a stained-glass window. It was symbolic of how sin and evil had blotted out the life of Christ. I can remember thinking that if men were this bestial, was it all worth it? \Vas there any hope? Was there any way out? PLAYBOY: Do you still feel this way? KING: No, time has healed the wounds -and buoyed me with the inspiration of another moment which I shall never forget: when I saw with my own eyes over 3000 young Negro boys and girls, totally unarmed, leave Birmingham's 16th Street Baptist Church to march to a prayer meeting-ready to pit nothing but the power of their bodies and souls against Bull Connor's police dogs, clubs and fire hoses. When they refused Connor's bellowed order to turn back, he whirled and shouted to his men to turn on the hoses. It was one of the most fantastic events of the Birmingham story that these Negroes, many of them on their knees, stared, unafraid and unmoving, at Connor's men with the hose nozzles in their hands. Then, slowly the Negroes stood up and advanced, and Connor's lilen fell back as though hypnotized, as the Negroes marched on past to hold their prayer meeting. I saw there, I felt there, for the first time, the pride and the power of nonviolence. Another time I will never forget was one Saturday night, late, when my brother telephoned me in Atlanta from Birmingham-that city which some call "Bombingham"-which I had just left. He told me that a bomb had wrecked his home, and that another bomb, positioned to exert its maximum force · upon the motel room in which I had been staying, had injured several people. l\fy brother described the terror in the streets as Negroes, furious at the bombings, fought whites. Then, . behind his voice, I heard a rising chorus of beautiful singing: "We shall overcome." Tears came into my eyes that at such a tragic moment, my race still could sing .its hope and faith . PLAYBOY: We Shall Overcome has become the unofficial song and slogan of the civil rights movement. Do you consider such inspirational anthems important to morale? KING: In a sense, songs are the soul of a movement. Consider, in World War Two, Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition, and in World War One, Over There and Tipperary, and during the Civil War, Battle Hymn of the Republic and john Brown's Body . A Negro song anthology would include sorrow songs, shouts for joy, battle hymns, anthems. Since slavery, the Negro has sung throughout his struggle in America. Steal Away and Go Down, 1\1.oses were the songs of faith and inspiration which were sung on the plantations. For the same reasons the slaves sang, Negroes today sing freedom songs, for we, too, are in bondage. We sing out our determination that "We shall overcome, black and white together, we shalt overcome someday." I should also mention a song parody that I enjoyed very much which the Negroes sang during our campaign in Albany, Georgia. It goes: ''I'm comin', I'm comin'/ And my head ain't bendin' low /I'm walkin' tall, I'm talkin' strong/I'm America's N ew Black Joe." PLAYBOY: Your detractors in the Negro community often refer to you snidely as "De Lawd" and "Booker T. King." What's your reaction to this sort of Uncle Tom label? KING: I hear some of those names, but my reaction to them is never emotional. I don't think you can be in public life without being called bad names. As Lincoln said, "If 1 answered all criticism, I'd have time for nothing else." But with regard to both of the names you mentioned, I've always tried to be what I call militantly nonviolent. 1 don't believe that anyone could seriously accuse me of not being totally committed to the breakdown of segregation. PLAYBOY: What do you mean by "militantly nonviolent"? KING: I mean to say that a strong man must be militant as well as moderate. He must be a realist as well as an idealist. If I am to merit the trust invested in me by some of my race, I must be both of these things. This is why nonviolence is a powerful as well as a just weapon. If you confront a man who has long been cruelly misusing yp u, and say, "Punish me, if you will; I do not deserve it, but I will accept it, so that the world will know I am right and you are wrong," then you wield a powerful and a just weapon. This man, your oppressor, is automatically morally defeated, and if he has any conscience, he is ashamed. Wherever i:his weapon is used in a manner that stirs a community's, or a nation's, anguished conscience, then the pressure of public opinion becomes an ally in your just cause. Another of the major strengths of the nonviolent weapon is its strange power to transform and transmute the individuals who subordinate themselves to its disciplines, investing them with a cause that is larger than themselves. They become, for the first time, somebody, and they have, for the first time, the courage to be free. When the Negro finds the courage to be free, he faces dogs and guns and clubs and fire hoses totally unafraid, and the white men with those dogs, guns, clubs and fire hoses see that the Negro they have traditionally called "boy" has become a man. We should not forget that, although nonviolent direct action did not originate in America, it found a na tural home where it has been a revered tradition to rebel against injustice. This great weapon, which we first tried out in Montgomery during the bus boycott, has been further developed throughout the South over the past decade, until by today it has become instrumental in the greatest mass-action crusade for freedom that has occurred in America since the Revolutionary War. The effectiveness of this weapon's ability to dramatize, in the world's eyes, an oppressed peoples' struggle for justice is evident in the fact that of 1963's top ten news stories after the assassination of President Kennedy and the events immediately connected with it, nine stories dealt with one aspect or another of the Negro struggle. PLAYBOY: Several of those stories dealt with your own nonviolent campaigns against segregation in various Southern cities, where you and your followers have been branded "rabble-rousers" and "outside agitators." Do you feel you've earned these labels? KING: Wherever the early Christians appeared, spreading Christ's doctrine of love, the resident power structure accused them of being "disturbers of the peace" and "outside agitators." But the small Christian band continued to teach and exemplify love, convinced that they were "a colony of heaven" on this earth who were missioned to obey not man but God. If those of us who employ nonviolent direct action today are dismissed by our white brothers as "rabble-rousers" and "outside agitators," if they refuse to support our nonviolent efforts and goals, we can be assured that the summer of 1965 will be no less long and hot than the summer of 1964. Our white brothers must be made to understand that nonviolence is a weapon fabricated of love. It is a sword that heals. Our nonviolent direct-action program has as its objective not the creation of tensions, but the surfacing of tensions already present. We set out to precipitate a crisis situation that must open the door to negotiation. I am not afraid of the words "crisis" and "tension." I deeply oppose violence, but constructive crisis and tension are necessary for growth. Innate in all life, and all growth, is tension. Only in death is there an absence of tension. To cure injustices, you must expose them before the light of human conscience and the bar of public opinion, regardless of whatever tensions that exposure generates. Injustices to the Negro must be brought out into the open where they cannot be evaded. PLAYBOY: Is this the sole aim of your Southern Christian Leadership Conference? KING: We have five aims: first, to stimulate nonviolent, direct, mass action to expose and remove the barriers of segregation and discrimina tion; second, to disseminate the creative philosophy and techniques of nonviolence through local and area workshops; third, to secure the right and unhampered use of the ballot for every citizen; fourth, to achieve full citizenship rights, and the total integration of the Negro into American life; and fifth, to reduce the cultural lag through our citizenship training program. PLAYBOY: How does S. C. L. C. select the cities where nonviolent campaigns and demonstrations are to be staged? KING: The operational area of S. C. L. C. is the entire South, where we have affiliated organizations in some 85 cities. Our major campaigns have been conducted only in cities where a request for our help comes from one of these affiliate organizations, and only when we feel that intolerable conditions in that community might be ameliorated with our help. I will give you an example. In Birmingham, one of our affiliate organizations is the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights, which was organized by the Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth, a most energetic and indomitable man. It was he who set out to end Birmingham's racism, challenging the terrorist reign of Bull Connor. S. C. L. C. watched admiringly as the small Shuttlesworth-led organization fought in the Birmingham courts and with boycotts. Shuttlesworth was jailed several times, his home and church were bombed, and still he did not back down. His defiance of Birmingham's racism inspired and encouraged Negroes throughout the South. Then, at a May 1962 board meeting of the S. C. L. C. in Chattanooga, the first discussions began that later led to our joining Shuttlesworth's