Autobiography of MLK Jr.

Early Years
Of course i was religious, I grew up in a church. My father is a preacher, my grandfather was a preacher, my great grandfather was a preacher, my only brother is a preacher, my daddy's brother is a preacher. So I didn't have much choice

Nov 25, 1926 - Michael (later Martin) Luther King Sr. marries Alberta Williams, daughter of AD Williams, pastor of Ebeneezer Baptist Church

Jan 15, 1929 - Martin Luther King Jr. born at Williams/King family home at 501 Auburn Avenue in Atlanta

March 21, 1931 - AD Williams dies and is succeeded as pastor of Ebeneezer by King Sr.

May 18, 1941 - King Jr.'s grandmother Jennie Celeste Williams dies and family moves to 193 Boulevard in Atlanta

Apr 17, 1944 - King Jr. travels to Dublin, Georgia, to deliver "The Negro and the Consitituion" in oratory contest

MoreHouse College
My call to the ministry was not a miraculous or supernatural something. On the contrary it was an inner urge calling me to serve humanity

Sep 20, 1944 - King begins freshman year at Morehouse College
Feb 25, 1948 - Is ordained at Ebeneezer
Jun 8, 1948 - Receives bachelor of arts degree in sociology from Morehouse

pg 14 - During my student days I read Henry David Thoreau's essay "On Civil Disobedience" for the first time. Here, in this courageous New Englander's refusal to pay his taxes and his choice of jail rather than support a war that would spread slavery's territory into Mexico, I made my first contact with the theory of nonviolent resistence.

Crozer Seminary

I was well aware of the typical white stereotype of the Negro, that he is always late, that he's loud and always laughing, that he's dirty and messy, and for a whilte I was terribly conscious of trying to avoid identification with it. If I were a minute late to class I was almost morbidly conscious of it and sure that everyone ntoiced it. Rather than be thought of as always laughing, I'm afraid I was grimly seirous for a time. I had a tendency to overdress, to keep my room spotless, my shoes perfectly shined, and my clothes immactulately pressed.

Sep 14, 1948 - King enters Crozer Theological Seminary
Spring 1950 - Hears Howard University president Mordecai Johnson lecture on Gandhi
May 8, 1951 - Receives bachelor of divinity degree from Crozer

pg 17 - I turned to a serious study of the social and ethical theories of the great philosophers from Plato and Aristotle down to Rousseau, Hobbes, Bentham, Mill, and Locke.

pg 18 - I came early to Walter Rauschenbusch's "Christianity and the Social Crisis", which left an indelible imprint on my thinking by giving me a theological basis for the social concern which had already grown up in me as a result of my early experiences...... It has been my conviction ever since reading Rauschenbusch that any religion that professes concern for the souls of men and is not equally concerned abut the slums and that damn them, the economic conditions that strangle them, and the social conditions that cripple them is a spiritually moribund religion only waiting for the day to be buried. It well has been said: "A religion that ends with the individual, ends."

Pg 20 - I carefully scrutinized "Das Kapital" and the "Communist Manifesto".

Pg 21 - Moreover, Marx had revealed the danger of the profit motive as the sole basis of an economic system: capitalism is always in danger of inspiring men to be more concerned about making a living than making a life. We are prone to judge success by the index of our salaries or the size of our automobiles, rather than by the quality of our service and relationship to humanity. Thus capitalism can lead to a practical materialism that is as pernicious as the materialism taught by communism.

pg 25 - During my last year in theological school, I began to read the works of Reinhold Neibuhr. The prophetic and realistic elements in Neihbuhr's passionate style and profound thought were appealing to me, and made me aware of the complexity of human motives and the reality of sin on every level of man's existence. I became so enamored of his social ethics that I almost fell into the trap of accepting uncritically everything he wrote.... His break with pacifism came in the early thirties, and the first full statement of his criticism of pacifism was in Moral Man and Immoral Society.

(thought pacifism was the same as non violent resistence - or rather not resisting evil vs. non voilent resistence to evil)

pg 29

O That I Knew Where I Might Find Him

I can remember very vividly how in my recent seminary days, I was able to strengthen my spiritual life through communing with nature. The seminary campus is a beautiful sight, particularly so in the spring. And it was at thsi time of year that I made it a practice to go out to the edge of the campus every afternoon for at least an hour to commune with nature. On the side of the campus ran a little tributary from the Delaware river. Every day I would sit on the edge of the campus by the side of the river and watch the beauties of nature. My friend in this experience, I saw God. I saw him in birds of the air, the leaves of the tree, the movement of the rippling waves ... Sometimes I go out at night and look up at the stars as they bedeck the heavens like shining silver pins sticking in a magnificent blue pin cushion. There is God. Sometimes I watch the sun as it gets up in the morning and paints its technicolor across the eastern horizon. There is God. Sometimes I watch the moon as it walks across the sky as a queen walks across her masterly mansion. There is God. Henry Ward Beecher was right: "Nature is God's Tongue".

