Race in America Packet

Race in America

Packet Contents



Speeches

“Address to John Smith” by Powhatan

“The War Inevitable” by Patrick Henry

“Speech to the Iroquois Six Nations” by Red Jacket

“Ain’t I a Woman?” by Sojourner Truth

“The Hypocrisy of American Slavery” by Frederick Douglas

“The Ballot or the Bullet” by Malcolm X

“The Great Society” by Lyndon B. Johnson

“I See the Promised Land” by Martin Luther King, Jr.

“Black Power” by Stokley Carmichael



Essay

“The New Negro” by Alain Locke



Short Stories

“How it Feels to be Colored Me” by Zora Neale Hurston

“A True Story” by Mark Twain



Poetry

“To His Excellency General Washington” by Phillis Wheatley

“I, Too” by Langston Hughes

“A Negro Speaks of Rivers” by Langston Hughes

“As I Grew Older” by Langston Hughes

“A Negro Speaks of Rivers” by Langston Hughes

“Advertisement for the Waldorf-Astoria” by Langston Hughes

“Address to John Smith”

By Chief Powhatan

1609



I am now grown old and must soon die, and the succession must descend in order, to my brothers,

Opitchapam, Opechancanough, and Kekataugh, and then to my two sisters, and their two daughters.



I wish their experience was equal to mine, and that your love to us might not be less than ours to you. Why

should you take by force that from us which you can have by love? Why should you destroy us who have

provided you with food? What can you get by war? We can hide our provisions and fly into the woods. And

then you must consequently famish by wrongdoing your friends.



What is the cause of your jealousy? You see us unarmed and willing to supply your wants if you come in a

friendly manner; not with swords and guns as to invade an enemy. I am not so simple as not to know that it is

better to eat good meat, lie well, and sleep quietly with my women and children; to laugh and be merry with

the English, and, being their friend, to have copper, hatchets, and whatever else I want then to fly from all, to

lie cold in the woods, feed upon acorns, roots and such trash, and to be so hunted that I cannot rest, eat, or

sleep. In such circumstances, my men must watch, and if a twig should but break, all would cry out, "Here

comes Captain Smith." And so, in this miserable manner to end my miserable life. And, Captain Smith, this

might soon be your fate too through your rashness and unadvisedness.



I, therefore, exhort you to peaceable councils, and above all I insist that the guns and swords, the cause of all

our jealousy and uneasiness, be removed and sent away.

The War Inevitable

by Patrick Henry

March 23, 1775

Richmond, Virginia



No man thinks more highly than I do of the patriotism, as well as abilities, of the very worthy gentlemen who

have just addressed the House. But different men often see the same subject in different lights; and,

therefore, I hope it will not be thought disrespectful to those gentlemen if, entertaining as I do opinions of a

character very opposite to theirs, I shall speak forth my sentiments freely and without reserve.



This is no time for ceremony. The question before the House is one of awful moment to this country. For my

own part, I consider it as nothing less than a question of freedom or slavery; and in proportion to the

magnitude of the subject ought to be the freedom of the debate. It is only in this way that we can hope to

arrive at truth, and fulfill the great responsibility which we hold to God and our country. Should I keep back my

opinions at such a time, through fear of giving offense, I should consider myself as guilty of treason towards

my country, and of an act of disloyalty toward the Majesty of Heaven, which I revere above all earthly kings.



Mr. President, it is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a

painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise men,

engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed to be of the number of those who,

having eyes, see not, and, having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation?

For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst,

and to provide for it.



I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience. I know of no way of

judging of the future but by the past. And judging by the past, I wish to know what there has been in the

conduct of the British ministry for the last ten years to justify those hopes with which gentlemen have been

pleased to solace themselves and the House. Is it that insidious smile with which our petition has been lately

received?



Trust it not, sir; it will prove a snare to your feet. Suffer not yourselves to be betrayed with a kiss. Ask

yourselves how this gracious reception of our petition comports with those warlike preparations which cover

our waters and darken our land. Are fleets and armies necessary to a work of love and reconciliation? Have we

shown ourselves so unwilling to be reconciled that force must be called in to win back our love?



Let us not deceive ourselves, sir. These are the implements of war and subjugation; the last arguments to

which kings resort. I ask gentlemen, sir, what means this martial array, if its purpose be not to force us to

submission? Can gentlemen assign any other possible motive for it? Has Great Britain any enemy, in this

quarter of the world, to call for all this accumulation of navies and armies? No, sir, she has none. They are

meant for us: they can be meant for no other. They are sent over to bind and rivet upon us those chains which

the British ministry have been so long forging. And what have we to oppose to them? Shall we try argument?

Sir, we have been trying that for the last ten years.



Have we anything new to offer upon the subject? Nothing. We have held the subject up in every light of which

it is capable; but it has been all in vain. Shall we resort to entreaty and humble supplication? What terms shall

we find which have not been already exhausted? Let us not, I beseech you, sir, deceive ourselves.



Sir, we have done everything that could be done to avert the storm which is now coming on. We have

petitioned; we have remonstrated; we have supplicated; we have prostrated ourselves before the throne, and

have implored its interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands of the ministry and Parliament. Our petitions

have been slighted; our remonstrances have produced additional violence and insult; our supplications have

been disregarded; and we have been spurned, with contempt, from the foot of the throne!



In vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond hope of peace and reconciliation. There is no longer any

room for hope. If we wish to be free -- if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which

we have been so long contending -- if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have

been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our

contest shall be obtained -- we must fight! I repeat it, sir, we must fight! An appeal to arms and to the God of

hosts is all that is left us! They tell us, sir, that we are weak; unable to cope with so formidable an adversary.

But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally

disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength but

irresolution and inaction?



Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs and hugging the delusive

phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot? Sir, we are not weak if we make a

proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power. The millions of people, armed

in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which

our enemy can send against us. Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who

presides over the destinies of nations, and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is

not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave.



Besides, sir, we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the

contest. There is no retreat but in submission and slavery! Our chains are forged! Their clanking may be heard

on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable -- and let it come! I repeat it, sir, let it come.



It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace -- but there is no peace. The war is

actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms!

Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would

they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it,

Almighty God!



I know not what course others may take but as for me: give me liberty or give me death.

Speech to the Iroquois Six Nations

by Red Jacket

Summer 1805

Buffalo Grove, New York



Friend and Brother: it was the will of the Great Spirit that we should meet together this day. He orders all

things and has given us a fine day for our council. He has taken his garment from before the sun, and caused it

to shine with brightness upon us. Our eyes are opened, that we see clearly; our ears are unstopped, that we

have been able to hear distinctly the words you have spoken. For all these favors we thank the Great Spirit;

and him only.



Brother: this council fire was kindled by you. It was at your request that we came together at this time. We

have listened with attention to what you have said. You requested us to speak our minds freely. This gives us

great joy; for we now consider that we stand upright before you, and can speak what we think. All have heard

your voice, and all speak to you now as one man. Our minds are agreed.



Brother: you say you want an answer to your talk before you leave this place. It is right you should have one,

as you are a great distance from home, and we do not wish to detain you. But we will first look back a little,

and tell you what our fathers have told us, and what we have heard from the white people.



Brother: listen to what we say. There was a time when our forefathers owned this great island. Their seats

extended from the rising to the setting sun. The Great Spirit had made it for the use of Indians. He had created

the buffalo, the deer, and other animals for food. He has made the bear and the beaver. Their skins served us

for clothing. He had scattered them over the country, and taught us how to take them. He had caused the

earth to produce corn for bread. All this He had done for his red children, because He loved them. If we had

some disputes about our hunting ground, they were generally settled without the shedding of much blood.



But an evil day came upon us. Your forefathers crossed the great water and landed on this island. Their

numbers were small. They found friends and not enemies. They told us they had fled from their own country

for fear of wicked men, and had come here to enjoy their religion. They asked for a small seat. We took pity on

them; granted their request; and they sat down amongst us. We gave them corn and meat; they gave us

poison in return.



The white people, brother, had now found our country. Tidings were carried back, and more came amongst

us. Yet we did not fear them. We took them to be friends. They called us brothers. We believed them, and

gave them a larger seat. At length their numbers had greatly increased. They wanted more land; they wanted

our country. Our eyes were opened, and our minds became uneasy. Wars took place. Indians were hired to

fight against Indians, and many of our people were destroyed. They also brought strong liquor amongst us. It

was strong and powerful, and has slain thousands.



Brother: our seats were once large, and yours were small. You have now become a great people, and we have

scarcely a place left to spread our blankets. You have got our country, but are not satisfied; you want to force

your religion upon us.



Brother: continue to listen. You say that you are sent to instruct us how to worship the Great Spirit agreeably

to his mind, and, if we do not take hold of the religion which you white people teach, we shall be unhappy

hereafter. You say that you are right, and we are lost. How do we know this to be true? We understand that

your religion is written in a book. If it was intended for us as well as you, why has not the Great Spirit given to

us, and not only to us, but why did He not give to our forefathers, the knowledge of that book, with the means

of understanding it rightly? We only know what you tell us about it. How shall we know when to believe, being

so often deceived by the white people?



Brother: you say there is but one way to worship and serve the Great Spirit. If there is but one religion, why do

you white people differ so much about it? Why not all agreed, as you can all read the book?



Brother: we do not understand these things. We are told that your religion was given to your forefathers, and

has been handed down from father to son. We also have a religion, which was given to our forefathers, and

has been handed down to us, their children. We worship in that way. It teaches us to be thankful for all the

favors we receive; to love each other, and to be united. We never quarrel about religion.



Brother: the Great Spirit has made us all, but He has made a great difference between his white and red

children. He has given us different complexions and different customs. To you He has given the arts. To these

He has not opened our eyes. We know these things to be true. Since He has made so great a difference

between us in other things, why may we not conclude that He has given us a different religion according to

our understanding? The Great Spirit does right. He knows what is best for his children; we are satisfied.

Brother: we do not wish to destroy your religion, or take it from you. We only want to enjoy our own.



Brother: you say you have not come to get our land or our money, but to enlighten our minds. I will now tell

you that I have been at your meetings, and saw you collect money from the meeting. I cannot tell what this

money was intended for, but suppose that it was for your minister, and if we should conform to your way of

thinking, perhaps you may want some from us.



Brother: we are told that you have been preaching to the white people in this place. These people are our

neighbors. We are acquainted with them. We will wait a little while, and see what effect your preaching has

upon them. If we find it does them good, makes them honest, and less disposed to cheat Indians, we will then

consider again of what you have said.



Brother: you have now heard our answer to your talk, and this is all we have to say at present. As we are going

to part, we will come and take you by the hand, and hope the Great Spirit will protect you on your journey,

and return you safe to your friends.

Ain't I a Woman?

by Sojourner Truth

1851

Women's Convention, Akron, Ohio



Well, children, where there is so much racket there must be something out of kilter. I think that 'twixt the

negroes of the South and the women at the North, all talking about rights, the white men will be in a fix pretty

soon. But what's all this here talking about?



That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have

the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best

place! And ain't I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into

barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man -

when I could get it - and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen

most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a

woman?



Then they talk about this thing in the head; what's this they call it? [Member of audience whispers,

"intellect."] That's it, honey. What's that got to do with women's rights or negroes' rights? If my cup won't

hold but a pint, and yours holds a quart, wouldn't you be mean not to let me have my little half measure full?



Then that little man in black there, he says women can't have as much rights as men, 'cause Christ wasn't a

woman! Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man

had nothing to do with Him.



If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women

together ought to be able to turn it back, and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to do it, the

men better let them.



Obliged to you for hearing me, and now old Sojourner ain't got nothing more to say.

The Hypocrisy of American Slavery

by Frederick Douglas

July 4, 1852

Rochester, New York



Fellow citizens, pardon me, and allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here today? What have I or

those I represent to do with your national independence? Are the great principles of political freedom and of

natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? And am I, therefore, called

upon to bring our humble offering to the national altar, and to confess the benefits, and express devout

gratitude for the blessings resulting from your independence to us?



Would to God, both for your sakes and ours, that an affirmative answer could be truthfully returned to these

questions. Then would my task be light, and my burden easy and delightful. For who is there so cold that a

nation's sympathy could not warm him? Who so obdurate and dead to the claims of gratitude, that would not

thankfully acknowledge such priceless benefits? Who so stolid and selfish that would not give his voice to

swell the hallelujahs of a nation's jubilee, when the chains of servitude had been torn from his limbs? I am not

that man. In a case like that, the dumb might eloquently speak, and the "lame man leap as an hart."



But such is not the state of the case. I say it with a sad sense of disparity between us. I am not included within

the pale of this glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance

between us. The blessings in which you this day rejoice are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of

justice, liberty, prosperity, and independence bequeathed by your fathers is shared by you, not by me. The

sunlight that brought life and healing to you has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth of July is yours,

not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty,

and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony. Do you mean,

citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak today? If so, there is a parallel to your conduct. And let me warn

you, that it is dangerous to copy the example of a nation (Babylon) whose crimes, towering up to heaven,

were thrown down by the breath of the Almighty, burying that nation in irrecoverable ruin.