organization m a massive direct-action campaign to attack Birmingham's segregation. PLAYBOY: One of the highlights of that campaign was your celebrated "Letter from a Birmingham Jail''-written during one of your jail terms for civil disobedience-an eloquent reply to eight Protestant, Catholic and Jewish clergymen who had criticized your activities in Birmingham. Do you feel that subsequent events have justified the sentiments expressed in your letter? KING: I would say yes. Two or three important and constructive things have happened which can be at least partially attnbuted to that letter. By now, nearly a million copies of the letter have been widely circulated in churches of most of the major denominations. It helped to focus greater international attention upon what was happening in Birmingham. And I am sure that without Birmingham, the march on Washington wouldn't have been called-which in my mind was one of the most creative steps the Negro struggle has taken. The march on Washington spurred and galvanized the consciences of millions. It gave the American Negro a new national and international stature. The press of the world recorded the story as nearly a quarter of a million Americans, white and black, assembled in grandeur as a testimonial to the Negro's determination to achieve freedom in this generation. It was also the image of Birmingham which, to a great extent, helped to bring the Civil Rights Bill into being in 1963. Previously, President Kennedy had decided not to propose it that year, feeling that it would so arouse the South that it would meet a bottleneck. But Birmingham, and subsequent developments, caused him to reorder his legislative priorities. One of these decisive developments was our last major campaign before the enactment of the Civil Rights Act-in St .. Augustine, Florida. We received a plea for help from Dr. Robert Hayling, the leader of the St. Augustine movement. St. Augustine, America's oldest city, and one of the most segregated cities in America, was a stronghold of the Ku Klux Klan and the John Birch Society. Such things had happened as Klansmen abducting four Negroes and beating them unconscious with clubs, brass knuckles, ax handles and· pistol butts. Dr. Hayling's home had been shot up with buckshot, three Negro homes had been bombed and several Negro night clubs shotgunned. A Negro's car had been destroyed by fire because his child was one of the six Negro children permitted to attend white schools. And the homes of two of the Negro children in the white schools had been burned down. Many Negroes had been fired from jobs that some had worked on for 28 years because they were somehow connected with the demonstrations. Police had beaten and arrested Negroes for picketing, marching and singing freedom songs. Many Negroes had served up to 90 days in jail for demonstrating against segregation, and four teenagers had spent six months in jail for picketing. Then, on 'February seventh of last year, Dr. Hay}ing's home was shotgunned a second time, with his pregnant wife and two children barely escaping death; the family dog was killed while standing behind the living-room door. So S. C. L. C. decided to join in last year's celebration of St. Augustine's gala 400th birthday as America's oldest city-by converting it into a nonviolent battleground. This is just what we did. PLAYBOY: But isn't it true, Dr. King, that during this and other "nonviolent" demonstrations, violence has occurredsometimes resulting in hundreds of casualties on both sides? KING: Yes, in part that is true. But what is always overlooked is how few people, in ratio to the numbers involved, have been casualties. An army on maneuvers, against no enemy, suffers casualties, even fatalities. A minimum of whites have been casualties in demonstrations solely because our teaching of nonviolence disciplines our followers not to fight even if attacked. A minimum of Negroes are casualties for two reasons: Their white oppressors know tha t the world watches their actions, and for the first time they are being faced by Negroes who display no fear. PLAYBOY: It was shortly after your St. Augustine campaign last summer, as you mentioned, that the Civil Rights Bill was passed-outlawing many of the injustices against which you had been demonstrating. Throughout the South, predictably, it was promptly anathematized as unconstitutional and excessive h:~ its concessions to Negro demands. How do you feel about it? KING: I don't feel that the Civil Rights Act has gone far enough in some of its coverage. In the first place, it needs a stronger voting section. You will never have a true democracy until you can eliminate all restrictions. We need to do away with restrictive literacy tests. I've seen too much of native intelligence to accept the validity of these tests as a ~riterion for voting qualifications. Our nation needs a universal method of voter registration-one man, one vote, literally. Second, there is a pressing, urgent need to give the attorney general the right to initi ate Federal suits in any area of civil rights denial. Third, we need a strong and strongly enforced fair-housing section such as many states already have. President Kennedy initiated the present housing law, but it is not broad enough. Fourth, we need an extension of FEPC to grapple more effectively with the problems of poverty. Not only are millions of Negroes caught in the clutches of poverty, but millions of poor whites as well. And fifth, conclusive and effective measures must be taken immediately at the Federal level to curb the worsening reign of terror in the South-which is aided and abetted, as everyone knows, by state and local lawenforcement agencies. It's getting so that anybody can kill a Negro and get away with it in the South, as long as they go through the motions of a jury ".rial. There is very little chance of conviction from lily-white Southern jurors. It must be fixed so that in the case of interracial murder, the Federal Government can prosecute. PLAYBOY: Your dissatisfaction with the Civil Rights Act reflects that of most other Negro spokesmen. According to recent polls, however, many whites resent this attitude, calling the Negro "ungrateful" and "unrealistic" to press his demands for more. KING: This is a litany to those of us in this field. "What more will the Negro want?" "What will it take to make thest demonstrations end?" Well, I would likt tu reply with another rhetorical question : Why do white people seem to find it so difficult to understand that the Negro is sick and tired of having reluctantly parceled out to him those rights and privileges which all others receive upon birth or entry in America? I never cease to wonder at the amazing presumption of much of white society, assuming that they have the right to bargain with the Negro for his freedom. This continued arrogant ladling out of pieces of the rights of citizenship has begun to generate a fury in the Negro. Even so, he is not pressing for revenge, or for conquest, or to gain spoils, or to ensla,·e, or even to marry the sisters of those who have injured him. What the Negro wants-and will not stop until he getsis absolute and unqualified freedom and equality here in this land of his birth, and not in Africa or in some imaginary state. The Negro no longer will be tolerant of anything less than his due right ;md heritage. He is pursuing only that which he knows is honorably his. He knows that he is right. But every Negro leader since the turn of the century has been saying this in one form or another. It is because we haYe been so long and so conscientiously ignored by the dominant white society that the situation has now reached such crisis proportions. Few white people, even today, will face the clear fact that the very future and destiny of this country are tied up in what answer will be given to the Negro. And that answer must be gi,·en soon. PLAYBOY: Relatively few dispute the justness of the struggle to eradicate racial injustice, but many whites feel that the Negro should be more patient, th;tt only the passage of time-perhaps generations -will bring about the sweeping changes he demands in traditional attitudes and customs. Do you think this is true? KING: No, I do not. I feel that the time is always right to do what is right. Where progress for the Negro in America is concerned, there is a tragic misconception of time among whites. They seem to cherish a strange, irrational notion that something in the ,·ery How of time will cure all ills. In truth, time itself is only neutral. Increasingly, 1 feel that time has been used destructively by people of ill will much more than it has been used constructively by those of good will. If I were to select a timetable for the equalization of human rights, it would be the intent of the "all deliberate speed" specified in the historic 1954 Supreme Court decision. But what has happened? A Supreme Court decision was met, and balked, with utter defiance. Ten years later, in most areas of the South, less than one percent of the Negro children ha,·e been integrated in schools, and in · some of the deepest South, not e\·en one tenth of one percent. Approximately 25 percent of employable Negro youth, for another example, are presently unemployed. Though many would prefer not to, we must face the fact that progress for the Negro--to which white "moderates" like to point in justifying gradualism-has been relatively insignificant, particularly in terms of the Negro masses. What little