Boston University
As a Young man with most of my life ahead of me, I decided early to give my life to something eternal and absolute. Not to these little gods that are here today and gone tomorrow. But to God who is the same yesterday, today and forever

Sep 13, 1951 - King enters Boston University's School of Theology

Feb 25, 1953 - Academic advisor Edgar S. Brightman dies; Harold DeWolf becomes new advisor

Jun 5th, 1955 - Receives Doctorate in systematic theology from Boston University

Coretta
I am indebted to my wife Coretta, without whose love, sacrifices and loyalty neither life nor work would bring fulfillment. She has given me words of consolation when I needed them and a well-ordered home where Christian love is a reality

Apr 27 - 1927 - Coretta Scott is born Heiberger, Alabama

Jan 1952 - Coretta and Martin meet in Boston

Jun 18, 1953 - King Sr. performs marriage in Marion, Alabama

pg 36 - (Letter to Coretta) - By the way (to turn to something more intellectual) I have just completed Bellamy's Looking Backward. It was both stimulating and fascinating. There can be no doubt about it. Bellamy had the insight of a social prophet as well as the fact finding mind of the social scientist.

Dexter Avenue Baptist Church
You the people of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church have called me to serve as pastor of your historic chruch; and I have gladly accepted the call. It is with more than perfunctory gratitude that I offer my apprecatiation to you for bestowing upon me this great honor. I accept the pastorate dreadfully aware of the tremendous responsibilities accompanying it. Contrary to some shallow thinking, the responsibilities of the pastorate both stagger and astound the imagination. They tax the whole man.

January 24, 1954 - King delivers trial sermon at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama

Feb 28, 1954 - Delivers guest sermon at 2nd Baptist Church in Detroit, Michigan

April 14, 1954 - Accepts call to Dexter's pastorate

May 2, 1954 - Delivers seron as Dexter's minister

Oct 31, 1954 - Officially becomes pastor of Dextor; King Sr. delivers installation sermon

Aug 26, 1955 - Rosa Parks, secretary of Montgomery NAACP chapter, informs King of his election to executive committee

Nov 17, 1955 - First child, Yolanda Denise is born

pg 41 - Fortunately, the Metropolitan Opera was on the air with a performance of one of my favorite operas - Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor.

Montgomery Movement Begins
While the nature of this account causes me to make frequent use of the pronoun "I", in every important part of the story it should be "we". This is not a drama with only one actor. More precisely it is the chronicle of 50,000 Negroes who took to heart the principles of nonviolence, who learned to fight for their rights with the weapon of love, and who, in the process, acquired a new estimate of their own human worth

Dec 1, 1955 - Rosa Parks arrested for voilating segragation laws

Dec 5, 1955 - King elected head of newly formed protest group, the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA)

The Violence of Desperate Men

Along the way of life, someone must have sense enough and morality enough to cut off the chain of hate and evil. The greatest way to do that is through love. I believe firmly that love is a transforming power than can lift a whole community to new horizons of fair play, goodwill and justice.

Dec 17, 1955 - King and other MIA leaders meet with white representatives in unsuccessful attempt to resolve bus dispute

Jan 26, 1956 - During "Get Tough" campaign, King is arrested and jailed for speeding

Jan 28, 1956 - Receives $14 fine for speeding

Jan 30, 1956 - After his home is bombed, King pleads for nonvoilence

pg 71 - (after white community criticizes that King is horrible leader and they need a new one) - I almost broke down under the continual battering of this argument. I began to think that there might be some truth in it, and I also feared that some were being infulenced by this argument. After two or three troubled days and nights of little sleep, I called a meetng of the executive board and offered my resignation. I told them that I would be the last person to want to stand in the way of a solution to the problem which plagued our community, and that maybe a more mature person could bring about a speedier conclusion. I further assured the board that I would be as active in the background as I had been in the position of spokesman. But I had barely finsihed talking before board members bagan to urge me from every side to forget the idea of resignation. With a unanimous vote of confidence, they made it clear that they were well pleased with the way I was handling things, and that they would follow my leadership to the end.

Desegration At Last

We came to see that, in the long run, it is more honorable to walk in dignity than ride in humiliation. So in a quiet dignified manner, we decided to subsititute tired fett for tired souls, and walk the streets of Montgomery until the sagging walls of injustice had been crushed by the battering rams of surging justice

Feb 21, 1956 - Montgomery grand jury indicts King and other MIA leaders for voilating antiboycott law

Mar 22, 1956 - King is found guilty of leading illegal boycott and sentenced to a $500 fine or 386 days in jail; the case is appealed

Nov 13, 1956 - US Supreme Court delcares bus segragation laws unconstitutional

Dec 21, 1956 - After MIA votes to end boycott, King is one of the first passengers to ride desgregated buses

pg 87 - I was proud of my crime - At the jail, an almost holiday of atmosphere prevailed. People had rushed down to get arrested. No one had been frightened. No one had tried to evade arrest. Many Negroes had gone voluntarily to the sheriff's office to see if their names were on the list, and were even disappointed when they were not. A once fear-ridden people had been transformed. Those who had previously trembled before the law were now proud to be arrested for the cause of freedom. With this feelign of solidarity around me, I walked with firm steps toward the rear of the jail. After I had been photographed and fingerprinted, one of my church members paid my bond and I left for home.

pg 94 - Tuesday, Nov 13, 1956 will awlways remain an important and ironic date in the history of the Montgromery bus protest. On that day two historic decisions were rendered - one to do away with the pool; the other to remove the underlying conditions that made it necessary. The darkest hour of our struggle had become the hour of victory. Disappointment, sorrow, and despair are born at midnight, but morning follows.