Fellow citizens, above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail of millions, whose chains, heavy

and grievous yesterday, are today rendered more intolerable by the jubilant shouts that reach them. If I do

forget, if I do not remember those bleeding children of sorrow this day, "may my right hand forget her

cunning, and may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth!"



To forget them, to pass lightly over their wrongs and to chime in with the popular theme would be treason

most scandalous and shocking, and would make me a reproach before God and the world.



My subject, then, fellow citizens, is "American Slavery." I shall see this day and its popular characteristics from

the slave's point of view. Standing here, identified with the American bondman, making his wrongs mine, I do

not hesitate to declare, with all my soul, that the character and conduct of this nation never looked blacker to

me than on this Fourth of July.



Whether we turn to the declarations of the past, or to the professions of the present, the conduct of the

nation seems equally hideous and revolting. America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly

binds herself to be false to the future. Standing with God and the crushed and bleeding slave on this occasion,

I will, in the name of humanity, which is outraged, in the name of liberty, which is fettered, in the name of the

Constitution and the Bible, which are disregarded and trampled upon, dare to call in question and to

denounce, with all the emphasis I can command, everything that serves to perpetuate slavery -- the great sin

and shame of America! "I will not equivocate - I will not excuse." I will use the severest language I can

command, and yet not one word shall escape me that any man, whose judgment is not blinded by prejudice,

or who is not at heart a slave-holder, shall not confess to be right and just.



But I fancy I hear some of my audience say it is just in this circumstance that you and your brother

Abolitionists fail to make a favorable impression on the public mind. Would you argue more and denounce

less, would you persuade more and rebuke less, your cause would be much more likely to succeed. But, I

submit, where all is plain there is nothing to be argued. What point in the anti-slavery creed would you have

me argue? On what branch of the subject do the people of this country need light? Must I undertake to prove

that the slave is a man? That point is conceded already. Nobody doubts it. The slave-holders themselves

acknowledge it in the enactment of laws for their government. They acknowledge it when they punish

disobedience on the part of the slave. There are seventy-two crimes in the State of Virginia, which, if

committed by a black man (no matter how ignorant he be), subject him to the punishment of death; while

only two of these same crimes will subject a white man to like punishment.



What is this but the acknowledgment that the slave is a moral, intellectual, and responsible being? The

manhood of the slave is conceded. It is admitted in the fact that Southern statute books are covered with

enactments, forbidding, under severe fines and penalties, the teaching of the slave to read and write. When

you can point to any such laws in reference to the beasts of the field, then I may consent to argue the

manhood of the slave. When the dogs in your streets, when the fowls of the air, when the cattle on your hills,

when the fish of the sea, and the reptiles that crawl, shall be unable to distinguish the slave from a brute, then

I will argue with you that the slave is a man!



For the present it is enough to affirm the equal manhood of the Negro race. Is it not astonishing that, while we

are plowing, planting, and reaping, using all kinds of mechanical tools, erecting houses, constructing bridges,

building ships, working in metals of brass, iron, copper, silver, and gold; that while we are reading, writing, and

ciphering, acting as clerks, merchants, and secretaries, having among us lawyers, doctors, ministers, poets,

authors, editors, orators, and teachers; that we are engaged in all the enterprises common to other men --

digging gold in California, capturing the whale in the Pacific, feeding sheep and cattle on the hillside, living,

moving, acting, thinking, planning, living in families as husbands, wives, and children, and above all, confessing

and worshipping the Christian God, and looking hopefully for life and immortality beyond the grave -- we are

called upon to prove that we are men?



Would you have me argue that man is entitled to liberty? That he is the rightful owner of his own body? You

have already declared it. Must I argue the wrongfulness of slavery? Is that a question for republicans? Is it to

be settled by the rules of logic and argumentation, as a matter beset with great difficulty, involving a doubtful

application of the principle of justice, hard to understand? How should I look today in the presence of

Americans, dividing and subdividing a discourse, to show that men have a natural right to freedom, speaking

of it relatively and positively, negatively and affirmatively? To do so would be to make myself ridiculous, and

to offer an insult to your understanding. There is not a man beneath the canopy of heaven who does not know

that slavery is wrong for him.



What! Am I to argue that it is wrong to make men brutes, to rob them of their liberty, to work them without

wages, to keep them ignorant of their relations to their fellow men, to beat them with sticks, to flay their flesh

with the lash, to load their limbs with irons, to hunt them with dogs, to sell them at auction, to sunder their

families, to knock out their teeth, to burn their flesh, to starve them into obedience and submission to their

masters? Must I argue that a system thus marked with blood and stained with pollution is wrong? No - I will

not. I have better employment for my time and strength than such arguments would imply.

What, then, remains to be argued? Is it that slavery is not divine; that God did not establish it; that our doctors

of divinity are mistaken? There is blasphemy in the thought. That which is inhuman cannot be divine. Who can

reason on such a proposition? They that can, may - I cannot. The time for such argument is past.



At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. Oh! had I the ability, and could I reach

the nation's ear, I would today pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm,

and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need

the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of

the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be

exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be denounced.



What to the American slave is your Fourth of July? I answer, a day that reveals to him more than all other days

of the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him your celebration is a

sham; your boasted liberty an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing

are empty and heartless; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mock; your prayers and hymns, your

sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are to him mere bombast, fraud,

deception, impiety, and hypocrisy - a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages.

There is not a nation of the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of these

United States at this very hour.



Go search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the Old World, travel through

South America, search out every abuse and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the

everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me that, for revolting barbarity and shameless

hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival.

“The Ballot or the Bullet”

by Malcolm X

April 3, 1964

Cleveland, Ohio



Mr. Moderator, Brother Lomax, brothers and sisters, friends and enemies: I just can't believe everyone in here

is a friend, and I don't want to leave anybody out. The question tonight, as I understand it, is "The Negro

Revolt, and Where Do We Go From Here?" or What Next?" In my little humble way of understanding it, it

points toward either the ballot or the bullet.



Before we try and explain what is meant by the ballot or the bullet, I would like to clarify something

concerning myself. I'm still a Muslim; my religion is still Islam. That's my personal belief. Just as Adam Clayton

Powell is a Christian minister who heads the Abyssinian Baptist Church in New York, but at the same time

takes part in the political struggles to try and bring about rights to the black people in this country; and Dr.

Martin Luther King is a Christian minister down in Atlanta, Georgia, who heads another organization fighting

for the civil rights of black people in this country; and Reverend Galamison, I guess you've heard of him, is

another Christian minister in New York who has been deeply involved in the school boycotts to eliminate

segregated education; well, I myself am a minister, not a Christian minister, but a Muslim minister; and I

believe in action on all fronts by whatever means necessary.



Although I'm still a Muslim, I'm not here tonight to discuss my religion. I'm not here to try and change your

religion. I'm not here to argue or discuss anything that we differ about, because it's time for us to submerge

our differences and realize that it is best for us to first see that we have the same problem, a common

problem, a problem that will make you catch hell whether you're a Baptist, or a Methodist, or a Muslim, or a

nationalist. Whether you're educated or illiterate, whether you live on the boulevard or in the alley, you're

going to catch hell just like I am. We're all in the same boat and we all are going to catch the same hell from

the same man. He just happens to be a white man. All of us have suffered here, in this country, political

oppression at the hands of the white man, economic exploitation at the hands of the white man, and social

degradation at the hands of the white man.



Now in speaking like this, it doesn't mean that we're anti-white, but it does mean we're anti-exploitation,

we're anti-degradation, we're anti-oppression. And if the white man doesn't want us to be anti-him, let him

stop oppressing and exploiting and degrading us. Whether we are Christians or Muslims or nationalists or

agnostics or atheists, we must first learn to forget our differences. If we have differences, let us differ in the

closet; when we come out in front, let us not have anything to argue about until we get finished arguing with

the man. If the late President Kennedy could get together with Khrushchev and exchange some wheat, we

certainly have more in common with each other than Kennedy and Khrushchev had with each other.



If we don't do something real soon, I think you'll have to agree that we're going to be forced either to use the

ballot or the bullet. It's one or the other in 1964. It isn't that time is running out -- time has run out!



1964 threatens to be the most explosive year America has ever witnessed. The most explosive year. Why? It's

also a political year. It's the year when all of the white politicians will be back in the so-called Negro

community jiving you and me for some votes. The year when all of the white political crooks will be right back

in your and my community with their false promises, building up our hopes for a letdown, with their trickery

and their treachery, with their false promises which they don't intend to keep. As they nourish these

dissatisfactions, it can only lead to one thing, an explosion; and now we have the type of black man on the

scene in America today -- I'm sorry, Brother Lomax -- who just doesn't intend to turn the other cheek any

longer.

Don't let anybody tell you anything about the odds are against you. If they draft you, they send you to Korea

and make you face 800 million Chinese. If you can be brave over there, you can be brave right here. These

odds aren't as great as those odds. And if you fight here, you will at least know what you're fighting for.



I'm not a politician, not even a student of politics; in fact, I'm not a student of much of anything. I'm not a

Democrat. I'm not a Republican, and I don't even consider myself an American. If you and I were Americans,

there'd be no problem. Those Honkies that just got off the boat, they're already Americans; Polacks are

already Americans; the Italian refugees are already Americans. Everything that came out of Europe, every

blue-eyed thing, is already an American. And as long as you and I have been over here, we aren't Americans

yet.



Well, I am one who doesn't believe in deluding myself. I'm not going to sit at your table and watch you eat,

with nothing on my plate, and call myself a diner. Sitting at the table doesn't make you a diner, unless you eat

some of what's on that plate. Being here in America doesn't make you an American. Being born here in

America doesn't make you an American. Why, if birth made you American, you wouldn't need any legislation;

you wouldn't need any amendments to the Constitution; you wouldn't be faced with civil-rights filibustering in

Washington, D.C., right now. They don't have to pass civil-rights legislation to make a Polack an American.



No, I'm not an American. I'm one of the 22 million black people who are the victims of Americanism. One of

the 22 million black people who are the victims of democracy, nothing but disguised hypocrisy. So, I'm not

standing here speaking to you as an American, or a patriot, or a flag-saluter, or a flag-waver -- no, not I. I'm

speaking as a victim of this American system. And I see America through the eyes of the victim. I don't see any

American dream; I see an American nightmare.



These 22 million victims are waking up. Their eyes are coming open. They're beginning to see what they used

to only look at. They're becoming politically mature. They are realizing that there are new political trends from

coast to coast. As they see these new political trends, it's possible for them to see that every time there's an

election the races are so close that they have to have a recount. They had to recount in Massachusetts to see

who was going to be governor, it was so close. It was the same way in Rhode Island, in Minnesota, and in

many other parts of the country. And the same with Kennedy and Nixon when they ran for president. It was so

close they had to count all over again. Well, what does this mean? It means that when white people are evenly

divided, and black people have a bloc of votes of their own, it is left up to them to determine who's going to sit

in the White House and who's going to be in the dog house.



lt was the black man's vote that put the present administration in Washington, D.C. Your vote, your dumb

vote, your ignorant vote, your wasted vote put in an administration in Washington, D.C., that has seen fit to

pass every kind of legislation imaginable, saving you until last, then filibustering on top of that. And your and

my leaders have the audacity to run around clapping their hands and talk about how much progress we're

making. And what a good president we have. If he wasn't good in Texas, he sure can't be good in Washington,

D.C. Because Texas is a lynch state. It is in the same breath as Mississippi, no different; only they lynch you in

Texas with a Texas accent and lynch you in Mississippi with a Mississippi accent. And these Negro leaders have

the audacity to go and have some coffee in the White House with a Texan, a Southern cracker -- that's all he is

-- and then come out and tell you and me that he's going to be better for us because, since he's from the

South, he knows how to deal with the Southerners. What kind of logic is that? Let Eastland be president, he's

from the South too. He should be better able to deal with them than Johnson.



In this present administration they have in the House of Representatives 257 Democrats to only 177

Republicans. They control two-thirds of the House vote. Why can't they pass something that will help you and

me? In the Senate, there are 67 senators who are of the Democratic Party. Only 33 of them are Republicans.

Why, the Democrats have got the government sewed up, and you're the one who sewed it up for them. And

what have they given you for it? Four years in office, and just now getting around to some civil-rights

legislation. Just now, after everything else is gone, out of the way, they're going to sit down now and play with

you all summer long -- the same old giant con game that they call filibuster. All those are in cahoots together.