progress has been made-and that includes the Civil Rights Act-has applied primarily to the middle-class Negro. Among the masses, especially in the Northern ghettos, the situation remains about the same, and for some it is worse. PLAYBOY: It would seem that much could be done at the local, state and Federal levels to remedy these inequities. In your own contact with them, have you found Government officials--in the North, if not in the South-to be generally sympathetic, understanding, and receptive to appeals for reform? KING: On the contrary, I have been dismayed at the degree to which abysmal ignorance seems to prevail among many state, city and even Federal officials on the whole question of racial justice and injustice. Particularly, I have found that these men seriously-and dangerouslyunderestimate the explosive mood of the Negro and the gravity of the crisis. Even among those whom I would consider to be both sympathetic and sincerely intellectually committed, there is a lamentable lack of understanding. But this white failure to comprehend the depth and dimension of the · Negro problem is far from being peculiar to Government officials. Apart from bigots and backlashers, it seems to be a malady even among those whites who like to regard themselves as "enlightened." I would especially refer to those who counsel, "Wait!" and to those who say that they sympathize with our goals but cannot condone our methods of direct-action pursuit of those goals. I wonder at men who dare to feel that they have some paternalistic right to set the timetable for another man's liberation. Over the past several years, I must s<;ty. I have been gravely disappointed with such white "moderates." I am often inclined to think that they are more of a stumbling block to the Negro's progress than the White Citizen's Counc::iler or the Ku Klux Klanner. PLAYBOY: Haven't both of these segregationist societies been implicated in connection with plots against your life? KING: It's difficult to trace the authorship of these death threats. I seldom go through a day without one. Some are telephoned anonymously to my office; others are sent-unsigned, of coursethrough the mails. Drew Pearson wrote not long ago about one group of unknown affiliation that was committed to assassinate not only me but also Chief Justice Warren and President Johnson. And not long ago, when I was about to visit in Mississippi, I received some very urgent calls from Negro leaders in Mobile, who had been told by a very reliable source that a sort of guerrilla group led by a retired major in the area of Lucyville, Mississippi, was plotting to take my life during the visit. I was strongly urged to cancel the trip, but when I thought about it, I decided that I had no alternative but to go on into Mississippi. PLAYBOY: Why? KING: Because I have a job to do. If I were constantly worried about death, I couldn't function. After a while, if your life is more or less constantly in peril, you come to a point where you accept the possibility philosophically. I must face the fact, as all others in positions of leadership must do, that America today is an extremely sick nation, and that something could well happen to me at any time. I feel, though, that my cause is so right, so moral, that if I should lose my life, in some way it would aid the cause. PLAYBOY: That statement exemplifies the total dedication to the civil rights movement for which you are so widely admired-but also denounced as an "extremist" by such segregationist spokesmen as Alabama's Governor Wallace. Do you accept this identification? KING: It disturbed me when I first heard it. But when I began to consider the true meaning of the word, I decided that perhaps I would like to think of myself as an extremist-in the light of the spirit which made Jesus an extremist for love. If it sounds as though I am comparing myself to the Savior, let me remind you that all who honor themselves with the claim of being "Christians" should compare themselves to Jesus. Thus I consider myself an extremist for that brotherhood of man which Paul so nobly expressed: "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus." Love is the only force on earth that can be dispensed or received in an extreme manner, without any qualifications, without any harm to the giver or to the receiver. PLAYBOY: Perhaps. But the kind of extremism for which you've been criticized has to do not with love, but with your advocacy of willful disobedience of what you consider to be "unjust laws." Do you feel you have the right to pass judgment on and defy the law-nonviolently or otherwise? KING: Yes-morally, if not legally. For there are two kinds of laws: man's and God's. A man-made code that squares with the moral law, or the law of God, is a just law. But a man-made code that is inharmonious with the moral law is an unjust law. And an unjust law, as St. Augustine said, is no law at all. Thus a law that is unjust is morally null and void, and must be defied until it is legally null and void as well. Let us not forget, in the memories of 6,000,000 who died, that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was "legal," and that everything the Freedom Fighters in Hungary did was "illegal." In spite of that, I am sure that I would have aided and comforted my Jewish brothers if I had Jived in Germany during Hitler's reign, as some Christian priests and ministers did do, often at the cost of their lives. And if I lived now in a Communist country where principles dear to the Christian's faith are suppressed, I know that I would openly advocate defiance of that country's antireligious laws--again, just as some Christian priests and ministers are doing today behind the .Iron Curtain. Right here in America today there are white ministers, priests and rabbis who have shed blood in the support of our struggle against a web of human injustice, much of which is supported by immoral man-made laws. PLAYBOY: Segregation laws? KING: Specifically, court mJunctions. Though the rights of the First Amendment guarantee that any citizen or group of citizens may engage in peaceable assembly, the South has seized upon the device of invoking injunctions to block our direct-action civil rights demonstrations. \Vhen you get set to stage a nonviolent demonstration, the city simply secures an injunction to cease and desist. Southern courts are well known for "sitting on" this type of case; conceivably a two- or three-year delay could be incurred. At first we found this to be a highly effective subterfuge against us. \Ve first experienced it in Montgomery when, during the bus boycott, our car pool was outlawed by an injunction. An injunction also destroyed the protest movement in Talladega, Alabama. Another injunction outlawed the oldest t:ivil rights organization, the NAACP, from the whole state of Alabama. Still another injunction thwarted our organization's efforts in Albany, Georgia. Then in Birmingham, we felt that we had to take a stand and disobey a court injunction against demonstrations, knowing the consequences and being prepared to meet them-or the unjust law would break our movement. We did not take this step hastily or rashly. We gave the matter intense thought and prayer before deciding that the right thing was being done. And when we made our decision, I announced our plan to the press, making it clear that we were not anarchists advocating lawlessness, but that in good conscience we could not comply with a misuse of the judicial process in order to perpetuate injustice and segregation. When our plan was made known, it bewildered and immobilized our segregationist opponents. We felt that our decision had been morally as well as tactically right-in keeping with God's law as well as with the spirit of our nonviolent direct-action program. PLAYBOY: If it's morally right for supporters of civil rights to violate segregation laws which they consider unjust, why is it wrong for segregationists to resist the enforcement of integration laws which they consider unjust? KING: Because segregation, as even the segregationists know in their hearts, is morally wrong and sinful. If it weren't, the white South would not be haunted as it is by a deep sense of guilt for what it has done to the Negro-guilt for patronizing him, degrading him, brutalizing him, depersonalizing him, thingifying him; guilt for lying to itself. This is the source of the schizophrenia that the South will suffer until it goes through its crisis of conscience. PLAYBOY: Is this crisis imminent? KING: It may not come next week or next year, but it is certainly more imminent in the South than in the North. If the South is honest with itself, it may well outdistance the North in the improvement of race relations. PLAYBOY: Why? KING: Well, the Northern white, having had little actual contact with the Negro, is devoted to an abstract principle of cordial interracial relations. The North has long considered, in a theoretical way, that it supported brotherhood and the equality of man, but the truth is that deep prejudices and discriminations exist in hidden and subtle and covert disguises. The South's prejudice and discrimination, on the other hand, has been applied against the Negro in obvious, open, overt and glaring forms-which make the problem easier to get at. The Southern white man has the advantage of far more actual contact with Negroes than the Northerner. A major problem is that this contact has been paternalistic and poisoned by the myth of racial