Martin Luther King gave “The Three Evils of Society” speech on August 31, 1967, at the first and only National Conference on New Politics in Chicago.1
This speech isn’t well-known. It was discovered in Pacifica’s archives in recent years. The dark tone of this address stands in very stark contrast to the speeches we best know MLK for. It is the speech of a man hit hard by the freezing cold reality of disappointment. It is also the speech of a man who, while sobered by dashed hope, is more resolute than ever in his mission to unite a disunited people around human dignity, fairness, and justice.
On the heels of long and unending wars, the post-Great Recession economy, and a new sandstorm of racially-motivated brutality, King’s descriptions of each evil apply, most strikingly, to our present day, more than any decade in the intervening years since the Civil Rights Act of 1965.
Indeed by our very nature we affirm that something new is taking place on the American political horizon. We have come here from the dusty plantations of the Deep South and the depressing ghettos of the North. We have come from the great universities and the flourishing suburbs. We have come from Appalachian poverty and from conscience-stricken wealth.
Yes, something new has been taking place in our political landscape. Whatever we call this new thing, it hasn’t arisen from the election of our first Black president. It isn’t an outgrowth of a very deep recession. While both factor in, they are not causal in nature, even though there are many who, looking at the surface only, would say they are. The dusty plantations of the Deep South are far dustier now. Not only are the depressing ghettos of the North more depressed, they’ve multiplied and scattered across the land, entrapping more peoples. The differences, going from class to class, are starker; the transition more abrupt. Poverty is starker, deeper, more desperate, encompassing, and now radiates far beyond the hauntingly beautiful but weathered and beaten Appalachian Mountains.
But we have come. And we have come here because we share a common concern for the moral health of our nation. We have come because our eyes have seen through the superficial glory and glitter of our society and observed the coming of judgment. Like the prophet of old, we have read the handwriting on the wall. We have seen our nation weighed in the balance of history and found wanting. We have come because we see this as a dark hour in the affairs of men.
For a relatively brief time, at the start of the Great Recession, the people came together in many corners of our nation, in a movement called Occupy. Whatever the reasons, Occupy was short-lived as a national push for change. After a brief intermission of nationwide popular inactivity, in 2012, North Carolinians who saw through the “superficial glory and glitter” and responded to drastic measures enacted by their legislature with the establishment of Moral Monday, led by Reverend Doctor William Barber of that state’s NAACP. The actions of the legislature, signed by Governor Pat McRory, rolled back civil rights achievements by decades, while enacting the nation’s harshest, most reactionary, civil, social, economic, and education policies.2 It is almost past time for the rest of our nation to see through that same superficial glitter and glory and take a stand for the moral health of our entire nation.
For most of us this is a new mood. We are traditionally the idealists. We are the marchers from Mississippi, and Selma, and Washington, who staked our lives on the American Dream during the first half of this decade. Many assembled here campaigned assiduously for Lyndon Johnson in 1964 because we could not stand idly by and watch our nation contaminated by the 18th century policies of Goldwaterism.
America voted and installed her first Black president in 2008. She reaffirmed her choice in 2012. Thanks to the help of a right-leaning Supreme Court and a relentless reactionary push for conservative legislation by moneyed interests in all the Red States, America saw the vision it voted for greatly curtailed, with victories obtained through sheer perseverance and sharp wit, until, ultimately, the obstruction of government from 2010 to 2014 became paralysis in 2015. The Goldwaterism of yesteryear is today’s Libertarian Tea Party doctrine.
We were the hardcore activists who were willing to believe that Southerners could be reconstructed in the constitutional image. We were the dreamers of a dream that dark yesterdays of man’s inhumanity to man would soon be transformed into bright tomorrows of justice.