Don't you ever think they're not in cahoots together, for the man that is heading the civil-rights filibuster is a

man from Georgia named Richard Russell. When Johnson became president, the first man he asked for when

he got back to Washington, D.C., was "Dicky" -- that's how tight they are. That's his boy, that's his pal, that's

his buddy. But they're playing that old con game. One of them makes believe he's for you, and he's got it fixed

where the other one is so tight against you, he never has to keep his promise.



So it's time in 1964 to wake up. And when you see them coming up with that kind of conspiracy, let them

know your eyes are open. And let them know you -- something else that's wide open too. It's got to be the

ballot or the bullet. The ballot or the bullet. If you're afraid to use an expression like that, you should get on

out of the country; you should get back in the cotton patch; you should get back in the alley. They get all the

Negro vote, and after they get it, the Negro gets nothing in return. All they did when they got to Washington

was give a few big Negroes big jobs. Those big Negroes didn't need big jobs, they already had jobs. That's

camouflage, that's trickery, that's treachery, window-dressing. I'm not trying to knock out the Democrats for

the Republicans. We'll get to them in a minute. But it is true; you put the Democrats first and the Democrats

put you last.



Look at it the way it is. What alibis do they use, since they control Congress and the Senate? What alibi do they

use when you and I ask, "Well, when are you going to keep your promise?" They blame the Dixiecrats. What is

a Dixiecrat? A Democrat. A Dixiecrat is nothing but a Democrat in disguise. The titular head of the Democrats

is also the head of the Dixiecrats, because the Dixiecrats are a part of the Democratic Party. The Democrats

have never kicked the Dixiecrats out of the party. The Dixiecrats bolted themselves once, but the Democrats

didn't put them out. Imagine, these lowdown Southern segregationists put the Northern Democrats down. But

the Northern Democrats have never put the Dixiecrats down. No, look at that thing the way it is. They have

got a con game going on, a political con game, and you and I are in the middle. It's time for you and me to

wake up and start looking at it like it is, and trying to understand it like it is; and then we can deal with it like it

is.



The Dixiecrats in Washington, D.C., control the key committees that run the government. The only reason the

Dixiecrats control these committees is because they have seniority. The only reason they have seniority is

because they come from states where Negroes can't vote. This is not even a government that's based on

democracy. lt. is not a government that is made up of representatives of the people. Half of the people in the

South can't even vote. Eastland is not even supposed to be in Washington. Half of the senators and

congressmen who occupy these key positions in Washington, D.C., are there illegally, are there

unconstitutionally.



I was in Washington, D.C., a week ago Thursday, when they were debating whether or not they should let the

bill come onto the floor. And in the back of the room where the Senate meets, there's a huge map of the

United States, and on that map it shows the location of Negroes throughout the country. And it shows that the

Southern section of the country, the states that are most heavily concentrated with Negroes, are the ones that

have senators and congressmen standing up filibustering and doing all other kinds of trickery to keep the

Negro from being able to vote. This is pitiful. But it's not pitiful for us any longer; it's actually pitiful for the

white man, because soon now, as the Negro awakens a little more and sees the vise that he's in, sees the bag

that he's in, sees the real game that he's in, then the Negro's going to develop a new tactic.

These senators and congressmen actually violate the constitutional amendments that guarantee the people of

that particular state or county the right to vote. And the Constitution itself has within it the machinery to expel

any representative from a state where the voting rights of the people are violated. You don't even need new

legislation. Any person in Congress right now, who is there from a state or a district where the voting rights of

the people are violated, that particular person should be expelled from Congress. And when you expel him,

you've removed one of the obstacles in the path of any real meaningful legislation in this country. In fact,

when you expel them, you don't need new legislation, because they will be replaced by black representatives

from counties and districts where the black man is in the majority, not in the minority.



If the black man in these Southern states had his full voting rights, the key Dixiecrats in Washington, D. C.,

which means the key Democrats in Washington, D.C., would lose their seats. The Democratic Party itself would

lose its power. It would cease to be powerful as a party. When you see the amount of power that would be

lost by the Democratic Party if it were to lose the Dixiecrat wing, or branch, or element, you can see where it's

against the interests of the Democrats to give voting rights to Negroes in states where the Democrats have

been in complete power and authority ever since the Civil War. You just can't belong to that Party without

analyzing it.



I say again, I'm not anti-Democrat, I'm not anti-Republican, I'm not anti-anything. I'm just questioning their

sincerity, and some of the strategy that they've been using on our people by promising them promises that

they don't intend to keep. When you keep the Democrats in power, you're keeping the Dixiecrats in power. I

doubt that my good Brother Lomax will deny that. A vote for a Democrat is a vote for a Dixiecrat. That's why,

in 1964, it's time now for you and me to become more politically mature and realize what the ballot is for;

what we're supposed to get when we cast a ballot; and that if we don't cast a ballot, it's going to end up in a

situation where we're going to have to cast a bullet. It's either a ballot or a bullet.



In the North, they do it a different way. They have a system that's known as gerrymandering, whatever that

means. It means when Negroes become too heavily concentrated in a certain area, and begin to gain too

much political power, the white man comes along and changes the district lines. You may say, "Why do you

keep saying white man?" Because it's the white man who does it. I haven't ever seen any Negro changing any

lines. They don't let him get near the line. It's the white man who does this. And usually, it's the white man

who grins at you the most, and pats you on the back, and is supposed to be your friend. He may be friendly,

but he's not your friend.



So, what I'm trying to impress upon you, in essence, is this: You and I in America are faced not with a

segregationist conspiracy, we're faced with a government conspiracy. Everyone who's filibustering is a senator

-- that's the government. Everyone who's finagling in Washington, D.C., is a congressman -- that's the

government. You don't have anybody putting blocks in your path but people who are a part of the

government. The same government that you go abroad to fight for and die for is the government that is in a

conspiracy to deprive you of your voting rights, deprive you of your economic opportunities, deprive you of

decent housing, deprive you of decent education. You don't need to go to the employer alone, it is the

government itself, the government of America, that is responsible for the oppression and exploitation and

degradation of black people in this country. And you should drop it in their lap. This government has failed the

Negro. This so-called democracy has failed the Negro. And all these white liberals have definitely failed the

Negro.



So, where do we go from here? First, we need some friends. We need some new allies. The entire civil-rights

struggle needs a new interpretation, a broader interpretation. We need to look at this civil-rights thing from

another angle -- from the inside as well as from the outside. To those of us whose philosophy is black

nationalism, the only way you can get involved in the civil-rights struggle is give it a new interpretation. That

old interpretation excluded us. It kept us out. So, we're giving a new interpretation to the civil-rights struggle,

an interpretation that will enable us to come into it, take part in it. And these handkerchief-heads who have

been dillydallying and pussy footing and compromising -- we don't intend to let them pussyfoot and dillydally

and compromise any longer.



How can you thank a man for giving you what's already yours? How then can you thank him for giving you only

part of what's already yours? You haven't even made progress, if what's being given to you, you should have

had already. That's not progress. And I love my Brother Lomax, the way he pointed out we're right back where

we were in 1954. We're not even as far up as we were in 1954. We're behind where we were in 1954. There's

more segregation now than there was in 1954. There's more racial animosity, more racial hatred, more racial

violence today in 1964, than there was in 1954. Where is the progress?



And now you're facing a situation where the young Negro's coming up. They don't want to hear that "turn the-

other-cheek" stuff, no. In Jacksonville, those were teenagers, they were throwing Molotov cocktails. Negroes

have never done that before. But it shows you there's a new deal coming in. There's new thinking coming in.

There's new strategy coming in. It'll be Molotov cocktails this month, hand grenades next month, and

something else next month. It'll be ballots, or it'll be bullets. It'll be liberty, or it will be death. The only

difference about this kind of death -- it'll be reciprocal. You know what is meant by "reciprocal"? That's one of

Brother Lomax's words. I stole it from him. I don't usually deal with those big words because I don't usually

deal with big people. I deal with small people. I find you can get a whole lot of small people and whip hell out

of a whole lot of big people. They haven't got anything to lose, and they've got every thing to gain. And they'll

let you know in a minute: "It takes two to tango; when I go, you go."



The black nationalists, those whose philosophy is black nationalism, in bringing about this new interpretation

of the entire meaning of civil rights, look upon it as meaning, as Brother Lomax has pointed out, equality of

opportunity. Well, we're justified in seeking civil rights, if it means equality of opportunity, because all we're

doing there is trying to collect for our investment. Our mothers and fathers invested sweat and blood. Three

hundred and ten years we worked in this country without a dime in return -- I mean without a dime in return.

You let the white man walk around here talking about how rich this country is, but you never stop to think

how it got rich so quick. It got rich because you made it rich.



You take the people who are in this audience right now. They're poor. We're all poor as individuals. Our

weekly salary individually amounts to hardly anything. But if you take the salary of everyone in here

collectively, it'll fill up a whole lot of baskets. It's a lot of wealth. If you can collect the wages of just these

people right here for a year, you'll be rich -- richer than rich. When you look at it like that, think how rich Uncle

Sam had to become, not with this handful, but millions of black people. Your and my mother and father, who

didn't work an eight-hour shift, but worked from "can't see" in the morning until "can't see" at night, and

worked for nothing, making the white man rich, making Uncle Sam rich. This is our investment. This is our

contribution, our blood.



Not only did we give of our free labor, we gave of our blood. Every time he had a call to arms, we were the

first ones in uniform. We died on every battlefield the white man had. We have made a greater sacrifice than

anybody who's standing up in America today. We have made a greater contribution and have collected less.

Civil rights, for those of us whose philosophy is black nationalism, means: "Give it to us now. Don't wait for

next year. Give it to us yesterday, and that's not fast enough."



I might stop right here to point out one thing. Whenever you're going after something that belongs to you,

anyone who's depriving you of the right to have it is a criminal. Understand that. Whenever you are going

after something that is yours, you are within your legal rights to lay claim to it. And anyone who puts forth any

effort to deprive you of that which is yours, is breaking the law, is a criminal. And this was pointed out by the

Supreme Court decision. It outlawed segregation.



Which means segregation is against the law. Which means a segregationist is breaking the law. A

segregationist is a criminal. You can't label him as anything other than that. And when you demonstrate

against segregation, the law is on your side. The Supreme Court is on your side.



Now, who is it that opposes you in carrying out the law? The police department itself. With police dogs and

clubs. Whenever you demonstrate against segregation, whether it is segregated education, segregated

housing, or anything else, the law is on your side, and anyone who stands in the way is not the law any longer.

They are breaking the law; they are not representatives of the law. Any time you demonstrate against

segregation and a man has the audacity to put a police dog on you, kill that dog, kill him, I'm telling you, kill

that dog. I say it, if they put me in jail tomorrow, kill that dog. Then you'll put a stop to it. Now, if these white

people in here don't want to see that kind of action, get down and tell the mayor to tell the police department

to pull the dogs in. That's all you have to do. If you don't do it, someone else will.



If you don't take this kind of stand, your little children will grow up and look at you and think "shame." If you

don't take an uncompromising stand, I don't mean go out and get violent; but at the same time you should

never be nonviolent unless you run into some nonviolence. I'm nonviolent with those who are nonviolent with

me. But when you drop that violence on me, then you've made me go insane, and I'm not responsible for what

I do. And that's the way every Negro should get. Any time you know you're within the law, within your legal

rights, within your moral rights, in accord with justice, then die for what you believe in. But don't die alone. Let

your dying be reciprocal. This is what is meant by equality. What's good for the goose is good for the gander.



When we begin to get in this area, we need new friends, we need new allies. We need to expand the civil-

rights struggle to a higher level -- to the level of human rights. Whenever you are in a civil-rights struggle,

whether you know it or not, you are confining yourself to the jurisdiction of Uncle Sam. No one from the

outside world can speak out in your behalf as long as your struggle is a civil-rights struggle. Civil rights comes

within the domestic affairs of this country. All of our African brothers and our Asian brothers and our Latin-

American brothers cannot open their mouths and interfere in the domestic affairs of the United States. And as

long as it's civil rights, this comes under the jurisdiction of Uncle Sam.



But the United Nations has what's known as the charter of human rights; it has a committee that deals in

human rights. You may wonder why all of the atrocities that have been committed in Africa and in Hungary

and in Asia, and in Latin America are brought before the UN, and the Negro problem is never brought before

the UN. This is part of the conspiracy. This old, tricky blue eyed liberal who is supposed to be your and my

friend, supposed to be in our corner, supposed to be subsidizing our struggle, and supposed to be acting in the

capacity of an adviser, never tells you anything about human rights. They keep you wrapped up in civil rights.

And you spend so much time barking up the civil-rights tree, you don't even know there's a human-rights tree

on the same floor.



When you expand the civil-rights struggle to the level of human rights, you can then take the case of the black

man in this country before the nations in the UN. You can take it before the General Assembly. You can take

Uncle Sam before a world court. But the only level you can do it on is the level of human rights. Civil rights

keeps you under his restrictions, under his jurisdiction. Civil rights keeps you in his pocket. Civil rights means

you're asking Uncle Sam to treat you right. Human rights are something you were born with. Human rights are

your God-given rights. Human rights are the rights that are recognized by all nations of this earth. And any

time any one violates your human rights, you can take them to the world court.