The Expanding Struggle
History has thrust upon our generation an indescribably important destiny - to complete a process of democratization which our nation has too long developed too slowly, but which is our most powerful weapon for world respect and emulation. How we deal with this crucial situation will determine our moral health as individuals our cultural health as a region, our politicial health as a nation, and our prestige as a leader of the free world.

Feb 14, 1957 - King becomes head of Southern Leaders Conference (Later SCLC)
May 17, 1957 - Deilivers address at Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom in Washington DC
Sep 25, 1957 - Applauds President Eisenhower's decision to use force to integrate Little Rock's Central High School
OCt 23, 1957 - Martin Luther III is born
Jun 23, 1958 - King and other civil rights leaders meet with Eisenhower

pg 107
This determination of Negro Americans to win freedom from all forms of oppression springs from the same deep longing that motivates oppression springs from the same deep longing that motivates oppressed peoples all over the world. The rumblings of discontent in Asia and Africa are expressions of a quest for freedom and human dignity by people who have long been the victims of colonialism and imperialism. So, in a real sense, the racial crisis in America is a part of the larger world crisis.

pg 110
Nevertheless , it was strange to me that the federal government was more concerned about what happened in Budapest than what happened in Birmingham. I thought Eisenhower believed that integration would be a fine thing. But I thought that he feld that the more you push it, the more tension it would create, so, just waite a few more years and it will work itself out. I didn't think that Eisenhower felt like being a crusader for integration. President Eisenhower was a man of integrity and goodwill, but I am afraid that on the question of integration he didn't understand the dimensions of social change involved nor how the problem was to be worked out.

Birth of New Nation
Ghana has something to say to us. It says to us first that the oppressor never voluntarily gives freedom to the oppressed. You have to work for it. Freedom is never given to anybody. Priviledged classes never give up their privileges without strong resistance.

March 4, 1957 - King party arrives in Gold Coast for Independence celebration
March 6, 1957 - Attends midnight ceremony makring Ghana's independence
March 12, 1957 - Departs from Accra to Rome, by way of Nigeria
March 26, 1957 - Returns to NY after stays in Paris and London

Brush with Death
This was rather a diffcult year for me. I have had to confront the brutality of police officers, an unwarranted arrest, and a near fatal stab would by a mentally deranged woman. These things were poured upon me like staggering torrents on a cold, wintry day.

Sep 3, 1958 - King is arrested in Montgomery
Sep 4, 1958 - After his conviction for failing to obey an officer, King's fine is paid by Montgomery police commissioner
Sep 20, 1958 - Is stabbed in Harlem by an old crazy black women
Oct 3, 1958 - After realease from Harlem Hospital, begins convalescing at the home of the Reverend Sandy F. Ray
Oct 24, 1958 - Returns to Montgomery to continue recuperation

Pilgrimage to Non-Violence
It was a marvelous experience to meet and talk with the great leaders of India, to meet and talk with and speak to thousands and thousands of peopel all over that vast country. These expereiences remain dear to me as long as the cords of memory shall lengthen.
Feb 3, 1959 - The Kings, accompanied by Dr. L.D. Reddick, embark for India
Feb 10, 1959 - After stay in Paris, King party arrives in India and has dinner with Prime Minister Nehru
Mar 10, 1959 - Departure from India to Jerusalem and Cairo
Mar 18 , 1959 - Return to the United States

pg 127
On Feb 22, Mrs. King and I journeyed down to a city in India called Trivadrum. Then we went form Trvandrum down to a point known as Cape Comorin. This is where the mass of India ends and the vast rolling waters of the ocean have their beginning. It is one of the most beautiful parts of all the world. Three great bodies of water meet together in all their majestic splendor: The Bay of Bengal, the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean. [find this location someday]
I remember how we went out there and looked at the big old rocks, a sight that was truly incredible, out into the waters, out into the ocean. Seated on a huge rock that slightly protruded into the ocean, we were enthralled by the vastness of the ocean and its terrifying immensities. We looked at the waves of those great bodies of water as they unfolded in almost rhythmic suspension. As the waves crashed against the base of the rock on which we were seated, an oceanic music brought sweetness to the ear. To the west we saw the magnificent sun, a red cosmic ball of fire, appear to sink into the very ocean itself. Just as it was almost lost from sight, Coretta touched me and said, "Look Martin, isnt that beautiful!" I looked around and saw the moon, another ball of scintillating beauty, as the sun appreaed to be sinking into the ocean, the moon appreared to be rising from the ocean. When the sun finally passed completely beyond sight, darkness engulfed the earth, but in the east the radiant light of the rising moon shone supreme. This was, as I said, one of the most beautiful parts in all the world and that happened to be one of those days when the moon was full. This is one of the few points in all the world where you can see the setting of the sun and the rising of the moon simultaneously.
I looked at that and something came to my mind and I had to share it with Coretta, Dr. Reddick, and other people who were accompanying us around at that point. God has the light that can shine through all the darkness. We have experiences when the light of day vanishes, leaving us in some dark and desolate midnight - moments when our highest hopes are turned into shambles of despair or when we are victims of some tragic injustice and some terrible exploitation. During such moments our spirits are almost overcome by gloom and despair, and we feel that there is no light anywhere. But ever and again, we look toward the east and discover that there is another light which shines even in the darkness, and "the spear of frustration" is transformed "into a shaft of light".