Real progress was made during the first two decades since Dr. King’s all too brief life among us. It continued throughout the next thirty years, but the advent of Ronald Reagan’s Southern Strategy, followed by Clintonian triangulation in the 1990’s, would have stark implications on our most vulnerable citizens when our economy almost went into a tailspin in the late 00’s. The progress and prosperity achieved during that decade came at the price of an almost complete transfer of power to the nation’s financial sector. Over the next decade, what had begun as a religious culture war in the 80’s, gained enough steam to become a disrupting force starting in 2010. What began as Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority, eventually became the Tea Party. That movement has absorbed and now is the Grand Old Party. In the Red States, the power rests exclusively with fundamentalist neoconservatives, thanks to their careful gerrymandering, over decades. Today, by most accounts, we are no longer the democracy we once were. There is even a research study that shows we have become an oligarchy.
Since 2010, and after a decades-long slow simmer of activity, we’ve also been witnessing the rapid explosion onto the scene of a new Jim Crow era of racially-motivated brutality alongside the arming of America’s populace, mass-incarceration, and school to prison pipeline. As hundreds of Black men and women die by a police officer’s gun or are wrongfully-convicted of crimes each year, so are poor whites, but at a far lower proportion.
King referred to a particular kind of racism, practiced in particular ways, in America’s South. The “dark yesterdays of man’s inhumanity,” if they were ever really exclusive, found their way north and west and are indistinguishable from the South’s in nature and intensity, with the added twist of the police state as its main perpetrator. The surveillance state, which was revealed to us by a dissenter in 2014, continues mostly unfettered and uncontested by both political parties.
Now, it is hard to escape the disillusionment of betrayal. Our hopes have been blasted and our dreams have been shattered. The promise of a Great Society was shipwrecked off the coast of Asia, on the dreadful peninsula of Vietnam. The poor, black and white, are still perishing on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. What happens to a dream deferred? It leads to bewildering frustration and corroding bitterness.
King would be especially horrified at the tenor and focus of today’s politics. While I think he would be taken aback by the renewed vengeance with which racism is rearing its ugliness, he would be greatly disturbed by the unambiguous shamelessness with which it is waged. He would be as appalled at the fierceness with which our nation’s social contract is being undone by Republicans, as by the wide support of those who claim to represent the piously devout side of America. He would be alarmed by the hold of certain industries on civil life and the inability of anyone to stop the free-flow of arms and ammunition into the general population, even as children are massacred.
Most of all, King would be saddened at the lack of initiative by our current Democratic leaders and the near-acquiescence of the Democratic Party embodied in the absence of a general mobilization of the people to begin pushing back. I believe King would wholeheartedly have supported Reverend Doctor Barbour in his effort to begin a cross-racial movement for change. He would have insisted that all grassroots organizations stand behind it, promoting it, growing it, appealing to all of America’s people to join together in harmony and in defense of the principles of democracy.
He would be especially sad and disappointed that poverty is so much more generalized and that America now distinguishes itself as the leader in poverty and child hunger, and that its conservative leadership can count that status as a one of the crowning policy achievements of the obstruction they have imposed on our nation’s government.
While, in the passage above, King was referring to the Vietnam War, “The promise of a Great Society was shipwrecked off the coast of Asia” a second time when unions were diminished into near-oblivion and millions of American jobs offshored thanks to bi-partisan neoliberal triangulation and machinations that paved the way for the plunder of America’s manufacturing base by rapacious private equity concerns, the flight of untaxed capital and multi-national trade agreements, all to the detriment of middle and working classes that are now decimated. King, undoubtedly, would stand in strongest opposition to the secretly-negotiated Trans Pacific Partnership agreement (TPP) that is now awaiting congressional approval.
The Reverend King would be especially proud of Moral Monday’s goals. He would support all nationwide grassroots efforts to get the money and corruption out of our politics. He would be especially proud of Alicia Garza and Sonia Sanchez, the two women who devised Black Lives Matter, and their followers all around the nation. King would be proud of the tireless work of congressional progressive and black caucuses. He would be sad at their relative lack of power within the Democratic party, given their popular support.
Most of all, King would constantly remind us of our common dream deferred while keeping our principles and ideals in sharp focus, unrelentingly and unflinchingly leading us back to it. We don’t have a present-day MLK, and while we have no one whose vision and purpose are as clear and strong as his were, we must elect leaders whose moral compass is as unwavering as his was. We would not be where we are today had we, at the very least, seen to that.