Uncle Sam's hands are dripping with blood, dripping with the blood of the black man in this country. He's the

earth's number-one hypocrite. He has the audacity -- yes, he has -- imagine him posing as the leader of the

free world. The free world! And you over here singing "We Shall Overcome." Expand the civil-rights struggle to

the level of human rights. Take it into the United Nations, where our African brothers can throw their weight

on our side, where our Asian brothers can throw their weight on our side, where our Latin-American brothers

can throw their weight on our side, and where 800 million Chinamen are sitting there waiting to throw their

weight on our side.



Let the world know how bloody his hands are. Let the world know the hypocrisy that's practiced over here. Let

it be the ballot or the bullet. Let him know that it must be the ballot or the bullet.



When you take your case to Washington, D.C., you're taking it to the criminal who's responsible; it's like

running from the wolf to the fox. They're all in cahoots together. They all work political chicanery and make

you look like a chump before the eyes of the world. Here you are walking around in America, getting ready to

be drafted and sent abroad, like a tin soldier, and when you get over there, people ask you what are you

fighting for, and you have to stick your tongue in your cheek. No, take Uncle Sam to court, take him before the

world.



By ballot I only mean freedom. Don't you know -- I disagree with Lomax on this issue -- that the ballot is more

important than the dollar? Can I prove it? Yes. Look in the UN. There are poor nations in the UN; yet those

poor nations can get together with their voting power and keep the rich nations from making a move. They

have one nation -- one vote, everyone has an equal vote. And when those brothers from Asia, and Africa and

the darker parts of this earth get together, their voting power is sufficient to hold Sam in check. Or Russia in

check. Or some other section of the earth in check. So, the ballot is most important.



Right now, in this country, if you and I, 22 million African-Americans -- that's what we are -- Africans who are

in America. You're nothing but Africans. Nothing but Africans. In fact, you'd get farther calling yourself African

instead of Negro. Africans don't catch hell. You're the only one catching hell. They don't have to pass civil-

rights bills for Africans. An African can go anywhere he wants right now. All you've got to do is tie your head

up. That's right, go anywhere you want. Just stop being a Negro. Change your name to Hoogagagooba. That'll

show you how silly the white man is. You're dealing with a silly man. A friend of mine who's very dark put a

turban on his head and went into a restaurant in Atlanta before they called themselves desegregated. He went

into a white restaurant, he sat down, they served him, and he said, "What would happen if a Negro came in

here? And there he's sitting, black as night, but because he had his head wrapped up the waitress looked back

at him and says, "Why, there wouldn't no nigger dare come in here."



So, you're dealing with a man whose bias and prejudice are making him lose his mind, his intelligence, every

day. He's frightened. He looks around and sees what's taking place on this earth, and he sees that the

pendulum of time is swinging in your direction. The dark people are waking up. They're losing their fear of the

white man. No place where he's fighting right now is he winning. Everywhere he's fighting, he's fighting

someone your and my complexion. And they're beating him. He can't win any more. He's won his last battle.

He failed to win the Korean War. He couldn't win it. He had to sign a truce. That's a loss.



Any time Uncle Sam, with all his machinery for warfare, is held to a draw by some rice eaters, he's lost the

battle. He had to sign a truce. America's not supposed to sign a truce. She's supposed to be bad. But she's not

bad any more. She's bad as long as she can use her hydrogen bomb, but she can't use hers for fear Russia

might use hers. Russia can't use hers, for fear that Sam might use his. So, both of them are weapon-less. They

can't use the weapon because each's weapon nullifies the other's. So the only place where action can take

place is on the ground. And the white man can't win another war fighting on the ground. Those days are over

The black man knows it, the brown man knows it, the red man knows it, and the yellow man knows it. So they

engage him in guerrilla warfare. That's not his style. You've got to have heart to be a guerrilla warrior, and he

hasn't got any heart. I'm telling you now.



I just want to give you a little briefing on guerrilla warfare because, before you know it, before you know it. It

takes heart to be a guerrilla warrior because you're on your own. In conventional warfare you have tanks and

a whole lot of other people with you to back you up -- planes over your head and all that kind of stuff. But a

guerrilla is on his own. All you have is a rifle, some sneakers and a bowl of rice, and that's all you need -- and a

lot of heart. The Japanese on some of those islands in the Pacific, when the American soldiers landed, one

Japanese sometimes could hold the whole army off. He'd just wait until the sun went down, and when the sun

went down they were all equal. He would take his little blade and slip from bush to bush, and from American

to American. The white soldiers couldn't cope with that. Whenever you see a white soldier that fought in the

Pacific, he has the shakes, he has a nervous condition, because they scared him to death.



The same thing happened to the French up in French Indochina. People who just a few years previously were

rice farmers got together and ran the heavily-mechanized French army out of Indochina. You don't need it --

modern warfare today won't work. This is the day of the guerrilla. They did the same thing in Algeria.

Algerians, who were nothing but Bedouins, took a rine and sneaked off to the hills, and de Gaulle and all of his

highfalutin' war machinery couldn't defeat those guerrillas. Nowhere on this earth does the white man win in

a guerrilla warfare. It's not his speed. Just as guerrilla warfare is prevailing in Asia and in parts of Africa and in

parts of Latin America, you've got to be mighty naive, or you've got to play the black man cheap, if you don't

think some day he's going to wake up and find that it's got to be the ballot or the bullet.



l would like to say, in closing, a few things concerning the Muslim Mosque, Inc., which we established recently

in New York City. It's true we're Muslims and our religion is Islam, but we don't mix our religion with our

politics and our economics and our social and civil activities -- not any more We keep our religion in our

mosque. After our religious services are over, then as Muslims we become involved in political action,

economic action and social and civic action. We become involved with anybody, any where, any time and in

any manner that's designed to eliminate the evils, the political, economic and social evils that are afflicting the

people of our community.



The political philosophy of black nationalism means that the black man should control the politics and the

politicians in his own community; no more. The black man in the black community has to be re-educated into

the science of politics so he will know what politics is supposed to bring him in return. Don't be throwing out

any ballots. A ballot is like a bullet. You don't throw your ballots until you see a target, and if that target is not

within your reach, keep your ballot in your pocket.



The political philosophy of black nationalism is being taught in the Christian church. It's being taught in the

NAACP. It's being taught in CORE meetings. It's being taught in SNCC Student Nonviolent Coordinating

Committee meetings. It's being taught in Muslim meetings. It's being taught where nothing but atheists and

agnostics come together. It's being taught everywhere. Black people are fed up with the dillydallying,

pussyfooting, compromising approach that we've been using toward getting our freedom. We want freedom

now, but we're not going to get it saying "We Shall Overcome." We've got to fight until we overcome.



The economic philosophy of black nationalism is pure and simple. It only means that we should control the

economy of our community. Why should white people be running all the stores in our community? Why

should white people be running the banks of our community? Why should the economy of our community be

in the hands of the white man? Why? If a black man can't move his store into a white community, you tell me

why a white man should move his store into a black community. The philosophy of black nationalism involves

a re-education program in the black community in regards to economics. Our people have to be made to see

that any time you take your dollar out of your community and spend it in a community where you don't live,

the community where you live will get poorer and poorer, and the community where you spend your money

will get richer and richer.



Then you wonder why where you live is always a ghetto or a slum area. And where you and I are concerned,

not only do we lose it when we spend it out of the community, but the white man has got all our stores in the

community tied up; so that though we spend it in the community, at sundown the man who runs the store

takes it over across town somewhere. He's got us in a vise. So the economic philosophy of black nationalism

means in every church, in every civic organization, in every fraternal order, it's time now for our people to be

come conscious of the importance of controlling the economy of our community. If we own the stores, if we

operate the businesses, if we try and establish some industry in our own community, then we're developing to

the position where we are creating employment for our own kind. Once you gain control of the economy of

your own community, then you don't have to picket and boycott and beg some cracker downtown for a job in

his business.



The social philosophy of black nationalism only means that we have to get together and remove the evils, the

vices, alcoholism, drug addiction, and other evils that are destroying the moral fiber of our community. We

our selves have to lift the level of our community, the standard of our community to a higher level, make our

own society beautiful so that we will be satisfied in our own social circles and won't be running around here

trying to knock our way into a social circle where we're not wanted. So I say, in spreading a gospel such as

black nationalism, it is not designed to make the black man re-evaluate the white man -- you know him

already -- but to make the black man re-evaluate himself. Don't change the white man's mind -- you can't

change his mind, and that whole thing about appealing to the moral conscience of America -- America's

conscience is bankrupt. She lost all conscience a long time ago. Uncle Sam has no conscience.



They don't know what morals are. They don't try and eliminate an evil because it's evil, or because it's illegal,

or because it's immoral; they eliminate it only when it threatens their existence. So you're wasting your time

appealing to the moral conscience of a bankrupt man like Uncle Sam. If he had a conscience, he'd straighten

this thing out with no more pressure being put upon him. So it is not necessary to change the white man's

mind. We have to change our own mind. You can't change his mind about us. We've got to change our own

minds about each other. We have to see each other with new eyes. We have to see each other as brothers

and sisters. We have to come together with warmth so we can develop unity and harmony that's necessary to

get this problem solved ourselves. How can we do this? How can we avoid jealousy? How can we avoid the

suspicion and the divisions that exist in the community? I'll tell you how.



I have watched how Billy Graham comes into a city, spreading what he calls the gospel of Christ, which is only

white nationalism. That's what he is. Billy Graham is a white nationalist; I'm a black nationalist. But since it's

the natural tendency for leaders to be jealous and look upon a powerful figure like Graham with suspicion and

envy, how is it possible for him to come into a city and get all the cooperation of the church leaders? Don't

think because they're church leaders that they don't have weaknesses that make them envious and jealous --

no, everybody's got it. It's not an accident that when they want to choose a cardinal, as Pope I over there in

Rome, they get in a closet so you can't hear them cussing and fighting and carrying on.



Billy Graham comes in preaching the gospel of Christ. He evangelizes the gospel. He stirs everybody up, but he

never tries to start a church. If he came in trying to start a church, all the churches would be against him. So,

he just comes in talking about Christ and tells everybody who gets Christ to go to any church where Christ is;

and in this way the church cooperates with him. So we're going to take a page from his book.

Our gospel is black nationalism. We're not trying to threaten the existence of any organization, but we're

spreading the gospel of black nationalism. Anywhere there's a church that is also preaching and practicing the

gospel of black nationalism, join that church. If the NAACP is preaching and practicing the gospel of black

nationalism, join the NAACP. If CORE is spreading and practicing the gospel of black nationalism, join CORE.

Join any organization that has a gospel that's for the uplift of the black man. And when you get into it and see

them pussyfooting or compromising, pull out of it because that's not black nationalism. We'll find another

one.



And in this manner, the organizations will increase in number and in quantity and in quality, and by August, it

is then our intention to have a black nationalist convention which will consist of delegates from all over the

country who are interested in the political, economic and social philosophy of black nationalism. After these

delegates convene, we will hold a seminar; we will hold discussions; we will listen to everyone. We want to

hear new ideas and new solutions and new answers. And at that time, if we see fit then to form a black

nationalist party, we'll form a black nationalist party. If it's necessary to form a black nationalist army, we'll

form a black nationalist army. It'll be the ballot or the bullet. It'll be liberty or it'll be death.



It's time for you and me to stop sitting in this country, letting some cracker senators, Northern crackers and

Southern crackers, sit there in Washington, D.C., and come to a conclusion in their mind that you and I are

supposed to have civil rights. There's no white man going to tell me anything about my rights. Brothers and

sisters, always remember, if it doesn't take senators and congressmen and presidential proclamations to give

freedom to the white man, it is not necessary for legislation or proclamation or Supreme Court decisions to

give freedom to the black man. You let that white man know, if this is a country of freedom, let it be a country

of freedom; and if it's not a country of freedom, change it.



We will work with anybody, anywhere, at any time, who is genuinely interested in tackling the problem head-

on, nonviolently as long as the enemy is nonviolent, but violent when the enemy gets violent. We'll work with

you on the voter-registration drive, we'll work with you on rent strikes, we'll work with you on school

boycotts; I don't believe in any kind of integration; I'm not even worried about it, because I know you're not

going to get it anyway; you're not going to get it because you're afraid to die; you've got to be ready to die if

you try and force yourself on the white man, because he'll get just as violent as those crackers in Mississippi,

right here in Cleveland. But we will still work with you on the school boycotts be cause we're against a

segregated school system. A segregated school system produces children who, when they graduate, graduate

with crippled minds. But this does not mean that a school is segregated because it's all black. A segregated

school means a school that is controlled by people who have no real interest in it whatsoever.