On March 1st we had the privilege of spending a day at the Amniabad ashram and stood there at the point where Gandhi started his walk of 218 miles to a place called Bambi. [DK note: visit this location someday]

pg 129
Gandhi was able to mobolize and galvanize more people in his lifetime than any other person in the history of this world. And just with a little love and understanding goodwill and a refusal to cooperate with an evil law, he was able to break the backbone of the British Empire. This, I think, was tone of the most significant things that ever happened in the history of the world. More than 390 million people achieved their freedom, and they achieved it nonviolently

pg 132
The world doesn't like people like Gandhi. That's strange. isn't it? They don't like people like Christ; they don't like people like Lincoln. They killed him - this man who had done all of that for India, who gave his life and who mobilzed and galvanized 400 million people for independence..... One of his own fellow Hindus felt that he was a little too favorable toward the muslims.... here was the man of nonviolence, falling at the hands of a man of violence. Here was a man of love falling a tthe hands of a man with hate. This seems the way of history. And isn't it significant that he died on the same day that Christ died? It was a on Friday. And this is the story of history, but thank God it never stopped here. Thank God Good Friday is never the end. The man who shot Gandhi only shot him in to the hearts of humanity. Just as when Abraham Lincoln was shot, mark you, for the same reason that Mahatma Gandhi was shot - that is, the attempt to heal the wounds of the divided nation - when Abraham Lincoln was shot, Secretary Standon stood by and said "Now he belongs to the ages." The same thing could be said about Mahatma Gandhi now; He belongs to the ages.

The Sit in Movement
A generation of young people has come out of decades of shadows to face naked state power; it has lost its fears, and experienced the majiestic dignity of a direct struggle for its own liberation. These young people have connected up with their own history - the slave revolts, the incomplete revolution of the Civil War, the brotherhood of colonial colored men in Africa and Asia. They are an integral part of the history which is reshaping the world, replacing a dying order with modern democracy.

Feb 1, 1960 - King moves with family to Atlanta, in Greensboro, North Carolina lunch counter sit-in movement begins
Feb 17, 1960 - Is arrested and charged with falsifying his 1956 and 1958 Alabama state income tax returns
Apr 15, 1960 - Speaks at founding conference of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)
May 28, 1960 - IS acquitted of tax evasion by an all-white jury in Montgomery

Atlanta Arrest and Presidential Politics

I fear that there is a dearth of vision in our government, a lack of a sense of history and geniune morality.

June 23, 1960 - King discusses civil rights with presidential candidate Senator JFK
Oct 19, 1960 - Is arrested at Atlanta sit-in
Oct 25, 1960 - Charges are dropped for sit-in arrest but King is held for violating probation for earlier traffic offense and transferred to Reidsville
Oct 26, 1960 - Presidential candidate JFK calls Coretta Scott King to express sympathy and offer assistance; Robert Kennedy calls Georgia governor S. Ernest Vandiver and Judge Oscar Mithcell seeking King's release on bail
Oct 27, 1960 - King's attorney Donald L. Hollowell arranges release from prison
Nov 1, 1960 - King applauds Senator Kennedy for support
Nov 8, 1960 - Kennedy wins close election, receiving strong support from black voters

pg 148
If I had known Nixon longer. He had been supposedly close to me, and he would call me frequently about things, seeking my advice. And yet, when this moment came, it was like he had never heard of me. So this is why I really considered im a moral coward and one who was really unwilling to take a courageous step and take a risk. And I am convinced that he lost the election because of that. Many Negroes were still on the fence, still undecided, and they were leaning toward Nixon.