Dr. King understood that our destiny is a common one. He understood that the needs and goals of all communities are the same. Abject poverty and hunger, whether suffered by whites or Blacks, have the same devastating detrimental effects. He knew, as we all innately do, that success need not be at the expense of anyone else. Those who still divide us were frightened that Dr. King’s message of cross-racial unity and purpose would get through. Dr. King knew that the answer lay in what James Baldwin so beautifully and eloquently described:
“If we- and now I mean the relatively conscious whites and the relatively conscious blacks, who must, like lovers, insist on, or create, the consciousness of the others- do not falter in our duty now, we may be able, handful that we are, to end the racial nightmare, and achieve our country, and change the history of the world”
Now that spring has started, Moral Monday, Black Lives Matter, what is left of Occupy must, together, gather the relatively conscious whites and Blacks and finally merge them together to end the bewildering frustration and corroding bitterness of a common dream deferred.
Video and and quoted text of
The Three Evils of Society
“Indeed by our very nature we affirm that something new is taking place on the American political horizon. We have come here from the dusty plantations of the Deep South and the depressing ghettos of the North. We have come from the great universities and the flourishing suburbs. We have come from Appalachian poverty and from conscience stricken wealth. But we have come. And we have come here because we share a common concern for the moral health of our nation. We have come because our eyes have seen through the superficial glory and glitter of our society and observed the coming of judgment. Like the prophet of old, we have read the handwriting on the wall. We have seen our nation weighed in the balance of history and found wanting. We have come because we see this as a dark hour in the affairs of men. For most of us this is a new mood. We are traditionally the idealists. We are the marchers from Mississippi, and Selma, and Washington, who staked our lives on the American Dream during the first half of this decade. Many assembled here campaigned assiduously for Lyndon Johnson in 1964 because we could not stand idly by and watch our nation contaminated by the 18th century policies of Goldwaterism. We were the hardcore activists who were willing to believe that Southerners could be reconstructed in the constitutional image. We were the dreamers of a dream that dark yesterdays of man’s inhumanity to man would soon be transformed into bright tomorrows of justice. Now, it is hard to escape the disillusionment of betrayal. Our hopes have been blasted and our dreams have been shattered. The promise of a Great Society was shipwrecked off the coast of Asia, on the dreadful peninsula of Vietnam. The poor, black and white, are still perishing on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. What happens to a dream deferred? It leads to bewildering frustration and corroding bitterness.”
– Martin Luther King, Jr.
Full transcript of speech:
[scribd id=134362247 key=key-yarr9xnks81s7iqm1ke mode=scroll]
- The National Conference for New Politics (NCNP) took place in Chicago’s Palmer House over Labor Day weekend in 1967 and featured Martin Luther King, Jr. as the keynote speaker. Around 3,000 people, from hundreds of organizations, attended the conference. The goal was to unify political activists of all races who believed in civil rights and opposed the Vietnam War. President Lyndon B. Johnson felt so threatened by the conference, he instructed the FBI to attempt to track the attendants’ movements and thwart any long-term plans of the NCNP.
Source: Palermo, J. A. (2001). In his own right: the political odyssey of Senator Robert F. Kennedy. New York: Columbia University Press. Source: http://www.buttonmuseum.org/buttons/national-conference-new-politics
- Moral Mondays are protests in North Carolina, United States of America. The protests are in response to several drastic actions by the government of North Carolina elected into office by the citizens of North Carolina in 2013. The protests are characterized by engaging in civil disobedience by entering the state legislature building and then being peacefully arrested. The movement protests many wide ranging issues under the blanket of unfair treatment, discrimination, and adverse effects of government legislation on the citizens of North Carolina. The protests in North Carolina launched a grassroots social justice movement that, in 2014, spread to Georgia and South Carolina, and then to other U.S. states.