Let me explain what I mean. A segregated district or community is a community in which people live, but

outsiders control the politics and the economy of that community. They never refer to the white section as a

segregated community. It's the all-Negro section that's a segregated community. Why? The white man

controls his own school, his own bank, his own economy, his own politics, his own everything, his own

community; but he also controls yours. When you're under someone else's control, you're segregated. They'll

always give you the lowest or the worst that there is to offer, but it doesn't mean you're segregated just

because you have your own. You've got to control your own. Just like the white man has control of his, you

need to control yours.



You know the best way to get rid of segregation? The white man is more afraid of separation than he is of

integration. Segregation means that he puts you away from him, but not far enough for you to be out of his

jurisdiction; separation means you're gone. And the white man will integrate faster than he'll let you separate.

So we will work with you against the segregated school system because it's criminal, because it is absolutely

destructive, in every way imaginable, to the minds of the children who have to be exposed to that type of

crippling education.



Last but not least, I must say this concerning the great controversy over rifles and shotguns. The only thing

that I've ever said is that in areas where the government has proven itself either unwilling or unable to defend

the lives and the property of Negroes, it's time for Negroes to defend themselves. Article number two of the

constitutional amendments provides you and me the right to own a rifle or a shotgun. It is constitutionally

legal to own a shotgun or a rifle. This doesn't mean you're going to get a rifle and form battalions and go out

looking for white folks, although you'd be within your rights -- I mean, you'd be justified; but that would be

illegal and we don't do anything illegal. If the white man doesn't want the black man buying rifles and

shotguns, then let the government do its job.



That's all. And don't let the white man come to you and ask you what you think about what Malcolm says --

why, you old Uncle Tom. He would never ask you if he thought you were going to say, "Amen!" No, he is

making a Tom out of you." So, this doesn't mean forming rifle clubs and going out looking for people, but it is

time, in 1964, if you are a man, to let that man know. If he's not going to do his job in running the government

and providing you and me with the protection that our taxes are supposed to be for, since he spends all those

billions for his defense budget, he certainly can't begrudge you and me spending $12 or $15 for a single-shot,

or double-action. I hope you understand. Don't go out shooting people, but any time -- brothers and sisters,

and especially the men in this audience; some of you wearing Congressional Medals of Honor, with shoulders

this wide, chests this big, muscles that big -- any time you and I sit around and read where they bomb a church

and murder in cold blood, not some grownups, but four little girls while they were praying to the same God

the white man taught them to pray to, and you and I see the government go down and can't find who did it.



Why, this man -- he can find Eichmann hiding down in Argentina somewhere. Let two or three American

soldiers, who are minding somebody else's business way over in South Vietnam, get killed, and he'll send

battleships, sticking his nose in their business. He wanted to send troops down to Cuba and make them have

what he calls free elections -- this old cracker who doesn't have free elections in his own country.



No, if you never see me another time in your life, if I die in the morning, I'll die saying one thing: the ballot or

the bullet, the ballot or the bullet.



If a Negro in 1964 has to sit around and wait for some cracker senator to filibuster when it comes to the rights

of black people, why, you and I should hang our heads in shame. You talk about a march on Washington in

1963, you haven't seen anything. There's some more going down in '64.



And this time they're not going like they went last year. They're not going singing ''We Shall Overcome."

They're not going with white friends. They're not going with placards already painted for them. They're not

going with round-trip tickets. They're going with one way tickets. And if they don't want that non-nonviolent

army going down there, tell them to bring the filibuster to a halt.



The black nationalists aren't going to wait. Lyndon B. Johnson is the head of the Democratic Party. If he's for

civil rights, let him go into the Senate next week and declare himself. Let him go in there right now and declare

himself. Let him go in there and denounce the Southern branch of his party. Let him go in there right now and

take a moral stand -- right now, not later. Tell him, don't wait until election time. If he waits too long, brothers

and sisters, he will be responsible for letting a condition develop in this country which will create a climate

that will bring seeds up out of the ground with vegetation on the end of them looking like something these

people never dreamed of. In 1964, it's the ballot or the bullet.

Thank you.

The Great Society

by Lyndon B. Johnson

May 22, 1964



President Hatcher, Governor Romney, Senators McNamara and Hart, Congressmen Header and Staebler, and

other members of the fine Michigan delegation, members of the graduating class, my fellow Americans:



It is a great pleasure to be here today. This university has been coeducational since 1870, but I do not believe

it was on the basis of your accomplishments that a Detroit high school girl said, "In choosing a college, you first

have to decide whether you want a coeducational school or an educational school."



Well, we can find both here at Michigan, although perhaps at different hours. I came out here today very

anxious to meet the Michigan student whose father told a friend of mine that his son's education had been a

real value. It stopped his mother from bragging about him.



I have come today from the turmoil of your Capital to the tranquility of your campus to speak about the future

of your country.



The purpose of protecting the life of our Nation and preserving the liberty of our citizens is to pursue the

happiness of our people. Our success in that pursuit is the test of our success as a Nation.



For a century we labored to settle and to subdue a continent. For half a century we called upon unbounded

invention and untiring industry to create an order of plenty for all of our people.



The challenge of the next half century is whether we have the wisdom to use that wealth to enrich and elevate

our national life, and to advance the quality of our American civilization.



Your imagination, your initiative, and your indignation will determine whether we build a society where

progress is the servant of our needs, or a society where old values and new visions are buried under unbridled

growth. For in your time we have the opportunity to move not only toward the rich society and the powerful

society, but upward to the Great Society.



The Great Society rests on abundance and liberty for all. It demands an end to poverty and racial injustice, to

which we are totally committed in our time. But that is just the beginning.



The Great Society is a place where every child can find knowledge to enrich his mind and to enlarge his talents.

It is a place where leisure is a welcome chance to build and reflect, not a feared cause of boredom and

restlessness. It is a place where the city of man serves not only the needs of the body and the demands of

commerce but the desire for beauty and the hunger for community.



It is a place where man can renew contact with nature. It is a place which honors creation for its own sake and

for what it adds to the understanding of the race. It is a place where men are more concerned with the quality

of their goals than the quantity of their goods.



But most of all, the Great Society is not a safe harbor, a resting place, a final objective, a finished work. It is a

challenge constantly renewed, beckoning us toward a destiny where the meaning of our lives matches the

marvelous products of our labor.

So I want to talk to you today about three places where we begin to build the Great Society -- in our cities, in

our countryside, and in our classrooms.



Many of you will live to see the day, perhaps 50 years from now, when there will be 400 million Americans --

four-fifths of them in urban areas. In the remainder of this century urban population will double, city land will

double, and we will have to build homes, highways, and facilities equal to all those built since this country was

first settled. So in the next 40 years we must rebuild the entire urban United States.



Aristotle said: "Men come together in cities in order to live, but they remain together in order to live the good

life." It is harder and harder to live the good life in American cities today. The catalog of ills is long: there is the

decay of the centers and the despoiling of the suburbs. There is not enough housing for our people or

transportation for our traffic. Open land is vanishing and old landmarks are violated.



Worst of all, expansion is eroding the precious and time honored values of community with neighbors and

communion with nature. The loss of these values breeds loneliness and boredom and indifference.



Our society will never be great until our cities are great. Today the frontier of imagination and innovation is

inside those cities and not beyond their borders. New experiments are already going on. It will be the task of

your generation to make the American city a place where future generations will come, not only to live but to

live the good life.



I understand that if I stayed here tonight I would see that Michigan students are really doing their best to live

the good life.



This is the place where the Peace Corps was started. It is inspiring to see how all of you, while you are in this

country, are trying so hard to live at the level of the people.



A second place where we begin to build the Great Society is in our countryside. We have always prided

ourselves on being not only America the strong and America the free, but America the beautiful. Today that

beauty is in danger. The water we drink, the food we eat, the very air that we breathe, are threatened with

pollution. Our parks are overcrowded, our seashores overburdened. Green fields and dense forests are

disappearing.



A few years ago we were greatly concerned about the "Ugly American." Today we must act to prevent an ugly

America.



For once the battle is lost, once our natural splendor is destroyed, it can never be recaptured. And once man

can no longer walk with beauty or wonder at nature his spirit will wither and his sustenance be wasted. A third

place to build the Great Society is in the classrooms of America. There your children's lives will be shaped. Our

society will not be great until every young mind is set free to scan the farthest reaches of thought and

imagination. We are still far from that goal.



Today, 8 million adult Americans, more than the entire population of Michigan, have not finished 5 years of

school. Nearly 20 million have not finished 8 years of school. Nearly 54 million -- more than one-quarter of all

America -- have not even finished high school.



Each year more than 100,000 high school graduates, with proved ability, do not enter college because they

cannot afford it. And if we cannot educate today's youth, what will we do in 1970 when elementary school

enrollment will be 5 million greater than 1960? And high school enrollment will rise by 5 million. College

enrollment will increase by more than 3 million.



In many places, classrooms are overcrowded and curricula are outdated. Most of our qualified teachers are

underpaid, and many of our paid teachers are unqualified. So we must give every child a place to sit and a

teacher to learn from. Poverty must not be a bar to learning, and learning must offer an escape from poverty.

But more classrooms and more teachers are not enough. We must seek an educational system which grows in

excellence as it grows in size. This means better training for our teachers. It means preparing youth to enjoy

their hours of leisure as well as their hours of labor. It means exploring new techniques of teaching, to find

new ways to stimulate the love of learning and the capacity for creation.



These are three of the central issues of the Great Society. While our Government has many programs directed

at those issues, I do not pretend that we have the full answer to those problems.



But I do promise this: We are going to assemble the best thought and the broadest knowledge from all over

the world to find those answers for America. I intend to establish working groups to prepare a series of White

House conferences and meetings-on the cities, on natural beauty, on the quality of education, and on other

emerging challenges. And from these meetings and from this inspiration and from these studies we will begin

to set our course toward the Great Society.



The solution to these problems does not rest on a massive program in Washington, nor can it rely solely on

the strained resources of local authority. They require us to create new concepts of cooperation, a creative

federalism, between the National Capital and the leaders of local communities.



Woodrow Wilson once wrote: "Every man sent out from his university should be a man of his Nation as well as

a man of his time."



Within your lifetime powerful forces, already loosed, will take us toward a way of life beyond the realm of our

experience, almost beyond the bounds of our imagination.



For better or for worse, your generation has been appointed by history to deal with those problems and to

lead America toward a new age. You have the chance never before afforded to any people in any age. You can

help build a society where the demands of morality, and the needs of the spirit, can be realized in the life of

the Nation.



So, will you join in the battle to give every citizen the full equality which God enjoins and the law requires,

whatever his belief, or race, or the color of his skin? Will you join in the battle to give every citizen an escape

from the crushing weight of poverty?



Will you join in the battle to make it possible for all nations to live in enduring peace as neighbors and not as

mortal enemies?



Will you join in the battle to build the Great Society, to prove that our material progress is only the foundation

on which we will build a richer life of mind and spirit?



There are those timid souls who say this battle cannot be won; that we are condemned to a soulless wealth. I

do not agree. We have the power to shape the civilization that we want. But we need your will, your labor,

your hearts, if we are to build that kind of society.

Those who came to this land sought to build more than just a new country.



They sought a new world. So I have come here today to your campus to say that you can make their vision our

reality. So let us from this moment begin our work so that in the future men will look back and say: It was

then, after a long and weary way, that man turned the exploits of his genius to the full enrichment of his life.



Thank you. Goodbye.

I See the Promised Land

by Martin Luther King, Jr.

April 3, 1968

Memphis, Tennessee



Thank you very kindly, my friends. As I listened to Ralph Abernathy in his eloquent and generous introduction

and then thought about myself, I wondered who he was talking about. It's always good to have your closest

friend and associate say something good about you. And Ralph is the best friend that I have in the world.



I'm delighted to see each of you here tonight in spite of a storm warning. You reveal that you are determined

to go on anyhow. Something is happening in Memphis, something is happening in our world.



As you know, if I were standing at the beginning of time, with the possibility of general and panoramic view of

the whole human history up to now, and the Almighty said to me, "Martin Luther King, which age would you

like to live in?" -- I would take my mental flight by Egypt through, or rather across the Red Sea, through the

wilderness on toward the promised land. And in spite of its magnificence, I wouldn't stop there. I would move

on by Greece, and take my mind to Mount Olympus. And I would see Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, Euripides and

Aristophanes assembled around the Parthenon as they discussed the great and eternal issues of reality.



But I wouldn't stop there. I would go on, even to the great heyday of the Roman Empire. And I would see

developments around there, through various emperors and leaders. But I wouldn't stop there. I would even

come up to the day of the Renaissance, and get a quick picture of all that the Renaissance did for the cultural

and esthetic life of man. But I wouldn't stop there. I would even go by the way that the man for whom I'm

named had his habitat. And I would watch Martin Luther as he tacked his ninety-five theses on the door at the

church in Wittenberg.