The Albany Movement
Why Albany? Because Albany symbolizes the bastions of segragation set upon by the compounded forces of morality and justice

Jan 30, 1961 - King's third child, Dextor Scott is born
May 21, 1961 - After the initial group of Freedom Riders seeking to integrate bus terminals are assualted in Alabama, King addresses mass rally at mob beseiged Montgomery church
Dec 15, 1961 - King arrives in Albany in response to telegram from Dr. WG Anderson, head of the Albany Movement
Dec 16, 1961 - is arrested with more than 700 Albany protesters
Jul 10, 1962 - With Ralph Abernathy, is convicted of leading December protest; begins serving a 45 day sentence
Jul 12, 1962 - Leaves jail after his fine is paid by unidentified person
Jul 25, 1962 - After outbreak of racial violence in Albany, calls for Day of Penance to atone for violence
Jul 27, 1962 - Albany city hall prayer vigil ends in arrest
Aug 10, 1962 - Leaves jail and agrees to halt demonstrations

pg 158 - One of the things that takes the monotony out of jail is the visit of a relative or friend. About 1:30 - three hours after we were arrested our wives came by to see us. As usual Coretta was calm and sweet, encouraging me at every point. God blessed me with a great and wonderful wife. Without her love, understanding, and courage, I would have faltered long ago. I asked about the children. She told me that Yolanda cried when she discovered that her daddy was in jail. Somehow, I have never quite adjusted to bringing my children up under such inexplicable conditions. How do you explain to a little child why you have to go to jail? Coretta developed an answer. She told them that daddy has gone to jail to help the people.

The Birmingham Campaign
In the entire country, there was no place to compare with Birmingham. The largest industrial city in the South, Birmingham had become in the thirties, a symbol of bloodshed when trade unions sought to organize. I twas a community in which human rights had been trampled on for so long that fear and oppression were as thick in its atmostphere as the smog from its factories. Its financial interests were interlocked with a power structure which spread throughout the South and readiated into the North. The challedge nonviolent, direct action could not have been staged in a more appropriate arena

Mar 28, 1963 -The King's fourth child. Bernice Albertine was born
Apr 2, 1963 - Albert Boutwell wins runoff election over Police Commissioner Eugene "Bull" Connor for mayor of Birmingham, but Connor and other city commissioners refuse to leave office.
Apr 3, 1963 - After delays in order to avoid interfering with election, SCLC and Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights launch protest campaign in Birmingham
Apr 12, 1963 -After violating a state circuit court injunction against protests, King is arrested
Apr 15, 1963 -President Kennedy calls Coretta Scott King expressing concern for her jailed husband

The first major decision we faced was setting the date for launching of Project C. Since it was our aim to bring pressure to bear on the merchants, we felt that our campaign should be mounted aroudn the Easter season - the second biggest shopping period of the year. If we started the first week of March, we would have six weeks to mobilize the community before Easter, which fell on April 14. But at this point we were reminded that a mayoralty election was to be held in Birmingham on March 5.

pg 183
As Ralph stood up, unquestioningly, without hesitation, we all linked hands involuntarily, almost as if there had been some divine signal, and 25 voices in Room 30 at the Gaston Motel in Birmingham, Alabama, chanted the battle hymn of our movement "We Shall Overcome".

Letter from Birmingham Jail
I remember saying in that letter that so often I have been disappointed because we have not received the cooperation of the Church. I remember saying that so often the Church in our struggle had been a taillight, rather than a headlight. The Church had so often been an echo, rather than a voice.

April 12, 1963 - White Birmingham minisiters write to King calling for end of demonstrations
April 16, 1963 - King writes letter of response [this is a super long letter that just makes the white church ministers look extremely idiotic for anyone reading this letter today]

pg 191
... I am not afraid of the word "tension". i have earnestly opposed voilent tension, but there is a type of constrcutuive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth. Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half-truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, so must we see the need for nonvoilent gadflies to create the kind of tension in soceity that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood.

pg 193
... you express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This is certainly a legitimate concern. Since we so diligently urge people to obey the Supreme Court's decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools, at first glance it may seem rather paradoxical for us consciously to break laws. One may well ask: "how can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?" The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws; Just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibilty to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that "an unjust law is no law at all".
Now what is the different between the two? How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law of the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of Saint Thomas Aquinas: an unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust.

..... Of course there is nothing new about this kind of civil disobedience. It was evidenced sublimely in the refusal of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego to obey the laws of Neuchandnezzar on the ground that a higher moral law was at stake It was practiced by superbly by the early Christians, who were willing to face hungry lions and the excruciating pain of chopping blocks rather than submit to certain unjust laws of the Roman Empire. To a degree, academic freedom is a reality today because Socrates practiced civil disobedience. In our own nation, the Boston Tea Party represented a massive act of civil disobedience.
We should never forget that everything that Adolf Hitler did in Germany was legal and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was illegal. It was illegal to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler's Germany.

.... shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

pg 198
...but though I was initially disappointed at being categorized as an extremist, as I continued to think about the matter I gradually gained a measure of satsifcation from the label. Was not Jesus an extremist for love: "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you." Was not Amos as extremist for justice: "Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream." Was not Paul an extremist for the Christian gospel: "I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus." Was not Martin Luther an extremist: "Here I stand; I cannot do otherwise, so help me God." And John Bunyan: "I will stay in Jail to the end of my days before I make a butchery of my consience." And Abraham Lincoln: "This nation cannot survive half slave and half free." And Thomas Jefferson: "We hold these these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal...." So the question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. Will we be extremists for hate or for love? Will we be exremists for the preservation of injustice or for the extention of justice? In that dramatic scene on Calvary's hill three men were crucified. We must never ferget that all three were crucified for the same crime - the crime of extremism. Two were extremists for immorality, and thus fell below their environment. The other, Jesus Christ, was an extremist for love, truth and goodness, and thereby rose above his environment.