superiority. PLAYBOY: Many Southern whites, supported by the "research" of several Southern anthropologists, vow that white racial superiority-and Negro infe. riority-are a biological fact. KING: You may remember that during the rise of Nazi Germany, a rash of books by respected, German scientists appeared, supporting the master-race theory. This utterly ignorant fallacy has been so thoroughly refuted by the social scientists, as well as by medical science, that any individual who goes on believing it is standing in an absolutely misguided and diminishing circle. The American Anthropological Association has unanimously adopted a resolution repudiating statements that Negroes are biologically, in innate mental ability or in any other way inferior to whites. The collective weight and authority of world scientists are embodied in a Unesco report on races which flatly refutes the theory of innate superiority among any ethnic group. And as far as Negro "blood" is concerned, medical science finds the same four blood types in all race groups. When the Southern white finally accepts this simple fact-as he eventually must-beautiful results will follow, for we will have come a long way toward transforming his master-servant perspective into a person-to-person perspective. The Southern white man, discovering the "nonmyth" Negro, exhibits all the passion of the new convert, seeing the black man as a man among men for the first time. The South, if it is to survive economically, must make dramatic changes, and these must include the Negro. People of good will in the South, who are the vast majority, have the challenge to be open and honest, and to turn a deaf ear to the shrill cries of the irresponsible few on the lunatic fringe. I think and pray they will. PLAYBOY: Whom do you include among "the irresponsible few"? KING: I include those who preach racism and commit violence; and those who, in various cities where we have sought to peacefully demonstrate, have sought to goad Negroes into violence as an excuse for violent mass reprisal. In Birmingham, for example, on the day it was flashed about the world that a "peace pact" had been signed between the moderate whites and the Negroes, Birmingham's segregationist forces reacted with fury, swearing vengeance against the white businessmen who had "betrayed" them by negotiating with Negroes. On Saturday night, just outside of Birmingham, a Ku Klux Klan meeting was held, and that same night, as I mentioned earlier, a bomb ripped the home of my brother, the Reverend A. D. King, and another bomb was planted where it would have killed or seriously wounded anyone in the· motel room which I had been occupying. Both bombings had been timed just as Birmingham's bars closed on Saturday midnight, as the streets filled with thousands of Negroes who were not trained in nonviolence, and who had been drinking. Just as whoever planted the bombs had wanted to happen, fighting began, policemen were stoned by Negroes, cars were overturned and fires started. PLAYBOY: Were none of your S, C. L. C. workers involved? KING: If they had been, there would have been no riot, for we believe that only just means may be used in seeking a just end. We believe that lasting gains can be made-and they have been made -only by practicing what we preach: a policy of nonviolent, peaceful protest. The riots, North and South, have involved mobs-not the disciplined, nonviolent, direct-action demonstrators with whom I identify. We do not condone lawlessness, looting and violence committed by the racist or the reckless of any color. I must say, however, that riots such as have occurred do achieve at least one partially positive effect: They dramatically focus national attention upon the Negro's discontent. Unfortunately, they also give the white majority an excuse, a provocation, to look away from the cause of the riots-the poverty and the deprivation and the degradation of the Negro, especially in the slums and ghettos where the riots occur-and to talk instead of looting, and of the breakdown of law and order. It is never circulated that some of the looters have been white people, similarly motivated by their own poverty. In one riot in a Northern city, aside from the Negroes and Puerto Ricans who were arrested, there were also 158 white people-including mothers stealing food, children's shoes and other necessity items. The poor, white and black, were rebelling together against the establishment. PLAYBOY: Whom do you mean by "the establishment"? KING: I mean the white leadershipwhich I hold as responsible as anyone for the riots, for not removing the conditions that cause them. The deep frustration, the seething desperation of the Negro today is a product of slum housing, chronic poverty, woefully inadequate education and substandard schools. The Negro is trapped in a long and desolate corridor with no exit sign, caught in a vicious socioeconomic vise. And he is ostracized as is no other minority group in America by the evil of oppressive and constricting prejudice based solely upon his color. A righteous man has no alternative but to resist such an evil system. If he does not have the courage to resist nonviolently, then he runs the risk of a violent emotional explosion. As much as I deplore violence, there is one evil that is worse than violence, and that's cowardice. It is still my basic article of faith that social justice can be achieved and democracy advanced only to the degree that there is firm adherence to nonviolent action and resistance in the pursuit of social justice. But America will be faced with the ever-present threat of violence, rioting and senseless crime as long as Negroes by the hundreds of thousands are packed into malodorous, rat-plagued ghettos; as long as Negroes remain smothered by poverty in the midst of an affluent society; as long as Negroes are made to feel like exiles in their own land; as long as Negroes continue to be dehumanized; as long as Negroes see their freedom endlessly delayed and diminished by the head winds of tokenism and small handouts from the white power structure. No nation can suffer any greater tragedy than to cause millions of its citizens to feel that they have no stake in their own society. Understand that I am trying only to explain the reasons for violence and the threat of violence. Let me say again. that by no means and under no circumstance do I condone outbreaks of looting and lawlessness. I feel that every responsible Negro leader must point out, with all possible vigor, that anyone who perpetrates and participates in a riot is immoral as well as impractical-that the use of immoral means will not achieve the moral · end of racial justice. PLAYBOY: Whom do you consider the most responsible Negro leaders? KING: Well, I would say that Roy Wilkins of the NAACP has proved time and again to be a very articulate spokesman for the rights of Negroes. He is a most able administrator and a dedicated organization man wi1h personal resources that have helped the whole struggle. Another outstanding man is Whitney Young Jr. of the National Urban League, an extremely able social scientist. He has developed a meaningful balance between militancy and moderation. James Farmer of CORE is another courageous, dedicated and thoughtful civil rights spokesman. I have always been impressed by how he maintains a freshness in his awareness of the meaning of the whole quest for freedom. And John Lewis of SNCC symbolizes the kind of strong militancy, courage and creativity that our youth have brought to the civil rights struggle. But I feel that the greatest leader of these times that the Negro has produced is A. Philip Randolph, president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, whose total integrity, depth of dedication and caliber of statesmanship set an example for us all. PLAYBOY: Many whites feel that last summer's riots occurred because leadership is no longer being offered by the men you named. KING: The riots we h ave h ad are minute compared to what would h ave happened without their effective and restraining leadership. I am convinced that unless the nonviolent philosophy had emerged and taken hold among N egroes, North and South, by today the streets of dozens of American communities would have flowed with blood. Hundreds of <;ities might now be mourning countless dead, of both races, were it not for the nonviolent influence which has given political surg~ons the time and opportunity to boldly and safely excise some aspects of the peril of violence that faced this nation in the summers of 1963 and 1964. The whole world has seen what happened in communities such as Harlem, Brooklyn, Rochester, Philadelphia, Newark, St. Petersburg and Birmingham, where this emergency operation was either botched or not performed at all. PLAYBOY: Still, doesn 't the very fact that riots have occurred tend to indicate that many .Negroes are no longer heeding the counsels of nonviolence? KING: Not the majority, by any means. But it is true that some Negroes subscribe to a deep feeling that the tactic of nonviolence is not producing enough concrete victories. We have seen, in our experience, that nonviolence thrives best in a climate of justice. Violence grows to the degree that injustice prevails; the more injustice in a given community, the more violence, or potential violence, smolders in that community. I can give you a clear example. If you will notice, there have been fewer riots in the South. The :reason for this is that the Negro in the