Martin Luther King Jr. alitoa hotuba yake ya The Three Evils of Society mnamo Agosti 31, 1967 katika Mkutano wa Taifa wa kwanza na wa pekee wa Sera Mpya huko Chicago. Iligunduliwa katika kumbukumbu za Pacifica katika miaka ya hivi karibuni. """Mtazamo wa giza wa hotuba hii unatofautiana sana na hotuba ambazo tunamjua zaidi MLK." Ni hotuba ya mtu aliyeshambuliwa sana na hali halisi ya kukata tamaa. "Hiyo pia ni hotuba ya mtu ambaye, wakati sobered na matumaini dashed, ni zaidi ya kuamua kuliko hapo awali katika utume wake wa kuunganisha watu disunited karibu heshima ya binadamu, haki na haki. """ Baada ya vita virefu na visivyo na mwisho, uchumi baada ya Mshuko Mkubwa wa Kiuchumi, na dhoruba mpya ya mchanga ya ukatili wa rangi, maelezo ya King ya kila uovu yanatumika, kwa kushangaza zaidi, kwa siku zetu za leo, zaidi ya muongo wowote katika miaka ya kati tangu Sheria ya Haki za Kiraia ya 1965. Kwa kweli kwa asili yetu wenyewe tunathibitisha kwamba kitu kipya kinafanyika kwenye upeo wa macho wa kisiasa wa Marekani. """Tumekuja hapa kutoka mashamba yenye vumbi ya Kusini ya Juu na ghettos ya kusikitisha ya Kaskazini." Tumetoka katika vyuo vikuu vikubwa na vitongoji vyenye kusitawi. Tumetoka katika umaskini wa Appalachian na katika utajiri wenye dhamiri mbaya. Ndiyo, jambo jipya limekuwa likitokea katika mazingira yetu ya kisiasa. Chochote tunachokiita jambo hili jipya, halikutokana na uchaguzi wa rais wetu wa kwanza mweusi. Si matokeo ya mfumuko mkubwa sana wa uchumi. Ingawa wote wawili ni sababu, wao si sababu katika asili, ingawa kuna wengi ambao, kuangalia juu ya uso tu, ingekuwa kusema wao ni. Mashamba yenye vumbi ya Kusini ya Mbali yana vumbi zaidi sasa. Si tu kwamba ghettos depressing ya Kaskazini zaidi depressed, wao wameongezeka na kutawanyika katika nchi, entrapping watu zaidi. Tofauti, zikienda kutoka darasa moja hadi jingine, ni kubwa zaidi; mabadiliko ni ya ghafula zaidi. Umaskini ni mkali zaidi, wa kina zaidi, wa kukata tamaa zaidi, unaofunika zaidi, na sasa unaenea mbali zaidi ya Milima ya Appalachian yenye kupendeza lakini iliyopigwa na hali ya hewa. Lakini tumekuja. """Tumekuja hapa kwa sababu tunashiriki wasiwasi wa pamoja kwa afya ya maadili ya taifa letu." Tumekuja kwa sababu macho yetu yameona kupitia utukufu wa juu na kung'aa kwa jamii yetu na kuona kuja kwa hukumu. Kama nabii wa kale, tumesoma maandishi yaliyoandikwa ukutani. Tumeona taifa letu likipimwa katika usawa wa historia na kupatikana likikosa. Tumekuja kwa sababu tunaona hii kama saa ya giza katika mambo ya wanadamu. "Kwa muda mfupi, mwanzoni mwa Mshuko Mkubwa wa Kiuchumi, watu walikusanyika katika pembe nyingi za taifa letu katika harakati inayoitwa ""Okupeni.""" Kwa sababu yoyote ile, Occupy haikuendelea kwa muda mrefu kama harakati ya kitaifa ya kuleta mabadiliko. Baada ya mapumziko mafupi ya kutofanya kazi kwa watu wa nchi nzima, mwaka 2012, watu wa North Carolina waliona kupitia "sifa ya juu na glitter" na kujibu hatua kali zilizotolewa na bunge lao na kuanzishwa kwa Jumatatu ya Maadili, iliyoongozwa na Mchungaji Daktari William Barber wa NAACP ya jimbo hilo. """Hatua za bunge, zilizosainiwa