But I wouldn't stop there. I would come on up even to 1863, and watch a vacillating president by the name of

Abraham Lincoln finally come to the conclusion that he had to sign the Emancipation Proclamation. But I

wouldn't stop there. I would even come up the early thirties, and see a man grappling with the problems of

the bankruptcy of his nation. And come with an eloquent cry that we have nothing to fear but fear itself.



But I wouldn't stop there. Strangely enough, I would turn to the Almighty, and say, "If you allow me to live just

a few years in the second half of the twentieth century, I will be happy." Now that's a strange statement to

make, because the world is all messed up. The nation is sick. Trouble is in the land. Confusion all around.

That's a strange statement. But I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough, can you see the stars. And

I see God working in this period of the twentieth century in a way that men, in some strange way, are

responding--something is happening in our world. The masses of people are rising up. And wherever they are

assembled today, whether they are in Johannesburg, South Africa; Nairobi, Kenya: Accra, Ghana; New York

City; Atlanta, Georgia; Jackson, Mississippi; or Memphis, Tennessee -- the cry is always the same -- "We want

to be free."



And another reason that I'm happy to live in this period is that we have been forced to a point where we're

going to have to grapple with the problems that men have been trying to grapple with through history, but the

demands didn't force them to do it. Survival demands that we grapple with them. Men, for years now, have

been talking about war and peace. But now, no longer can they just talk about it. It is no longer a choice

between violence and nonviolence in this world; it's nonviolence or nonexistence.



That is where we are today. And also in the human rights revolution, if something isn't done, and in a hurry, to

bring the colored peoples of the world out of their long years of poverty, their long years of hurt and neglect,

the whole world is doomed. Now, I'm just happy that God has allowed me to live in this period, to see what is

unfolding. And I'm happy that he's allowed me to be in Memphis.



I can remember, I can remember when Negroes were just going around as Ralph has said, so often, scratching

where they didn't itch, and laughing when they were not tickled. But that day is all over. We mean business

now, and we are determined to gain our rightful place in God's world.



And that's all this whole thing is about. We aren't engaged in any negative protest and in any negative

arguments with anybody. We are saying that we are determined to be men. We are determined to be people.

We are saying that we are God's children. And that we don't have to live like we are forced to live.



Now, what does all of this mean in this great period of history? It means that we've got to stay together.

We've got to stay together and maintain unity. You know, whenever Pharaoh wanted to prolong the period of

slavery in Egypt, he had a favorite, favorite formula for doing it. What was that? He kept the slaves fighting

among themselves. But whenever the slaves get together, something happens in Pharaoh's court, and he

cannot hold the slaves in slavery. When the slaves get together, that's the beginning of getting out of slavery.

Now let us maintain unity.



Secondly, let us keep the issues where they are. The issue is injustice. The issue is the refusal of Memphis to

be fair and honest in its dealings with its public servants, who happen to be sanitation workers. Now, we've

got to keep attention on that. That's always the problem with a little violence. You know what happened the

other day, and the press dealt only with the window-breaking. I read the articles. They very seldom got around

to mentioning the fact that one thousand, three hundred sanitation workers were on strike, and that

Memphis is not being fair to them, and that Mayor Loeb is in dire need of a doctor. They didn't get around to

that.



Now we're going to march again, and we've got to march again, in order to put the issue where it is supposed

to be. And force everybody to see that there are thirteen hundred of God's children here suffering, sometimes

going hungry, going through dark and dreary nights wondering how this thing is going to come out. That's the

issue. And we've got to say to the nation: we know it's coming out. For when people get caught up with that

which is right and they are willing to sacrifice for it, there is no stopping point short of victory.



We aren't going to let any mace stop us. We are masters in our nonviolent movement in disarming police

forces; they don't know what to do. I've seen them so often. I remember in Birmingham, Alabama, when we

were in that majestic struggle there we would move out of the 16th Street Baptist Church day after day; by

the hundreds we would move out. And Bull Connor would tell them to send the dogs forth and they did come;

but we just went before the dogs singing, "Ain't gonna let nobody turn me round." Bull Connor next would

say, "Turn the fire hoses on." And as I said to you the other night, Bull Connor didn't know history. He knew a

kind of physics that somehow didn't relate to the transphysics that we knew about. And that was the fact that

there was a certain kind of fire that no water could put out. And we went before the fire hoses; we had known

water. If we were Baptist or some other denomination, we had been immersed. If we were Methodist, and

some others, we had been sprinkled, but we knew water.



That couldn't stop us. And we just went on before the dogs and we would look at them; and we'd go on before

the water hoses and we would look at it, and we'd just go on singing. "Over my head I see freedom in the air."

And then we would be thrown in the paddy wagons, and sometimes we were stacked in there like sardines in

a can. And they would throw us in, and old Bull would say, "Take them off," and they did; and we would just

go in the paddy wagon singing, "We Shall Overcome." And every now and then we'd get in the jail, and we'd

see the jailers looking through the windows being moved by our prayers, and being moved by our words and

our songs. And there was a power there which Bull Connor couldn't adjust to; and so we ended up

transforming Bull into a steer, and we won our struggle in Birmingham.



Now we've got to go on to Memphis just like that. I call upon you to be with us Monday. Now about

injunctions: We have an injunction and we're going into court tomorrow morning to fight this illegal,

unconstitutional injunction. All we say to America is, "Be true to what you said on paper." If I lived in China or

even Russia, or any totalitarian country, maybe I could understand the denial of certain basic First Amendment

privileges, because they hadn't committed themselves to that over there. But somewhere I read of the

freedom of assembly. Somewhere I read of the freedom of speech. Somewhere I read of the freedom of the

press. Somewhere I read that the greatness of America is the right to protest for right. And so just as I say, we

aren't going to let any injunction turn us around. We are going on.



We need all of you. And you know what's beautiful to me, is to see all of these ministers of the Gospel. It's a

marvelous picture. Who is it that is supposed to articulate the longings and aspirations of the people more

than the preacher? Somehow the preacher must be an Amos, and say, "Let justice roll down like waters and

righteousness like a mighty stream." Somehow, the preacher must say with Jesus, "The spirit of the Lord is

upon me, because he hath anointed me to deal with the problems of the poor."



And I want to commend the preachers, under the leadership of these noble men: James Lawson, one who has

been in this struggle for many years; he's been to jail for struggling; but he's still going on, fighting for the

rights of his people. Rev. Ralph Jackson, Billy Kiles; I could just go right on down the list, but time will not

permit. But I want to thank them all. And I want you to thank them, because so often, preachers aren't

concerned about anything but themselves. And I'm always happy to see a relevant ministry.



It's alright to talk about "long white robes over yonder," in all of its symbolism. But ultimately people want

some suits and dresses and shoes to wear down here. It's alright to talk about "streets flowing with milk and

honey," but God has commanded us to be concerned about the slums down here, and his children who can't

eat three square meals a day. It's alright to talk about the new Jerusalem, but one day, God's preacher must

talk about the New York, the new Atlanta, the new Philadelphia, the new Los Angeles, the new Memphis,

Tennessee. This is what we have to do.



Now the other thing we'll have to do is this: Always anchor our external direct action with the power of

economic withdrawal. Now, we are poor people, individually, we are poor when you compare us with white

society in America. We are poor.



Never stop and forget that collectively, that means all of us together, collectively we are richer than all the

nation in the world, with the exception of nine. Did you ever think about that? After you leave the United

States, Soviet Russia, Great Britain, West Germany, France, and I could name the others, the Negro collectively

is richer than most nations of the world. We have an annual income of more than thirty billion dollars a year,

which is more than all of the exports of the United States, and more than the national budget of Canada. Did

you know that? That's power right there, if we know how to pool it.



We don't have to argue with anybody. We don't have to curse and go around acting bad with our words. We

don't need any bricks and bottles, we don't need any Molotov cocktails, we just need to go around to these

stores, and to these massive industries in our country, and say, "God sent us by here, to say to you that you're

not treating his children right. And we've come by here to ask you to make the first item on your agenda--fair

treatment, where God's children are concerned. Now, if you are not prepared to do that, we do have an

agenda that we must follow. And our agenda calls for withdrawing economic support from you."

And so, as a result of this, we are asking you tonight, to go out and tell your neighbors not to buy Coca-Cola in

Memphis. Go by and tell them not to buy Sealtest milk. Tell them not to buy--what is the other bread?--

Wonder Bread. And what is the other bread company, Jesse? Tell them not to buy Hart's bread. As Jesse

Jackson has said, up to now, only the garbage men have been feeling pain; now we must kind of redistribute

the pain. We are choosing these companies because they haven't been fair in their hiring policies; and we are

choosing them because they can begin the process of saying, they are going to support the needs and the

rights of these men who are on strike. And then they can move on downtown and tell Mayor Loeb to do what

is right.



But not only that, we've got to strengthen black institutions. I call upon you to take you money out of the

banks downtown and deposit you money in Tri-State Bank--we want a "bank-in" movement in Memphis. So go

by the savings and loan association. I'm not asking you something that we don't do ourselves at SCLC. Judge

Hooks and others will tell you that we have an account here in the savings and loan association from the

Southern Christian Leadership Conference. We're just telling you to follow what we're doing. Put your money

there. You have six or seven black insurance companies in Memphis. Take out your insurance there. We want

to have an "insurance-in."



Now there are some practical things we can do. We begin the process of building a greater economic base.

And at the same time, we are putting pressure where it really hurts. I ask you to follow through here.



Now, let me say as I move to my conclusion that we've got to give ourselves to this struggle until the end.

Nothing would be more tragic than to stop at this point, in Memphis. We've got to see it through. And when

we have our march, you need to be there. Be concerned about your brother. You may not be on strike. But

either we go up together, or we go down together.



Let us develop a kind of dangerous unselfishness. One day a man came to Jesus; and he wanted to raise some

questions about some vital matters in life. At points, he wanted to trick Jesus, and show him that he knew a

little more than Jesus knew, and through this, throw him off base. Now that question could have easily ended

up in a philosophical and theological debate. But Jesus immediately pulled that question from mid-air, and

placed it on a dangerous curve between Jerusalem and Jericho. And he talked about a certain man, who fell

among thieves. You remember that a Levite and a priest passed by on the other side. They didn't stop to help

him. And finally a man of another race came by. He got down from his beast, decided not to be compassionate

by proxy. But with him, administered first aid, and helped the man in need. Jesus ended up saying, this was

the good man, because he had the capacity to project the "I" into the "thou," and to be concerned about his

brother. Now you know, we use our imagination a great deal to try to determine why the priest and the Levite

didn't stop. At times we say they were busy going to church meetings -- an ecclesiastical gathering -- and they

had to get on down to Jerusalem so they wouldn't be late for their meeting. At other times we would

speculate that there was a religious law that "One who was engaged in religious ceremonials was not to touch

a human body twenty-four hours before the ceremony." And every now and then we begin to wonder

whether maybe they were not going down to Jerusalem, or down to Jericho, rather to organize a "Jericho

Road Improvement Association." That's a possibility. Maybe they felt that it was better to deal with the

problem from the casual root, rather than to get bogged down with an individual effort.



But I'm going to tell you what my imagination tells me. It's possible that these men were afraid. You see, the

Jericho road is a dangerous road. I remember when Mrs. King and I were first in Jerusalem. We rented a car

and drove from Jerusalem down to Jericho. And as soon as we got on that road, I said to my wife, "I can see

why Jesus used this as a setting for his parable." It's a winding, meandering road. It's really conducive for

ambushing. You start out in Jerusalem, which is about 1200 miles, or rather 1200 feet above sea level. And by

the time you get down to Jericho, fifteen or twenty minutes later, you're about 2200 feet below sea level.

That's a dangerous road. In the day of Jesus it came to be known as the "Bloody Pass." And you know, it's

possible that the priest and the Levite looked over that man on the ground and wondered if the robbers were

still around. Or it's possible that they felt that the man on the ground was merely faking. And he was acting

like he had been robbed and hurt, in order to seize them over there, lure them there for quick and easy

seizure. And so the first question that the Levite asked was, "If I stop to help this man, what will happen to

me?" But then the Good Samaritan came by. And he reversed the question: "If I do not stop to help this man,

what will happen to him?".



That's the question before you tonight. Not, "If I stop to help the sanitation workers, what will happen to all of

the hours that I usually spend in my office every day and every week as a pastor?" The question is not, "If I

stop to help this man in need, what will happen to me?" "If I do no stop to help the sanitation workers, what

will happen to them?" That's the question.



Let us rise up tonight with a greater readiness. Let us stand with a greater determination. And let us move on

in these powerful days, these days of challenge to make America what it ought to be. We have an opportunity

to make America a better nation. And I want to thank God, once more, for allowing me to be here with you.