South can see some visible, concrete victories in civil rights. Last year, the police would have been called if he sat down at a community lunch counter. This year, if he chooses to sit at that counter, he is served. More riots have occurred in the North because the fellow in Harlem, to name one Northern ghetto, can't see any victories. He remains throttled, as he has always been, by vague, intangible economic and social deprivations. Until the concerned power structures begin to grapple creatively with these fundamental inequities, it will be difficult for violence to be eliminated. The longer our people see no progress, or halting progress, the easier it will be for them to yield to the counsels of hatred and demagoguery. PLAYBOY: The literature of the John Birch Society, accusing you of just such counsels, has branded you "a conscious agent of the Communist conspiracy." KING: As you know, they have sought to link many people with communism, including the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and a former President of the United States. So I'm in good company, at least. The Birchers thrive on sneer and smear, on the dissemination of half-truths and outright lies. It would be comfortable to dismiss them as the lunatic fringe-which, by and large, they are; but some priests and ministers have also shown themselves to be among them. They are a very dangerous group--and they could become even more dangerous if the public doesn't reject the un-American travesty of patriotism that they espouse. PLAYBOY: \.Vas there any basis in fact for the rumors, still circulating in some quarters, that last summer's riots were fomented and stage-directed by Communist agitators? KING: I'm getting sick and tired of people saying that this movement has been infiltrated by Communists. There are as many Communists in this freedom movement as there are Eskimos in Florida. The FBI provided the best answer to this absurd rumor in its report to the President after a special investigation which he had requested. It stated that the riots were not caused or directed by any such groups, although they did try to capitalize upon and prolong the riots. All Negro leaders, including myself, were most happy with the publication of these findings, for the public whisperings had troubled us. We knew that it could prove vitally harmful to the Negro struggle if the riots had been catalyzed or manipulated by the Communists or some other extremist group. It would h ave sown the seed of doubt in the public's mind that the Negro revolution is a genuine revolution, born from the same womb that produces all massive social upheavals-the womb of intolerable conditions and unendurable situations. PLAYBOY: Is it destined to be a violent revolution? KING: God willing, no. But white Americans must be made to understand the basic motives underlying Negro demonstrations. Many pent-up resentments and latent frustrations are boiling inside the Negro, and he must release them. It is not a threat but a fact of history that if an oppressed people's pent-up emotions are not nonviolently released, they will be violently released. So let the Negro march. Let him make pilgrimages to city hall. Let him go on freedom rides. And above all, make an effort to understand why he must do this. For if his frustration and despair are allowed to continue piling up, millions of Negroes will seek solace and security in blackna tionalist ideologies. And this, inevitably, would lead to a frightening racial nightmare. PLAYBOY: Among whites, the best-known and most feared of these militantly racist Negro sects is the Black Muslims. What is your estimation of its power and influence among the Negro masses? KING: Except in a few metropolitan ghettos, my experience has been that few Negroes have any interest a t all in this organization, much less give any allegiance to its pessimistic doctrines. The Black Muslims are a quasi-religious, sociopolitical movement tha t has appealed to some Negroes who formerly were Christians. For the first time, the Negro was presented with a choice of a religion other than Christianity. What this appeal actually represented was an indictment of Christian failures to live up to Christianity's precepts; for there is nothing in Christianity, nor in the Bible, that justifies racial segregation. But when the Negroes' genuine fighting spirit rose during 1963, the appeal of the Muslims began to diminish. PLAYBOY: One of the basic precepts of black nationalism has been the attempt to engender a sense of communion between the American Negro and his African "brother," a sense of identity between the emergence of black Africa and the Negro's struggle for freedom in America. Do you feel that this is a constructive effort? KING: Yes, I do, in many ways. There is a distinct, significant and inevitable correlation. The Negro across America, looking at his television set, sees black statesmen voting in the United Nations on vital world issues, knowing that in many of America's cities, he himself is not yet permitted to place his ballot. The Negro hears of black kings and · potentates ruling in palaces, while he remains ghettoized in urban slums. It is only natural that Negroes would react to this extreme irony. Consciously or unconsciously, the American Negro has been caught up by the black Zeitgeist. He feels a deepening sense of iden- tification with his black African brothers, and with his brown and yellow brothers of Asia, South America and the Caribbean. With them he is moving with a sense of increasing urgency toward the promised land of racial justice. PLAYBOY: Do you feel that the African nations, in turn, should involve themselves more actively in American Negro affairs? KING: I do indeed. The world is now so small in terms of geographic proximity and mutual problems that no nation should stand idly by and watch another's plight. I think that in every possible instance Africans should use the influence of their governments to make it clear that the struggle of their brothers in the U.S. is part of a world-wide struggle. In short, injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere, for we are tied together in a garment of mutuality. What happens in Johannesburg affects Birmingham, however indirectly. We are descendants of the Africans. Our heritage is Africa. We should never seek to break the ties, nor should the Africans. PLAYBOY: One of the most articulate champions of black Afro-American brotherhood has been Malcolm X, the former Black Muslim leader who recently renounced his racist past and converted to orthodox Mohammedanism. What is your opinion of him and his career? KING: I met Malcolm X once in Washington, but circumstances didn't enable me to talk with him for more than a minute. He is very articulate, as you say, but I totally disagree with many of his political and philosophical views-at least insofar as I understand where he now stands. I don't want to seem to sound self-righteous, or absolutist, or that I think I have the only truth, the only way. Maybe he does have some of the answer. I don't know how he feels now, but I know that I have often wished tha t he would talk less of violence, because violence is not going to solve our problem. And in his litany of articulating the despair of the Negro without offering any positive, creative alternative, I feel that Malcolm has done himself and our people a great disservice. Fiery, demagogic oratory in the black ghettos, urging Negroes to arm themselves and prepare to engage in violence, as he has done, can reap nothing but grief. PLAYBOY: For them or for whites? KING: For everyone, but mostly for them. Even the extremist leaders who preach revolution are invariably unwilling to lead what they know would certainly end in bloody, chaotic and total defeat; for in the event of a violent revolution, we would be sorely outnumbered. And when it was all over, the Negro would face the same unchanged conditions, the same squalor and deprivation-the only difference being that his bitterness would be even more intense, his disenchantment even more abject. Thus, in purely practical as well as moral terms, the American Negro has no rational alternative to nonviolence. PLAYBOY: You categorically reject violence as a tactical technique for social change. Can it not be argued, however, that violence, historically, has effected massive and sometimes constructive social change in some countries? KING: I'd be the first to say that some historical victories have been won by violence; the U. S. Revolution is certainly one of the foremost. But the Negro rev:olution is seeking integration, not independence. Those fighting for independence have the purpose to drive out the oppressors. But here in America, we've got to live toget!ter. We've got to find a way to reconcile ourselves to living in community, one group with the other. The struggle of the Negro in America, to be successful, must be waged with resolute efforts, but efforts that are kept strictly within the framework of our democratic society. This means reaching, educating and moving large enough groups of people of both races to stir the conscience of the nation. PLAYBOY: How do you propose to go about it? KING: Before we can make any progress, we must avoid retrogression-by doing everything in our power to avert further racial violence. To this end, there are three immediate steps that I would recommend. Firstly, it is mandatory that people of good will across America, particularly those who are in