Freedom Now
I have had many experiences in my relatively young life, but I have never in my life had an expreience like I am having in Birmingham, Alabama. This is the most inspiring movement that has ever taken place in the United States of America
Apr 19, 1963 - Kind and Ralph Abernathy are released on bond
May 2- 7, 1963 - Birmingham police use fire hoses and dogs against "Children's crusade"; over 1000 youngsters arrested
May 8, 1963 - Protest leaders suspend mass demonstrations
May 11, 1963 - After tentative settlement is reached, segrationists bomb the Gaston Motel where King was staying and the home of king's brother, the Reverend A.D. King
May 13, 1963 - Federal troops arrive in Birmingham

pg 207
The children understood the stakes they were fighting for. I think of one teenage boy whose father's devotion to the movement turned sour when he learned that his son had pledged himself to become demostrator. The father forbade his son to participate.
"Daddy", the boy said, "I don't want to disobey you, but i have made my pledge. If you try to keep me home, I will sneak off. If you think I deserve to be punished for that, I'll just have to tkae the punishment. For, you see, I'm not doing this only because I want to be free. I'm doing it also becase I want freedom for you and Mama, and I want it to come before you die."
That father thought again, and gave his son his blessing.


pg 211
What happened in the next 30 seconds was one of the most fantastic events of the Birmingham story. Bull Conor's men stood facing the marchers. The marchers, many of them on their knees, ready to pit nothing but the power of their bodies and souls against Connor's police dogs, clubs and fire hoses, stared back, unafraid and unmoving. Slowly the Negroes stood up and began to advance. Connor's men as though hypnotized, fell back, their hoses sagging uselessly in their hands while several hundred Negroes marched past them, without further interference, and held their prayer meeting as planned. I felt there, for the first time, the pride and the power of nonviolence.

March On Washington
There can be no doubt, even in the true depths of the most prejudiced minds, that the August 28th March on Washington was the most significant and moving demonstration for freedom and justice in all the history of this country.

June 11, 1963 - President Kennedy announces new civil rights proposal
June 12, 1963 - Assassin kills NAACP leader Medger Evers
June 22, 1963 - King meets with Kennedy
Aug 28, 1963 - Addresses the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom

Death of Illusions
Man's inhumanity to man is not only perpetrated by the vitriolic actions of those who are bad. It is also perpatrated by the vitiating inaction of those who are good.

Sep 15, 1963 - Dynamite blast kills four young black girls in Sunday school at Birmingham 16th Street baptist Church
Sep 19, 1963 - King and other civil rights leaders meet with President JFK
Sep 22, 1963 - Delivers eulogy for the 4 children
Nov 22, 1963 - Assassination of President Kennedy; Lyndon B Johnson becomes president

pg 232
... may i say a word to you, the members of the bereaved families. It is almost impossible to say anything that can console you at this difficult hour and remove the deep clouds of disappointment which are floating in your mental skies. But I hope you can find a little consolation from the universailty of this experience. Death comes to every individual. There is an amazing democracy about death. It is not an aristocracy for some of the people, but a democracy for all of the people. Kings die and beggars die, rich men die and poor men die; old people die and yougn people die; death comes to the innocent and it comes to the guilty. Death is the irreducible common denominator of all men.
I hope you can find some consolation from Christianity's affirmation that death in not the end. Death is not a period that ends the great sentence of life, but a comma that punctuates it to more lofty significance. Death is not a blind alley that leads the human race into a state of nothingness, but an open door which leads man into life etenral. Let this daring faith, this great invincible surmise, be your sustaining power during these trying days.

St. Augustine
The bill now pending in Congress is the child of a storm, the product of the most turbulent motion the nation has ever known in peacetime.

Feb 9, 1964 - Segregationist violence prompts St. Augustine, Florida civil rights leader Robert Hayling to invite SCLC to join struggle
May 28, 1964 - After the jailing of hundreds of demonstrators in St. Augustine, King appeals for outside assistance
Jun 11, 1964 - After King's arrest in St. Augustine, bi-racial committee is formed
Jun, 1964 - Why we Can't Wait is published
July 2, 1964 - Attends the signing of Civil Rights Act of 1964

The Mississippi Challenge
The future of the United States of America may well be determined here, in Mississippi for it is here that Democracy faces its most serious challenge. Can we have government in Mississippi which represents all of the people? This is the question that must be answered in the affirmative if these United States are to continue to give moral leadership in the Free World.

June 21, 1964 - On the eve of the "Freedom Summer" campaign in Mississippi, 3 civil rights workers are reported missing after their arrest in Philidelphia, Mississippi
July 16, 1964 - King asserts that nomination of Senator Barry Goldwater by Repulicans will aid racists
July 20, 1964 - Arrives in Mississippi to assist civil rights effort
Aug 4, 1964 - The bodies of missing civil rights workers were discovered
Aug 22, 1964 - Testifies at Democratic convention on behalf of Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party

THe Nobel Peace Prize
Occasionally in life there are those moments of unutterable fulfillment which cannot be completely explained by those symbols, called words. Their meaning can only be articulated by the inaudible language of the heart.