You know, several years ago, I was in New York City autographing the first book that I had written. And while

sitting there autographing books, a demented black woman came up. The only question I heard from her was,

"Are you Martin Luther King?"



And I was looking down writing, and I said yes. And the next minute I felt something beating on my chest.

Before I knew it I had been stabbed by this demented woman. I was rushed to Harlem Hospital. It was a dark

Saturday afternoon. And that blade had gone through, and the X-rays revealed that the tip of the blade was on

the edge of my aorta, the main artery. And once that's punctured, you drown in your own blood--that's the

end of you.



It came out in the New York Times the next morning, that if I had sneezed, I would have died. Well, about four

days later, they allowed me, after the operation, after my chest had been opened, and the blade had been

taken out, to move around in the wheel chair in the hospital. They allowed me to read some of the mail that

came in, and from all over the states, and the world, kind letters came in. I read a few, but one of them I will

never forget. I had received one from the President and the Vice-President. I've forgotten what those

telegrams said. I'd received a visit and a letter from the Governor of New York, but I've forgotten what the

letter said. But there was another letter that came from a little girl, a young girl who was a student at the

White Plains High School. And I looked at that letter, and I'll never forget it. It said simply, "Dear Dr. King: I am

a ninth-grade student at the Whites Plains High School." She said, "While it should not matter, I would like to

mention that I am a white girl. I read in the paper of your misfortune, and of your suffering. And I read that if

you had sneezed, you would have died. And I'm simply writing you to say that I'm so happy that you didn't

sneeze."



And I want to say tonight, I want to say that I am happy that I didn't sneeze. Because if I had sneezed, I

wouldn't have been around here in 1960, when students all over the South started sitting-in at lunch counters.

And I knew that as they were sitting in, they were really standing up for the best in the American dream. And

taking the whole nation back to those great wells of democracy which were dug deep by the Founding Fathers

in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. If I had sneezed, I wouldn't have been around in

1962, when Negroes in Albany, Georgia, decided to straighten their backs up. And whenever men and women

straighten their backs up, they are going somewhere, because a man can't ride your back unless it is bent. If I

had sneezed, I wouldn't have been here in 1963, when the black people of Birmingham, Alabama, aroused the

conscience of this nation, and brought into being the Civil Rights Bill. If I had sneezed, I wouldn't have had a

chance later that year, in August, to try to tell America about a dream that I had had. If I had sneezed, I

wouldn't have been down in Selma, Alabama, to see the great movement there. If I had sneezed, I wouldn't

have been in Memphis to see a community rally around those brothers and sisters who are suffering. I'm so

happy that I didn't sneeze.



And they were telling me, now it doesn't matter now. It really doesn't matter what happens now. I left Atlanta

this morning, and as we got started on the plane, there were six of us, the pilot said over the public address

system, "We are sorry for the delay, but we have Dr. Martin Luther King on the plane. And to be sure that all

of the bags were checked, and to be sure that nothing would be wrong with the plane, we had to check out

everything carefully. And we've had the plane protected and guarded all night."



And then I got into Memphis. And some began to say that 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. And 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.

Excerpt from “Black Power”

By Stokley Carmichael



(Begins approx 1.55) The philosophers Camus and Sartre raise the question whether or not a man can

condemn himself. The black existentialist philosopher who is pragmatic, Frantz Fanon, answered the question.

He said that man could not. Camus and Sartre was not. We in SNCC tend to agree with Camus and Sartre, that

a man cannot condemn himself.¹ Were he to condemn himself, he would then have to inflict punishment upon

himself. An example would be the Nazis. Any prisoner who -- any of the Nazi prisoners who admitted, after he

was caught and incarcerated, that he committed crimes, that he killed all the many people that he killed, he

committed suicide. The only ones who were able to stay alive were the ones who never admitted that they

committed a crimes [sic] against people -- that is, the ones who rationalized that Jews were not human beings

and deserved to be killed, or that they were only following orders.



On a more immediate scene, the officials and the population -- the white population -- in Neshoba County,

Mississippi -- that’s where Philadelphia is -- could not -- could not condemn [Sheriff] Rainey, his deputies, and

the other fourteen men that killed three human beings. They could not because they elected Mr. Rainey to do

precisely what he did; and that for them to condemn him will be for them to condemn themselves.



In a much larger view, SNCC says that white America cannot condemn herself. And since we are liberal, we

have done it: You stand condemned. Now, a number of things that arises from that answer of how do you

condemn yourselves. Seems to me that the institutions that function in this country are clearly racist, and that

they're built upon racism. And the question, then, is how can black people inside of this country move? And

then how can white people who say they’re not a part of those institutions begin to move? And how then do

we begin to clear away the obstacles that we have in this society, that make us live like human beings? How

can we begin to build institutions that will allow people to relate with each other as human beings? This

country has never done that, especially around the country of white or black.



Now, several people have been upset because we’ve said that integration was irrelevant when initiated by

blacks, and that in fact it was a subterfuge, an insidious subterfuge, for the maintenance of white supremacy.

Now we maintain that in the past six years or so, this country has been feeding us a "thalidomide drug of

integration," and that some negroes have been walking down a dream street talking about sitting next to

white people; and that that does not begin to solve the problem; that when we went to Mississippi we did not

go to sit next to Ross Barnett²; we did not go to sit next to Jim Clark³; we went to get them out of our way; and

that people ought to understand that; that we were never fighting for the right to integrate, we were fighting

against white supremacy.



Now, then, in order to understand white supremacy we must dismiss the fallacious notion that white people

can give anybody their freedom. No man can give anybody his freedom. A man is born free. You may enslave a

man after he is born free, and that is in fact what this country does. It enslaves black people after they’re born,

so that the only acts that white people can do is to stop denying black people their freedom; that is, they must

stop denying freedom. They never give it to anyone.



Now we want to take that to its logical extension, so that we could understand, then, what its relevancy would

be in terms of new civil rights bills. I maintain that every civil rights bill in this country was passed for white

people, not for black people. For example, I am black. I know that. I also know that while I am black I am a

human being, and therefore I have the right to go into any public place. White people didn't know that. Every

time I tried to go into a place they stopped me. So some boys had to write a bill to tell that white man, "He’s a

human being; don’t stop him." That bill was for that white man, not for me. I knew it all the time. I knew it all

the time.

I knew that I could vote and that that wasn’t a privilege; it was my right. Every time I tried I was shot, killed or

jailed, beaten or economically deprived. So somebody had to write a bill for white people to tell them, "When

a black man comes to vote, don’t bother him." That bill, again, was for white people, not for black people; so

that when you talk about open occupancy, I know I can live anyplace I want to live. It is white people across

this country who are incapable of allowing me to live where I want to live. You need a civil rights bill, not me. I

know I can live where I want to live.



So that the failures to pass a civil rights bill isn’t because of Black Power, isn't because of the Student

Nonviolent Coordinating Committee; it's not because of the rebellions that are occurring in the major cities. It

is incapability of whites to deal with their own problems inside their own communities. That is the problem of

the failure of the civil rights bill.



And so in a larger sense we must then ask, How is it that black people move? And what do we do? But the

question in a greater sense is, How can white people who are the majority -- and who are responsible for

making democracy work -- make it work? They have miserably failed to this point. They have never made

democracy work, be it inside the United States, Vietnam, South Africa, Philippines, South America, Puerto

Rico. Wherever American has been, she has not been able to make democracy work; so that in a larger sense,

we not only condemn the country for what it's done internally, but we must condemn it for what it does

externally. We see this country trying to rule the world, and someone must stand up and start articulating that

this country is not God, and cannot rule the world.



Now, then, before we move on we ought to develop the white supremacy attitudes that were either conscious

or subconscious thought and how they run rampant through the society today. For example, the missionaries

were sent to Africa. They went with the attitude that blacks were automatically inferior. As a matter of fact,

the first act the missionaries did, you know, when they got to Africa was to make us cover up our bodies,

because they said it got them excited. We couldn’t go bare-breasted any more because they got excited.



Now when the missionaries came to civilize us because we were uncivilized, educate us because we were

uneducated, and give us some -- some literate studies because we were illiterate, they charged a price. The

missionaries came with the Bible, and we had the land. When they left, they had the land, and we still have

the Bible. And that has been the rationalization for Western civilization as it moves across the world and

stealing and plundering and raping everybody in its path. Their one rationalization is that the rest of the world

is uncivilized and they are in fact civilized. And they are un-civil-ized.



And that runs on today, you see, because what we have today is we have what we call "modern-day Peace

Corps missionaries," and they come into our ghettos and they Head Start, Upward Lift, Bootstrap, and Upward

Bound us into white society, 'cause they don’t want to face the real problem which is a man is poor for one

reason and one reason only: 'cause he does not have money -- period. If you want to get rid of poverty, you

give people money -- period.



And you ought not to tell me about people who don’t work, and you can’t give people money without

working, 'cause if that were true, you’d have to start stopping Rockefeller, Bobby Kennedy, Lyndon Baines

Johnson, Lady Bird Johnson, the whole of Standard Oil, the Gulf Corp, all of them, including probably a large

number of the Board of Trustees of this university. So the question, then, clearly, is not whether or not one

can work; it’s Who has power? Who has power to make his or her acts legitimate? That is all. And that this

country, that power is invested in the hands of white people, and they make their acts legitimate. It is now,

therefore, for black people to make our acts legitimate.

Now we are now engaged in a psychological struggle in this country, and that is whether or not black people

will have the right to use the words they want to use without white people giving their sanction to it; and that

we maintain, whether they like it or not, we gonna use the word "Black Power" -- and let them address

themselves to that; but that we are not going to wait for white people to sanction Black Power. We’re tired

waiting; every time black people move in this country, they’re forced to defend their position before they

move. It’s time that the people who are supposed to be defending their position do that. That's white people.

They ought to start defending themselves as to why they have oppressed and exploited us.



Now it is clear that when this country started to move in terms of slavery, the reason for a man being picked

as a slave was one reason -- because of the color of his skin. If one was black one was automatically inferior,

inhuman, and therefore fit for slavery; so that the question of whether or not we are individually suppressed is

nonsensical, and it’s a downright lie. We are oppressed as a group because we are black, not because we are

lazy, not because we're apathetic, not because we’re stupid, not because we smell, not because we eat

watermelon and have good rhythm. We are oppressed because we are black.



And in order to get out of that oppression one must wield the group power that one has, not the individual

power which this country then sets the criteria under which a man may come into it. That is what is called in

this country as integration: "You do what I tell you to do and then we’ll let you sit at the table with us." And

that we are saying that we have to be opposed to that. We must now set up criteria and that if there's going

to be any integration, it's going to be a two-way thing. If you believe in integration, you can come live in Watts.

You can send your children to the ghetto schools. Let’s talk about that. If you believe in integration, then we’re

going to start adopting us some white people to live in our neighborhood.



So it is clear that the question is not one of integration or segregation. Integration is a man's ability to want to

move in there by himself. If someone wants to live in a white neighborhood and he is black, that is his choice.

It should be his rights. It is not because white people will not allow him. So vice versa: If a black man wants to

live in the slums, that should be his right. Black people will let him. That is the difference. And it's a difference

on which this country makes a number of logical mistakes when they begin to try to criticize the program

articulated by SNCC.



Now we maintain that we cannot be afford to be concerned about 6 percent of the children in this country,

black children, who you allow to come into white schools. We have 94 percent who still live in shacks. We are

going to be concerned about those 94 percent. You ought to be concerned about them too. The question is,

Are we willing to be concerned about those 94 percent? Are we willing to be concerned about the black

people who will never get to Berkeley, who will never get to Harvard, and cannot get an education, so you’ll

never get a chance to rub shoulders with them and say, "Well, he’s almost as good as we are; he’s not like the

others"? The question is, How can white society begin to move to see black people as human beings? I am

black, therefore I am; not that I am black and I must go to college to prove myself. I am black, therefore I am.

And don’t deprive me of anything and say to me that you must go to college before you gain access to X, Y,

and Z. It is only a rationalization for one's oppression. (end. approx 18.00)

"A True Story" by Samuel Clements





REPEATED WORD FOR WORD AS I HEARD IT--[Written about 1876]



It was summer-time, and twilight. We were sitting on the porch of the farmhouse, on the summit of the hill, and "Aunt

Rachel" was sitting respectfully below our level, on the steps-for she was our Servant, and colored. She was of mighty

frame and stature; she was sixty years old, but her eye was undimmed and her strength unabated. She was a cheerful,

hearty soul, and it was no more trouble for her to laugh than it is for a bird to sing. She was under fire now, as usual

when the day was done. That is to say, she was being chaffed without mercy, and was enjoying it. She would let off peal

after of laughter, and then sit with her face in her hands and shake with throes of enjoyment which she could no longer

get breath enough to express. It such a moment as this a thought occurred to me, and I said:



"Aunt Rachel, how is it that you've lived sixty years and never had any trouble?"