positions to wield influence and power, conduct honest, soul-searching analyses and evaluations of the environmental causes that spawn riots. All major industrial and ghetto areas should establish serious biracial discussions of community problems, and of ways to begin solving them. Instead of ambulance service, municipal leaders need to provide preventive medicine. Secondly, these communities should make serious efforts to provide work and training for unemployed youth, through job-and-training programs such as the HARYOU-ACT program in New York City. Thirdly, all cities concerned should make first-priority efforts to provide immediate quality education for Negro youth-instead of conducting studies for the next five years. Young boys and girls now in the ghettos must be enabled to feel that they count, that somebody cares about them; they must be able to feel hope. And on a longer-range basis, the physical ghetto itself must be eliminated, because these are the environmental conditions that germinate riots. It is both socially and morally suicidal to continue a pattern of deploring effects while failing to come to grips with the causes. Ultimately, law and order will be maintained only when justice and dignity are accorded impartially to all. PLAYBOY: Along with the other civil rights leaders, you have often proposed a massive program of economic aid, financed by the Federal Government, to improve the lot of the nation's 20,000,- 000 Negroes. Just one of the projects you've mentioned, however-the HARYOU-ACT program to provide jobs for Negro youths-is expected to cost $141,- 000,000 over the next ten years, and that includes only Harlem. A nationwide program such as you propose would undoubtedly run into the billions. KING: About 50 billion, actually-which is less than one year of our present defense spending. It is my belief that with the expenditure of this amount, over a ten-year period, a genuine and dramatic transformation could be achieved in the conditions of Negro life in America. I am positive, moreover, that the money spent would be more than amply justified by the benefits that would accrue to the nation through a spectacular decline in school dropouts, family breakups, crime rates, illegitimacy, swollen relief rolls, rioting and other social evils. PLAYBOY: Do you think it's realistic to hope that the Government would consider an appropriation of such magnitude other than for national defense? KING: I certainly do. This country has the resources to solve any problem once that problem is accepted as national policy. An example is aid to Appalachia, which has been made a policy of the Federal Government's mud1-touted war on poverty; one billion was proposed for its relief-without making the slightest dent in the defense budget. Another example is the fact that after World War Two, during the years when it became policy to build and maintain the largest military machine the world has ever known, America also took upon itself, through the Marshall Plan and other measures, the financial relief and rehabilitation of millions of European people. If America can afford to underwrite its allies and ex-enemies, it can certainly afford-and has a much greater obligation, as I see it-to do at least as well by its own no-less-needy countrymen. PLAYBOY: Do you feel it's fair to request a multibillion-dollar program of preferential treatment for the Negro, or for any other minority group? KING: I do indeed. Can any fair-minded citizen deny that the Negro has been deprived? Few people reflect that for two centuries the Negro was enslaved, and robbed of any wages-potential accrued wealth which would have been the legacy of his descendants. All of America's wealth today could not adequately compensate its Negroes for his centuries of exploitation and humiliation. It is an economic fact that a program such as I propose would certainly cost far less than any computation of two centuries of unpaid wages plus accumulated inter- est. In any case, I do not intend that this program of economic aid should apply only to the Negro; it should benefit the disadvantaged of all races. Within common law, we have ample precedents for special compensatory programs, which are regarded as settlements. American Indians are still being paid for land in a settlement manner. Is not two centuries of labor, which helped to build this country, as real a commodity? Many other easily appl icable precedents are readily at hand: our child labor laws, social security, unemployment compensation, man-power retraining programs. And you will remember that America adopted a policy of special treatment for her millions of Yeterans after the War-a program which cost far more than a policy of preferential treatment to rehabilitate the traditionally disadvantaged Negro would cost today. The closest analogy is the GI Bill of Rights. Negro rehabilitation in America would require approximately the same breadth of program-which would not place an undue burden on our economy. Just as was the case with the returning soldier, such a bill for the disadvantaged and impoYerished could enable them to buy homes without cash, at lower and easier repayment terms. They could negotiate loans from banks to launch businesses. They could receive, as did ex-Gis, special points to place them ahead in competition for civil service jobs. Under certain circumstances of physical disability, medical care and long-term financial grants could be made available. And together with these rights, a favorable social climate could be created to encourage the preferential employment of the disadvantaged, as was the case for so many years with veterans. During those years, it might- be noted, there was no appreciable resentment of the preferential treatment being giYen to the special group. America was only -compensating her veterans for their time lost from school or from business. PLAYBOY: If a nationwide program of preferential employment for Negroes were to be adopted, how wou:d you propose to assuage the resentment of whites who already feel that their jobs are being jeopardized by the influx of Negroes resulting from desegregation? KING: 'Ve must develop a Federal program of puhlic works, retraining and jobs for all-so that none, white or black, will have cause to feel threatened. At the present time, thousands of jobs a week are disappearing in the wake of automation and other production efficiency techniques. Black and white, we will all be harmed unless something grand and imaginative is done. The unemployed, poverty-stricken white man must be made to realize that he is in the very same boat with the Negro. Together, they could exert massive pressure on the Government to get jobs for all. Together, they could form a grand alliance. Together, they could merge all people for the good of all. PLAYBOY: If Negroes are also granted preferential treatment in housing, as you propose, how would you allay the alarm with which many white homeowners, fearing property devaluation, greet the arrival of Negroes in hitherto allwhite neighborhoods? KING: We must expunge from our society the myths and half-truths that engender such groundless fears as these. In the first place, there is no truth to the myth that Negroes depreciate property. The fact is that most Negroes are kept out of residential neighborhoods so long that when one of us is finally sold a home, it's already depreciated. In the second place, we must dispel the negative and harmful atmosphere that has been created by avaricious and unprincipled realtors who engage in ".blockbusting." If we had in America really serious efforts to break down discrimination in housing, and at the same time a concerted program of Government aid to improve housing for Negroes, I think that many white people would be surprised at how many Negroes would choose to live among themselves, exactly as Poles and Jews and other ethnic groups do. PLAYBOY: The B'nai B'rith, a prominent social-action organization which undertakes on behalf of the Jewish people many of the activities that you ask the Government to perform for Negroes, is generously financed by Jewish charities and private donations. All of the Negro civil rights groups, on the other hand-including your own-are perennially in financial straits and must rely heavily on white philanthropy in order to remain solvent. Why do they receive so little support from Negroes? KING: We have to face and live with the fact that the Negro has not developed a sense of stewardship. Slavery was so divisive and brutal, so molded to break up unity, that we never developed a sense oL oneness, as in Judaism. Starting with the individual family unit, the Jewish people are closely knit into what is, in effect, one big family. But with the Negro, slavery separated families from families, and the pattern of disunity that we see among Negroes today derives directly from this cruel fact of history. It is also a cruel fact that the Negro, generally speaking, has not developed a responsible sense of financial values. The best economists say that your automobile shouldn't cost more than half of your annual income, but we see many Negroes earning $7000 a year paying $5000 for a car. The home, it is said, should not cost more than twice the annual income, but we see many Negroes earning, say, $8000 a year living in a $30,000 home. Negroes, who amount to about II percent of the America population, are reported to consume over 40 percent of the Scotch whisky imported into the U.S., and to