Dec, 10, 1964
Dec 11, 1964
Jan 27, 1965

Malcolm X
He was an eloquent spokesman for his point of view and no one can honestly doubt that Malcolm had a great concern for the problems we face as a race. While we did not always see eye to eye on methods to solve the race problems, I always had a deep affection for Malcolm and felt that he had the great ability to put his finger on the existence and root of the problem.

March 26, 1964 - After press conference at US Senate King has brief encounter with Malcolm X
Feb 5, 1965 - Coretta Scott King meets with Malcolm X in Selma, Alabama
Feb 21, 1965 - Malcolm X is assassinated in Harlem

Selma
In 1965 the issue is the right to vote and the place is Selma, Alabama. In Selma, we see a classic pattern of disenfranchisement typical of the Southern Black Belt areas where Negroes are in the majority.

Feb 1, 1965 - King is jailed with more than 200 others after voting rights march in Selma, Alabama
Feb 26, 1965 - Jimmie Lee Jackson dies after being shot by police during demonstration in Marion, Alabama
Mar 7, 1965 - Voting rights marchers are beaten at Edmund Pettus Bridge
Mar 11, 1965 - Rev. James Reeb dies beating by white racists
Mar 25, 1965 - Selma to Montgomery march concludes with address by King; hours afterward, Klan night riders kill Viola Gregg Liuzzo while she transports marchers back to Selma

pg 283 - things were shaping up beautifully. We had people coming in from all over the country. I suspected that we would have representatives from almost every state in the union, and naturally a large number fomr the state of Alabama. We hoped to see, and we planned to see, the greatest witness for freedom that had ever taken place on the steps of the capitol of any state in the South. And this whole march added drama to this total thrust. I think it will go down in American history on the same level as the March to the Sea did in Indian history.

pg. 286 - I know you are asking today "How long will it take?" I come to say to you this afternoon however difficult the moment, however frustrating the hour, it will not be long, because truth pressed to earth will rise again.
How long? Not long, because no lie can live forever
How long? Not long, because you still reap what you sow
How long? Not long, because the arm of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice
How long? Not long, because mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord, trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored. He has loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword. His truth is marching on.
He has sounded forth the trumpets that shall never call retreat. He is lifting up the hearts of men before His judgement seat. Oh, be swift my soul, to answer Him. Be jubilant, my feet. Our God is marching on.

Watts
As soon as we began to see our way clear in the South, the shock and horror of Northern riots exploded before our eyes and we saw that the problems of the Negro go far beyond mere racial segregation. The catastrophe in Los Angeles was a result of seething and rumbling tensions throughout our nation and indeed the world.

August 11-15, 1965 - Widespread racial violence in LA results in more than 30 deaths
August 17, 1965 - King arrives in LA at the invitation of local groups

Chicago Campaign
It is reasonable to belive that if the problems in Chicago, the nation's second largest city, can be solved, they can be solved everywhere.

July 26, , 1965 - King leads march to Chicago City Hall and addresses a rally sponsored by Chicago's Coordinating Council of Community Organizations CCCO
Jan 7, 1966 - Announces the start of the Chicago Campaign
Jul 10, 1966 - At "Freedom Sunday" rally at Soldier's Field, launches drive to make Chicago an "open city" for housing
Jul 12-14, 1966 - Racial riotiing on Chicago's West Side results in two deaths widespread destruction
Aug 5, 1966 - Angry whites attack civil rights march through Chicago's southwest side
Aug 26, 1966 - Arranges "Summit Agreement" with Mayor R. Daley and other Chicago leaders

Black Power
Negroes can still march down the path of nonviolence and interracial amity if white America meet them with honest determination to rid society of its inequality and inhumanity

Jun 6, 1966 - James Meredith, who integrated the University of Mississippi in 1962, is wounded by a sniper during his "march Against Fear" designed to encourage black voting in Mississippi; King and other civil rights leaders agree to continue to march
Jun 16, 1966 - Stokely Carmichael ignites controversy by using the "Black Power" slogan

Pg 330
People have said to me, "Since violence is the new cry, isn't there a danger that you will lose touch with the people in the ghetto and be out of step with the times if you don't change your views on nonviolence?"
My answer is always the same. while I am convinced that the vast majority of Negroes reject violence, even if they did not i would not be interested in being a consensus leader. I refuse to determine what is right by taking a Gallup poll of the trends of the time. I imagine that there were leaders in Germany who sincerly opposed what Hitler was doing to the Jews. But they took their poll and discovered that anti-Semitism was the prevailing trend. In order to "be in step with the times", in order to "keep in touch", they yielded to one of the most ignominious evils that history has every known. Ultimately, a geniune leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus. If every Negro in the United States turns to violence, I will choose to be that one lone voice preaching that this is the wrong way.