na Gavana Pat McRory, zilirudisha nyuma mafanikio ya haki za kiraia kwa miongo kadhaa, wakati wa kutekeleza sera kali zaidi, za nyuma zaidi za kitaifa, za kiraia, kijamii, kiuchumi na elimu, na ni karibu wakati wa mwisho kwa taifa letu kuona kupitia glitter na utukufu huo huo wa juu na kuchukua msimamo kwa afya ya maadili ya taifa letu lote." Kwa wengi wetu hii ni hali mpya. Kwa kawaida sisi ni watu wenye mawazo mazuri. """Sisi ni waandamanaji kutoka Mississippi, Selma na Washington ambao tumeweka maisha yetu kwenye ndoto ya Marekani katika nusu ya kwanza ya muongo huu." """Wengi waliokusanyika hapa walifanya kampeni kwa bidii kwa ajili ya Lyndon Johnson mwaka 1964 kwa sababu hatukuweza kusimama kimya na kutazama taifa letu likichanganyikiwa na sera za karne ya 18 za Goldwater." Marekani ilichagua rais mweusi wa kwanza mwaka 2008. Alithibitisha uchaguzi wake mwaka 2012. "Kwa msaada wa Mahakama Kuu ya kulia na msukumo wa kukata tamaa wa maslahi ya fedha katika majimbo yote ya Red, Amerika iliona maono ambayo ilipiga kura kwa kupunguzwa sana, na ushindi uliopatikana kwa uvumilivu na akili kali, hadi, hatimaye, kuzuia serikali kutoka 2010 hadi 2014 ikawa ""kuvunjika moyo"" mnamo 2015." Goldwaterism ya zamani ni mafundisho ya leo ya Libertarian Tea Party. """Tumewaona wakazi wa Kusini kuwa ni watu wa kuaminika na wenye nguvu, ambao wameamini kuwa watu wa Kusini wanaweza kuundwa upya katika sura ya kikatiba." """Tulikuwa waotaji wa ndoto kwamba jana giza la ukatili wa mwanadamu kwa mwanadamu hivi karibuni litabadilishwa kuwa kesho nyeupe ya haki." Maendeleo ya kweli yalifanywa katika miongo miwili ya kwanza tangu maisha mafupi sana ya Dakt. King miongoni mwetu. "Hiyo ilidumu kwa miaka 30 iliyofuata, lakini kuibuka kwa mkakati wa Ronald Reagan wa kusini, ikifuatiwa na ""triangulation ya Clinton"" katika miaka ya 1990, itakuwa na athari kubwa kwa raia wetu walio hatarini zaidi wakati uchumi wetu ulipokaribia kuanguka mwishoni mwa miaka ya 2000." Maendeleo na ufanisi uliopatikana wakati wa muongo huo ulikuja kwa bei ya uhamisho wa karibu kamili wa nguvu kwa sekta ya kifedha ya taifa. Katika miaka ya baadaye, kile kilichoanza kama vita vya kitamaduni vya kidini katika miaka ya 1980, kilipata mvuke wa kutosha kuwa nguvu ya kuvuruga kuanzia 2010. Kile kilichoanza kama Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority, hatimaye kikawa Chama cha Chai. Harakati hiyo imeingizwa na sasa ni Chama Kikuu cha Kale. Katika nchi za Red States, mamlaka iko peke ya neoconservatives wa msingi, shukrani kwa gerrymandering yao ya uangalifu, kwa miongo mingi. Leo, kwa mujibu wa ripoti nyingi, sisi si demokrasia tuliyokuwa wakati mmoja. Hata kuna utafiti unaoonyesha kwamba tumekuwa wenye mamlaka ndogo. Tangu mwaka 2010, baada ya miaka kadhaa ya shughuli za polepole, tumekuwa tukishuhudia mlipuko wa haraka wa kipindi kipya cha Jim Crow cha ukatili wa kikabila pamoja na silaha za watu wa Amerika, kufungwa kwa wingi, na shule kwa mstari wa jela. Kama vile mamia ya wanaume na wanawake weusi wanaokufa kwa bunduki ya afisa wa polisi au wanahukumiwa vibaya kwa uhalifu kila mwaka, ndivyo