spend over $72,000,000 a year in jewelry stores. So when we come asking for civil rights donations, or help for the United Negro College Fund, most Negroes are trying to make ends meet. PLAYBOY: The widespread looting that took place during last summer's riots would seem to prove your point. Do you agree with those who feel that this looting-much of which was directed against Jewish-owned stores-was anti-Semitic in motivation? KING: No, I do not believe that the riots could in any way be considered expressions of anti-Semitism. It's true, as I was particularly pained to learn, that a large percentage of the looted stores were owned by our Jewish friends, but I do not feel that anti-Semitism was involved. A high percentage of the merchants serving most Negro communities simply happen to be Jewish. How could there be anti-Semitism among Negroes when our Jewish friends have demonstrated their commitment to the principle of tolerance and brotherhood not only in the form of sizable contributions, but in many other tangible ways, and often at great personal sacrifice? Can we ever express our appreciation to the rabbis who chose to give moral witness with us in St. Augustine during our recent protest against segregation in tha t unhappy city? Need I remind anyone of the awful beating suffered by Rabbi Arthur Lelyveld of Cleveland when he joined the civil rights workers there in Hattiesburg, Mississippi? And who can ever forget the sacrifice of two Jewish lives, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, in the swamps of Mississippi? It would be impossible to record the contribution that the Jewish people have made toward the Negro's struggle for freedom-it has been so great. PLAYBOY: In conspicuous contrast, according to a recent poll conducted by Ebony, only one Negro in ten has ever participated physically in any form of social protest. vVhy? KING: It is not always sheer numbers that are the measure of public support. As I see it, every Negro who does participate represents the sympathy and the moral backing of thousands of others. Let us never forget how one photograph, of those Birmingham policemen with th eir knees on that Negro woman on the ground, touched something emotionally deep in most Negroes in America, no matter who they were. In city after city, where S.C. L. C. has helped to achieve sweeping social changes, it has been not only because of the quality of its members' dedication and discipline, but because of the moral support of many Negroes who never took an active part. It's significant, I think, that during each of our city struggles, the usual aver- age of crimes committed by Negroes has dropped to almost nothing. But it is true, undeniably, that there are many Negroes who will never fight for freedom-yet who will be eager enough to accept it when it comes. And there are millions of Negroes who have never known anything but oppression, who are so devoid of pride and selfrespect that they have resigned themselves to segregation. Other Negroes, comfortable and complacent, consider that they are above the struggle of the masses. And still others seek personal profit from segregation. PLAYBOY: Many Southern whites have accused you of being among those who exploit the race problem for private gain. You are widely believed throughout the South, in fact, to have amassed a vast personal fortune in the course of your civil rights activities. KING: Me wealthy? This is so utterly fallacious and erroneous that I often wonder where it got started. For the sixth straight year since I have been S.C. L. C.'s president, I have rejected our board's insistent recommendation that I accept some salary beyond the one dollar a year which I receive, which entitles me to participate in our employees' group insurance plan. I have rejected also our board's offer of financial gifts as a measure and expression of appreciation. My only salary is from my church, $4000 a year, plus $2000 more a year for what is known as "pastoral care." To earn a grand total of about $.10,000 a year, I keep about $4000 to $5000 a year for myself from the honorariums that I receive from various speaking engagements. About 90 percent of my speaking is for S.C. L. C., and it brings into our treasury something around $200,000 a year. Additionally, I get a fairly sizable but fluctuating income in the form of royalties from my writings. But all of this, too, I give to my church, or to my alma mater, Morehouse College, here in Atlanta. I believe as sincerely as I believe anything that the struggle for freedom in which S. C. L. C. is engaged is not one that should reward any participant with individual wealth and gain. I think I'd rise up in my grave if I died leaving two or three hundred thousand dollars. But people just don't seem to believe that this is the way I feel about it. If I have any weaknesses, they are not in the area of coveting wealth. My wife knows this well; in fact, she feels that I overdo it. But the Internal Revenue people, they stay on me; they feel sure that one day they are going to find a fortune stashed in a mattress. To give you some idea of my reputed affluence, just last week I came in from a trip and learned that a television program had announced I was going to purchase an expensive home in an all-white neighborhood here in Atlanta. It was news to me! PLAYBOY: Your schedule of speaking engagements and civil rights commitments throughout the country is a punishing one-often 20 hours a day, seven days a week, according to reports. How much time do you get to spend at home? KING: Very little, indeed. I've averaged not more than two days a week at home here in Atlanta over the past year-or since Birmingham, actually. I'm away two and three weeks at a time, mostly working in commumues across the South. WhereYer I am, I try to be in a pulpit as many Sundays as possible. But eYery day when I'm at home, I break from the office for dinner and try to spend a few hours with the children before I return to the office for some night work. And on Tuesdays when I'm not out of town, I don't go to the office. I keep this for my quiet day of reading and silence and meditation, and an entire evening with Mrs. King and the children. PLAYBOY: If you could have a week's uninterrupted rest. with no commitments whatever, how would you spend it? KING: It's difficult to imagine such a thing, but if I had the luxury of an entire week, I would spend it meditating and reading, refreshing myself spiritually and intellectually. I have a deep nostalgia for the periods in the past that I was able to devote in this manner. Amidst the struggle, amidst the frustrations, amidst the endless work, I often reflect that I am forever giving-never pausing to take in. I feel urgently the need for even an hour of time to get away, to withdraw, to refuel. I need more time to think through what is being done, to take time out from the mechanics of the movement, to reflect on the meaning of the movement. PLAYBOY: If you were marooned on the proverbial desert island, and could have with you only one book-apart from the Bible-what would it be? KING: That's tough. Let me think about it-one book, not the Bible. Well, I think I would have to pick Plato's Republic. I feel that it brings together more of the insights of history than any other book. There is not a creative idea extant that is not discussed, in some way, in this work. Whatever realm of theology or philosophy is one's interest-and I am deeply interested in both-somewhere along the way, in this book, you will find the matter explored. PLAYBOY: If you could send someoneanyone-to that desert island in your stead, who would it be? KING: That's another tough one. Let me see, I guess I wouldn't mind seeing Mr. Goldwater dispatched to a desert island. I hope they'd feed him and everything, of course. I am nonviolent, you know. Politically, though, he's already on a desert island, so it may be unnecessary to send him there. PLAYBOY: We take it you weren't overly distressed by his defeat in the Presidential race. KING: Until that defeat, Goldwater was the most dangerous man in America. He talked soft and nice, but he gave aid and comfort to the most vicious racists and the most extreme rightists in America. He gave respectability to views totally alien to the democratic process. Had he won, he would have led us down a fantastic path that would have totally destroyed America as we know it. PLAYBOY: Until his withdrawal from the race following Goldwater's nomination, Alabama's Governor Wallace was another candidate for the Presidency. What's your opinion of his qualifications for that office? KING: Governor \Vallace is a demagog with a capital D. He symbolizes in this country many of the evils that were alive in Hitler's Germany. He is a merchant of racism, peddling hate under the guise of States' rights. He wants to turn bao:;k the clock, for his own personal aggrandizement, and he will do literally anything to accomplish this. He represents the misuse, the corruption, the destruc- ' tion of leadership. I am not sure that he beli eves all the poison that he preaches, but he is artful enough to o:;onvince others that he does. Instead of guiding people to new peaks of reasonableness, he intensifies misunderstanding, deepens suspicion and prejudice. He is perhaps the most dangerous racist in America today. PLAYBOY: One of the most controversial issues of the past year, apart from civil rights, was the question of school prayer, which has been ruled unlawful by the