She stopped quaking. She paused, and there was moment of silence. She turned her face over her shoulder toward me,

and said, without even a smile her voice:



"Misto C-----, is you in 'arnest?"



It surprised me a good deal; and it sobered my manner and my speech, too. I said:



"Why, I thought--that is, I meant--why, you can't have had any trouble. I've never heard you sigh, and never seen your

eye when there wasn't a laugh in it."



She faced fairly around now, and was full earnestness.



"Has I had any trouble? Misto C-----, I's gwyne to tell you, den I leave it to you. I was bawn down 'mongst de slaves; I

knows all 'bout slavery, 'case I ben one of 'em my own se'f. Well sah, my ole man--dat's my husban'--he was lov an' kind

to me, jist as kind as you is to yo' own wife. An' we had chil'en--seven chil'en--an' loved dem chil'en jist de same as you

loves yo' chil'en. Dey was black, but de Lord can't make chil'en so black but what dey mother loves 'em an' wouldn't give

'em up, no, not for anything dat's in dis whole world.



"Well, sah, I was raised in ole Fo'ginny, but mother she was raised in Maryland; an' my souls she was turrible when she'd

git started! My lan! but she'd make de fur fly! When she'd git into dem tantrums, she always had one word dat she said.

She'd straighten herse'f up an' put her fists in her hips an' say, 'I want you to understan' dat I wa'n't bawn in the mash to

be fool' by trash! I's one o' de ole Blue Hen's Chickens, I is!' 'Ca'se you see, dat's what folks dat's bawn in Maryland calls

deyselves, an' dey's proud of it. Well, dat was her word. I don't ever forgit it, beca'se she said it so much, an' beca'se she

said it one day when my little Henry tore his wris' awful, and most busted 'is head, right up at de top of his forehead, an'

de niggers didn't fly aroun' fas' enough to 'tend to him. An' when dey talk' back at her, she up an' she says, 'Look-a-

heah!' she says, 'I want you niggers to understan' dat I wa'n't bawn in de mash be fool' by trash! I's one o' de ole Blue

Hen's chickens, I is!' an' den she clar' dat kitchen an' bandage' up de chile herse'f. So I says dat word, too, when I's riled.



"Well, bymeby my ole mistis say she's broke, an she got to sell all de niggers on de place. An' when I heah dat dey gwyne

to sell us all off at oction in Richmon', oh, de good gracious! I know what dat mean!"



Aunt Rachel had gradually risen, while she warmed to her subject, and now she towered above us, black against the

stars.



"Dey put chains on us an' put us on a stan' as high as dis po'ch--twenty foot high-an' all de people stood aroun', crowds

'an' crowds. An' dey'd come up dah an' look at us all roun', an' squeeze our arm, an' make us git up an' walk, an' den say,

Dis one too ole,' or 'Dis one lame,' or 'Dis one don't 'mount to much.' An' dey sole my ole man, an' took him away, an'

dey begin to sell my chil'en an' take dem away, an' I begin to cry; an' de man say, 'Shet up yo' damn blubberin',' an' hit

me on de mouf wid his han'. An' when de las' one was gone but my little Henry, I grab' him clost up to my breas' so, an' I

ris up an' says, 'You sha'nt take him away,' I says; 'I'll kill de man dat tetch him!' I says. But my little Henry whisper an'

say 'I gwyne to run away, an' den I work an' buy yo' freedom' Oh, bless de chile, he always so good! But dey got him--dey

got him, de men did; but I took and tear de clo'es mos' off of 'em an' beat 'em over de head wid my chain; an' dey give it

to me too, but I didn't mine dat.



"Well, dah was my ole man gone, an' all my chil'en, all my seven chil'en --an' six of 'em I hain't set eyes on ag'in to dis

day, an' dat's twenty-two year ago las' Easter. De man dat bought me b'long' in Newbern, an' he took me dah. Well,

bymeby de years roll on an' de waw come. My marster he was a Confedrit colonel, an' I was his family's cook. So when

de Unions took dat town dey all run away an' lef' me all by myse'f wid de other niggers in dat mons'us big house. So de

big Union officers move in dah, an' dey ask me would I cook for dem. 'Lord bless you,' says I, 'dat what I's for.'



"Dey wa'n't no small-fry officers, mine you, de was de biggest dey is; an' de way dey made dem sojers mosey roun'! De

Gen'l he tole me to boss dat kitchen; an' he say, 'If anybody come meddlin' wid you, you jist make 'em walk chalk; don't

you be afeared,' he say; 'you's 'mong frens now.'



"Well, I thinks to myse'f, if my little Henry ever got a chance to run away, he'd make to de Norf, o' course. So one day I

comes in dah whar de big officers was, in de parlor, an' I drops a kurtchy, so, an' I up an' tole 'em 'bout my Henry, dey a-

listenin' to my troubles jist de same as if I was white folks; an' I says, 'What I come for is beca'se if he got away and got

up Norf whar you gemmen comes from, you might 'a' seen him, maybe, an' could tell me so as I could fine him ag'in; he

was very little, an' he had a sk-yar on his lef' wris' an' at de top of his forehead.' Den dey look mournful, an' de Gen'l

says, 'How long sence you los' him?' an' I say, 'Thirteen year. Den de Gen'l say, 'He wouldn't be little no mo' now--he's a

man!'



"I never thought o' dat befo'! He was only dat little feller to me yit. I never thought 'bout him growin' up an' bein' big.

But I see it den. None o' de gemmen had run acrost him, so dey couldn't do nothin' for me. But all dat time, do' I didn't

know it, my Henry was run off to de Norf, years an' years, an' he was a barber, too, an' worked for hisse'f. An' bymeby,

when de waw come he ups an' he says: 'I's done barberin',' he says, 'I's gwyne to fine my ole mammy, less'n she's dead.'

So he sole out an' went to whar dey was recruitin', an' hired hisse'f out to de colonel for his servant an' den he went all

froo de battles everywhah, huntin' for his ole mammy; yes, indeedy, he'd hire to fust one officer an' den another, tell

he'd ransacked de whole Souf; but you see I didn't know nuffin 'bout dis. How was I gwyne to know it?



"Well, one night we had a big sojer ball; de sojers dah at Newbern was always havin' balls an' carryin' on. Dey had 'em in

my kitchen, heaps o' times, 'ca'se it was so big. Mine you, I was down on sich doin's; beca'se my place was wid de

officers, an' it rasp me to have dem common sojers cavortin' roun' in my kitchen like dat. But I alway' stood aroun' an

kep' things straight, I did; an' sometimes dey'd git my dander up, an' den I'd make 'em clar dat kitchen mine I tell you!



"Well, one night--it was a Friday night--dey comes a whole platoon f'm a nigger ridgment da was on guard at de house--

de house was head quarters, you know-an' den I was jist a-bilin' mad? I was jist a-boomin'! I swelled aroun', an swelled

aroun'; I jist was a-itchin' for 'em to do somefin for to start me. An' dey was a-waltzin' an a dancin'! my but dey was

havin' a time! an I jist a-swellin' an' a-swellin' up! Pooty soon, 'long comes sich a spruce young nigger a-sailin' down de

room wid a yaller wench roun' de wais'; an' roun an' roun' an roun' dey went, enough to make a body drunk to look at

'em; an' when dey got abreas' o' me, dey went to kin' o' balancin' aroun' fust on one leg an' den on t'other, an' smilin' at

my big red turban, an' makin' fun, an' I ups an' says 'Git along wid you!--rubbage!' De young man's face kin' o' changed,

all of a sudden, for 'bout a second but den he went to smilin' ag'in, same as he was befo'. Well, 'bout dis time, in comes

some niggers dat played music and b'long' to de ban', an' dey never could git along widout puttin' on airs. An de very

fust air dey put on dat night, I lit into em! Dey laughed, an' dat made me wuss. De res' o' de niggers got to laughin', an'

den my soul alive but I was hot! My eye was jist a-blazin'! I jist straightened myself up so--jist as I is now, plum to de

ceilin', mos'-- an' I digs my fists into my hips, an' I says, 'Look-a-heah!' I says, 'I want you niggers to understan' dat I

wa'n't bawn in de mash to be fool' by trash! I's one o' de ole Blue hen's Chickens, I is!' an' den I see dat young man stan'

a-starin' an' stiff, lookin' kin' o' up at de ceilin' like he fo'got somefin, an' couldn't 'member it no mo'. Well, I jist march'

on dem niggers--so, lookin' like a gen'l--an' dey jist cave' away befo' me an' out at de do'. An' as dis young man a-goin'

out, I heah him say to another nigger, 'Jim,' he says, 'you go 'long an' tell de cap'n I be on han' 'bout eight o'clock in de

mawnin'; dey's somefin on my mine,' he says; 'I don't sleep no mo' dis night. You go 'long,' he says, 'an' leave me by my

own se'f.'



"Dis was 'bout one o'clock in de mawnin'. Well, 'bout seven, I was up an' on han', gittin' de officers' breakfast. I was a-

stoopin' down by de stove jist so, same as if yo' foot was de stove--an' I'd opened de stove do' wid my right han'--so,

pushin' it back, jist as I pushes yo' foot-- an' I'd jist got de pan o' hot biscuits in my han' an' was 'bout to raise up, when I

see a black face come aroun' under mine, an' de eyes a-lookin' up into mine, jist as I's a-lookin' up clost under yo' face

now; an' I jist stopped right dah, an' never budged! jist gazed an' gazed so; an' de pan begin to tremble, an' all of a

sudden I knowed! De pan drop' on de flo' an' I grab his lef' han' an' shove back his sleeve--jist so, as I's doin' to you--an'

den I goes for his forehead an' push de hair back so, an' 'Boy!' I says, 'if you an't my Henry, what is you doin' wid dis welt

on yo' wris' an' dat sk-yar on yo' forehead? De Lord God ob heaven be praise', I got my own ag'in!'



"Oh no' Misto C-----, I hain't had no trouble. An' no joy!"



-THE END-

“I, Too”

By Langston Hughes



I, too, sing America.



I am the darker brother.

They send me to eat in the kitchen

When company comes,

But I laugh,

And eat well,

And grow strong.



Tomorrow,

I’ll be at the table

When company comes.

Nobody’ll dare

Say to me,

“Eat in the kitchen,”

Then.



Besides,

They’ll see how beautiful I am

And be ashamed—



I, too, am America.

“The Negro Speaks of Rivers”

By Langston Hughes



I've known rivers:

I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow

of human blood in human veins.



My soul has grown deep like the rivers.



I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.

I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.

I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.

I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went

down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy bosom turn

all golden in the sunset.



I've known rivers:

Ancient, dusky rivers.



My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

“As I Grew Older”

By Langston Hughes



It was a long time ago.

I have almost forgotten my dream.

But it was there then,

In front of me,

Bright like a sun--

My dream.



And then the wall rose,

Rose slowly,

Slowly,

Between me and my dream.

Rose until it touched the sky--

The wall.



Shadow.

I am black.



I lie down in the shadow.

No longer the light of my dream before me,

Above me.

Only the thick wall.

Only the shadow.



My hands!

My dark hands!

Break through the wall!

Find my dream!

Help me to shatter this darkness,

To smash this night,

To break this shadow

Into a thousand lights of sun,

Into a thousand whirling dreams

Of sun!

"Advertisement for the Waldorf-Astoria" by Langston Hughes

Fine living . . . a la carte?

Come to the Waldorf-Astoria!



LISTEN HUNGRY ONES!

Look! See what Vanity Fair says about the

new Waldorf-Astoria:



"All the luxuries of private home. . . ."

Now, won't that be charming when the last flop-house

has turned you down this winter?

Furthermore:

"It is far beyond anything hitherto attempted in the hotel

world. . . ." It cost twenty-eight million dollars. The fa-

mous Oscar Tschirky is in charge of banqueting.

Alexandre Gastaud is chef. It will be a distinguished

background for society.

So when you've no place else to go, homeless and hungry

ones, choose the Waldorf as a background for your rags--

(Or do you still consider the subway after midnight good

enough?)



ROOMERS

Take a room at the new Waldorf, you down-and-outers--

sleepers in charity's flop-houses where God pulls a

long face, and you have to pray to get a bed.

They serve swell board at the Waldorf-Astoria. Look at the menu, will

you:



GUMBO CREOLE

CRABMEAT IN CASSOLETTE

BOILED BRISKET OF BEEF

SMALL ONIONS IN CREAM

WATERCRESS SALAD

PEACH MELBA



Have luncheon there this afternoon, all you jobless.

Why not?

Dine with some of the men and women who got rich off of

your labor, who clip coupons with clean white fingers

because your hands dug coal, drilled stone, sewed gar-

ments, poured steel to let other people draw dividends

and live easy.

(Or haven't you had enough yet of the soup-lines and the bit-

ter bread of charity?)

Walk through Peacock Alley tonight before dinner, and get

warm, anyway. You've got nothing else to do.