ilivyo na wazungu maskini, lakini kwa uwiano mdogo sana. King alirejelea aina fulani ya ubaguzi wa rangi, uliotumiwa kwa njia fulani, katika Kusini mwa Marekani. "Siku za jana za giza za ukatili wa binadamu", ikiwa zilikuwa za kipekee, zilipata njia yao kaskazini na magharibi na haziwezi kutofautishwa na Kusini kwa asili na nguvu, na twist iliyoongezwa ya serikali ya polisi kama mhalifu wake mkuu. Serikali ya ufuatiliaji, ambayo ilifunuliwa kwetu na mpinzani mnamo 2014, inaendelea bila vizuizi na bila kupingwa na vyama vyote viwili vya kisiasa. Sasa, ni vigumu kuepuka kuvunjika moyo kwa sababu ya kuuawa. Matumaini yetu yameharibika na ndoto zetu zimevunjika. Ahadi ya Jumuiya Kuu iliharibika kwenye pwani ya Asia, kwenye peninsula ya Vietnam yenye kuogopesha. Wenye umaskini, weusi na weupe, bado wanakufa katika kisiwa cha upweke cha umaskini katikati ya bahari kubwa ya ufanisi wa vitu vya kimwili. Ni nini hutokea kwa ndoto iliyoahirishwa? Hilo husababisha kukata tamaa na uchungu wenye kuharibu. Mfalme angekuwa na hofu hasa juu ya sauti na lengo la siasa ya leo. """Wakati nadhani angeshangaa na ujasiri mpya ambao ubaguzi wa rangi unainua ugly wake, angekuwa na wasiwasi mkubwa na unambiguous shamelessness ambayo ni waged." """Atafadhaika sana na ukali ambao mkataba wa kijamii wa taifa letu unaharibiwa na Republican, kama vile msaada mkubwa wa wale wanaodai kuwakilisha upande wa kidini wa Amerika." "Ataogopa sana kwa sababu ya uvamizi wa viwanda fulani juu ya maisha ya raia na kutokuwa na uwezo wa mtu yeyote wa kuzuia mtiririko wa silaha na risasi kwa umma, hata wakati watoto wanapouawa.""" "Kabla ya yote, King angehuzunika kwa ukosefu wa mpango wa viongozi wetu wa sasa wa kidemokrasia na karibu kukubaliana kwa Chama cha Kidemokrasia, iliyoonyeshwa katika ukosefu wa kuhamasisha kwa ujumla kwa watu kuanza kushinikiza nyuma. """ "Kama vile King alivyomsaidia Reverend Dr. Barbour katika juhudi zake za kuanzisha harakati ya ""mabadiliko ya jamii.""" """Angesisitiza kwamba mashirika yote ya msingi yaendelee kuunga mkono, kuendeleza, na kukuza, na kuwaomba watu wote wa Marekani kuungana pamoja kwa upatano na kutetea kanuni za demokrasia." "Atakasikitika na kukata tamaa hasa kwamba umaskini umekuwa umeenea sana na kwamba Marekani sasa inajifanya kuwa kiongozi katika umaskini na njaa ya watoto, na kwamba uongozi wake wa kihafidhina unaweza kuhesabu hadhi hiyo kama moja ya mafanikio ya sera ya kukamilisha kizuizi walichoweka kwa serikali ya taifa letu. """ "Kama ilivyoelezwa hapo juu, King alikuwa akirejelea vita vya Vietnam, ""Adhamu ya Jumuiya Kubwa iliharibiwa pwani ya Asia"" mara ya pili wakati vyama vya wafanyakazi vilipopunguzwa hadi karibu kusahaulika na mamilioni ya kazi za Marekani kuhamishwa nje ya nchi kwa shukrani kwa mpangilio wa tatu wa neoliberal na machinations ambayo ilifungua njia kwa uporaji wa msingi wa utengenezaji wa Amerika na wasiwasi wa uwekezaji binafsi, kukimbia kwa mtaji usio na ushuru na makubaliano ya biashara ya kimataifa." "Kama ilivyoelezwa, King amekuwa akipinga kwa nguvu mkataba wa ""Trans Pacific Partnership"" ambao sasa unangojea kuidhinishwa na