Supreme Court. Governor Wallace, among others, has denounced the decision. How do you feel about it? KING: I endorse it. I think it was correct. Contrary to what many have said, it sought to outlaw neither prayer nor belief in God. In a pluralistic society such as ours, who is to determine what prayer shall be spoken, and by whom? Legally, constitutionally or otherwise, the state certainly has no such right. I am strongly opposed to the efforts that have been made to nullify the decision. They have been motivated, I think, by little more than the wish to embarrass the Supreme Court. When I saw Brother Wallace going up to Washington to testify against the decision at the Congressional hearings, it only strengthened my conviction that the decision was right. PLAYBOY: Governor Wallace has intimated tha t President Johnson, in championing the cause of civil rights only since he became Vice-President, may be guilty of "insincerity." KING: How President Johnson may or may not have felt about or voted on civil rights during his years in Congress is less relevant, at this point, than what he has said and done about it during his tenure· as President of the United States. In my opinion, he has done a good job up to now. He is an extremely keen political man, and he has demonstrated his wisdom and his commitment in forthrightly coming to grips. with the problem. He does not tire of reminding the nation of the moral issues involved. My impression is that he will remain a strong President for civil rights. PLAYBOY: Late in 1963, you wrote, "As I look toward 1964, one fact is unmistakably clear: The thrust of the Negro toward full emancipation will increase rather than decrease." As last summer's riots testified, these words were unhappily prophetic. Do you foresee more violence in the year ahead? KING: To the degree that the Negro is not thwarted in his thrust forward, I believe that one can predict less violence. I am not saying that there will be no demonstrations. There assuredly will, for the Negro in America has not made one civil rights gain without tense legal. and extralegal pressure. If the Constitution were today applied equally and impartially to all of America's citizens, in every section of the country, in every court and code of law, there would be no need for any group of citizens to seek extralegal redress. Our task has been a difficult one, and will continue to be, for privileged groups, historically, have not volunteered to give up their privileges. As Reinhold Niebuhr has written, individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily abandon their unjust posture, but groups tend to be more immoral, and more intransigent, than individuals. Our nonviolent direct-action program, therefore-which has proved its strength and effectiveness in more than a thousand American cities where some baptism of fire has taken place-will continue to dramatize and demonstrate against local injustices to the Negro until the last of those who impose those injustices are forced to negotiate; until, finally, the Negro ·wins the protections of the Constitution that have been denied to him; until society, at long last, is stricken gloriously and incurably color-blind. PLAYBOY: In well-earned recognition of your dedication to and leadership of the struggle to achieve these goals, you became, in October of last year, the youngest man ever to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. What was your reaction to the news? KING: It made me feel very humble indeed. But I would like to think that the award is not a personal tribute, but a tribute to the entire freedom movement, and to the gallant people of both races who surround me in the drive for civil rights which will make the American dream a reality. I think that this internationally known award will call even more attention to our struggle, gain even greater sympathy and understanding for our cause, from people all over the world. I like to think that the award recognizes symbolically the gallantry, the courage and the amazing discipline of the Negro in America, for these things are to his eternal credit. Though we have had riots, the bloodshed that we would have known without the discipline of nonviolence would have been truly frightening. I know that many whites feel the civil rights movement is getting out of hand; this may reassure them. It may let them see that basically this is a disciplined struggle, let them appreciate the meaning of our struggle, let them see that a great struggle for human freedom can occur within the framework of a democratic society. PLAYBOY: Do you feel that this goal will be achieved within your lifetime? KING: I confess that I do not believe this day is around the corner. The concept of supremacy is so imbedded in the white society that it will take many years for color to cease to be a judgmental factor. But it is certainly my hope and dream. Indeed, it is the keystone of my faith in the future that we will someday achieve a thoroughly integrated society. I believe that before the turn of the century, if trends continue to move and develop as presently, we will have moved a long, long way toward such a society. PLAYBOY: Do you intend to dedicate the rest of your life, then, to the Negro cause? KING: If need be, yes. But I dream of the day when the demands presently cast upon me will be greatly diminished. I would say that in the next five years, though, I can't hape for much letup-either in the South or in the North. After that time, it is my hope that things will taper off a bit. PLAYBOY: If they do, what are your plans? KING: Well, at one time I dreamed of pastoring for a few years, and then of going to a university to teach theology. But I gave that up when I became deeply involved in the civil rights struggle. Perhaps, in five years or so, if the demands on me have lightened, I will have the chance to make that dream come true. PLAYBOY: In the meanwhile, you are now the universally acknowledged leader of the American civil rights movement, and chief spokesman for the nation's 20,000,000 Negroes. Are there ever moments when you feel awed by this burden of responsibility, or inadequate to its demands? KING: One cannot be in my position, looked to by some for guidance, without being constantly reminded of the awesomeness of its responsibility. I live with one deep concern: Am I making the right decisions? Sometimes I am uncertain, and I must look to God for guidance. There was one morning I recall, when I was in the Birmingham jail, in solitary, with not even my lawyers permitted to visit, and I was in a nightmare of despair. The very future of our movement hung in the balance, depending upon capricious turns of events over which I could have no control there, incommunicado, in an utterly dark dungeon. This was about ten days after our Birmingham demonstrations began. Over 400 of our followers had gone to jail; some had been bailed out, but we had ·used up all of our money for bail, and about 300 remained in jail, and I felt personally responsible. It was then that President Kennedy telephoned my wife, Coretta. After that, my jail conditions were relaxed, and the following Sunday afternoon-it was Easter Sunday -two S.C.L.C. attorneys were permitted to visit me. The next day, word came to me from New York that Harry Belafonte had raised $50,000 that was available immediately for bail bonds, and if more was needed, he would raise that. I cannot express what I felt, but I knew at that moment that God's presence had never left me, that He had been with me there in solitary. I subject myself to self-purification and to endless self-analysis; I question and soul-search constantly into myself to be as certain as I can that -I am fulfilling the true meaning of my work, that I am maintaining my sense of purpose, that I am holding fast to my ideals, that I am guiding my people in the right direction. But whatever my doubts, however heavy the burden, I feel that I must accept the task of helping to make this nation and this world a better place to live in-for all men, black and white alike. I never will forget a moment in Birmingham when a white policeman accosted a little Negro girl, seven or eight years old, who was walking in a demonstration with her mother. "What do you want?" the ·policeman asked her gruffly, and the little girl looked him straight in the eye and answered, "Fee-dom." She couldn't even pronounce it, but she knew.lt was beautiful! Many times when I have been in sorely trying situations, the memory of that little one has come into my mind, and has buoyed me. .Similarly, not long ago, I toured in eight communities of the state of Mississippi. And I have carried with me ever since a visual image of the penniless and the unlettered, and of the expressions on their faces--of deep and courageous determination to cast off the imprint of the past and become free people. I welcome the opportunity to be a part of this great drama, for it is a drama that will determine America's destiny. If the problem is not solved, America will be on the road to its self-destruction. But if it is solved, America will just as surely be on the high road to the fulfillment of the founding fathers' dream, when they wrote: "We hold these truths to be selfevident ..• " 
  • Theme: Art
  • Type: Photograph
  • Year of Production: 1969

PicClick Insights - Martin Luther King Jr Tomb Vintage Photo Atlanta African American Art 1969 PicClick Exclusive

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