Beyond Vietnam
Today, young men of America are fighting, dying and killing in Asian jungles in a war whose purposes are so ambiguous the whole nation seethes with dissent. They are told they are sacrificing for democracy, but the Saigon regime, their ally, is a mockery of democracy and the black American soldier has himself never experienced democracy.

Aug 12, 1965 - King calls for halt to US bombing of North Vietnam to encourage negotiated settlement of conflict
Jan 10, 1966 - Backs Georgia State senator elect Julian Bond's right to oppose war
May 29, 1966 - Urges halt to bombing on Face the Nation televised interview
Apr 4, 1967 - Delivers first public antiwar speech at NY's Riverside Church

Pg 337
Perhaps a more tragic recognition of reality took place when it became clear to me that the war was doing far more than devastating the hopes of the poor at home. It was sending their sons and their brothers and their husbands to fight and to die in extraordinarily high proportions relative to the rest of the population. We were taking the black young men who had been crippled by our society and sending them 8000 miles away to gurantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in Southwest Georgia and East Harlem. So we have been repeatedly faced with the cruel irony of watching Negro and white boys on TV screens as they kill and die together for a nation that has been unable to seat them together in the same schools. So we watch them in brutal solidarity burning the huts of a poor village, but we realize that they would hardly live on the same blcok in Chicago. I could not be silent in the face of such cruel manipulation of the poor.....

pg 342 - When I first took my position against the war in Vietnam, almost every newspaper in the country criticized me. It was a low period in my life. I could hardly open a newspaper. It wasn't only white people either; it was Negroes. But then I remember a newsman coming to me one day and saying, "Dr. King, don't you think you're going to have to change your position now because so many people are criticizing you? And people who once had respect for you are going to lose respect for you. And you're going to hurt the budge, I understand of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference; people have cut off support. And don't you think that you have to move now more in line with the adniministration's policy?" That was a good question, because he was asking me the question of whether I was going to think about what happens to me or what happens to truth and jsutice in this situation.
On some positions, Cowardice asks the question, "Is it safe?" Expediency asks the question, "Is it politic?" And Vanity comes along and asks the question, "Is it popular?" But Consience asks the question, "Is it right?" And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must do it because Consience tells him it is right.

pg 344
So Precious That you Will Die For It
I sawy to you this morning that if you have never found something so dear and so precious to you that you will die for it, then you aren't fit to live. You may be 38 yeilrs old, as I happen to be, and one day, some great opportunity stands before you and calls upon you to stand up for some great principle, some great issue, some great cause. And you refuse to do it bcause you are afraid. You refuse to do it because you want to live longer, You're afraid that you will lose your job, or you are afraid that you will be criticized or that you will lose your popularity, or you're afraid that somebody will stab you or shoot at you or bomb your house. So you refuse to take the stand. Well, you may go on and live until you are ninety, but you are just as dead at 38 as you would be at 90. And the cessation of breathing in your life is but the belated announcement of an earlier death of the spirit. You died when you refused to stand up for right. You died when you refsused to stand up for truth. You died when you refused to stand up for justice.....
Don't ever think that your'e by yourself. Go on to jail if necessary, but you never go alone. Take a stand for that which is right, and the world may misunderstand you, and criticize you. But you never go alone, for somewhere I read that one with God is a majority. And God has a way of transforming a minority into a majority. Walk with him this morning and believe in him and do what is right, and He'll be with you even until the consummation of the ages. Yes, Ive seen the lightning flash. I've heard the thunder roll. I've felt sin breakers dashing, trying to conquer my soul, but I heard the voice of Jesus saying, still to fight on. He promised never to leave me alone, never to leave me alone. No, never alone. no, never alone.

The Poor People's Campaign
We have moved into an era where we are called upon to raise certain basic questions about the whole society. We are still called upon to give aid to the beggar who finds himself in misery and agony on life's highway. But one day, we must ask the question of whether an edifice which producers beggars must not be restructured and refurbished. That is where we are now.

May 31, 1967 - At an SCLC staff retreat King calls for a radical redistribution of economic and political power
Dec 4, , 1967 - launches the Poor People's Campaign
March 18, 1968 - Speaks to strking sanitation workers in Memphis
March 28, 1968 - Leads Memphis march that is disrupted by violence

pg 352
Resolutions
And I'm simply saying this morning, that you should resolve that you will never become so secure in your thinking or your living that you forget the least of these.... In some sense, all of us are the least of these, but there are some who are least than the least of thes. I try to get it over to my children early, morning after morning, when I get a chance. As we sit at the table, as we did this morning in morning devotions, I couldn't pray my prayer without saying, "God, help us, as we sit at this table to realize that there are those who are less fortunate than we are. And grant that we will never forget them, no matter where we are." And I said to my little children, "I'm going to work and do everything that I can do to see that you get a good education. I don't ever want you to forget that there are millions of God's children who will not and cannot get a good education, and I don't want you to feeling that you are better than they are. For you will never be what you ought to be until they are what they ought to be."

Unfulfilled Dreams
Last sermon
April 3, 1968 - Delivers final address at Bishop Charles J. Mason Temple in Memphis
April 4, 1968 - Is assassinated at Loraine Hotel