bunge." Mchungaji Mfalme angejivunia hasa malengo ya Jumatatu ya Maadili. "Atakubaliana na juhudi zote za kitaifa za kuondoa fedha na ufisadi katika siasa zetu.""" Aliwahi kuwa na wasiwasi na Alicia Garcia na Sonia Sanchez, wanawake wawili ambao walianzisha Black Lives Matter na wafuasi wao kote nchini. King angejivunia kazi isiyo na kuchoka ya bunge la maendeleo na chama cha weusi. Angekuwa na huzuni kwa ukosefu wao wa nguvu ndani ya chama cha Kidemokrasia, kutokana na msaada wao wa umma. Zaidi ya yote, King angetukumbusha daima ndoto yetu ya kawaida iliyopunguzwa wakati akifanya kanuni zetu na maadili kuwa na lengo kali, bila kukoma na bila kukata tamaa akituongoza kurudi kwake. """Hatuna MLK wa leo, na wakati hatuna mtu ambaye maono na kusudi ni wazi na nguvu kama yake, lazima tuchague viongozi ambao dira ya maadili ni kama unwaverable kama yake." Hatungekuwa mahali tulipo leo ikiwa, angalau, tungekuwa tumeona hilo. Dk King alielewa kwamba hatima yetu ni ya pamoja. Alielewa kwamba mahitaji na malengo ya jamii zote ni sawa. Umaskini mkali na njaa, iwe wanateseka na wazungu au weusi, zina athari sawa za uharibifu. Alijua, kama sisi sote tunavyojua, kwamba mafanikio hayahitaji kuwa kwa gharama ya mtu mwingine yeyote. "Wale ambao bado wanatugawanya waliogopa kwamba ujumbe wa Dk King wa umoja na kusudi la jamii zote ungeweza kupitishwa. """ "Kama sisi, na sasa ninamaanisha wazungu wenye ufahamu wa kiasi na weusi wenye ufahamu wa kiasi, ambao lazima, kama wapenzi, wasisitize, au kuunda, ufahamu wa wengine, tusikate tamaa katika wajibu wetu sasa, tunaweza kuwa na uwezo, wachache kama sisi, kumaliza ndoto mbaya ya rangi, na kufikia nchi yetu, na kubadilisha historia ya ulimwengu. "" - James Baldwin, ""Mara ya kwanza ya Mawazo, Maisha ya Weusi ni Muhimu,"" ""Kile kilichobaki cha Jumatatu ya Kuchukua.""" "Kama ilivyoelezwa katika kitabu cha The Three Evils of Society, ""Kwa kweli, kwa asili yetu, tunathibitisha kwamba kitu kipya kinafanyika katika upeo wa macho wa kisiasa wa Marekani.""" """Tumekuja hapa kutoka mashamba yenye vumbi ya Kusini ya Juu na ghettos ya kusikitisha ya Kaskazini." Tumetoka katika vyuo vikuu vikubwa na vitongoji vyenye kusitawi. Tumetoka katika umaskini wa Appalachian na katika utajiri ulioathiriwa na dhamiri. Lakini tumekuja. """Tumekuja hapa kwa sababu tunashiriki wasiwasi wa pamoja kwa afya ya maadili ya taifa letu." Tumekuja kwa sababu macho yetu yameona kupitia utukufu wa juu na kung'aa kwa jamii yetu na kuona kuja kwa hukumu. Kama nabii wa kale, tumesoma maandishi yaliyoandikwa ukutani. Tumeona taifa letu likipimwa katika usawa wa historia na kupatikana likikosa. Tumekuja kwa sababu tunaona hii kama saa ya giza katika mambo ya wanadamu. Kwa wengi wetu hii ni hali mpya. Kwa kawaida sisi ni watu wenye mawazo mazuri. """Sisi ni waandamanaji kutoka Mississippi, Selma na Washington ambao tumeweka maisha yetu kwenye ndoto ya Marekani katika nusu ya kwanza ya muongo huu." """Wengi waliokusanyika hapa walifanya kampeni kwa bidii kwa ajili ya Lyndon Johnson mwaka 1964 kwa sababu hatukuweza kusimama kimya na kutazama taifa letu likichanganyikiwa na sera za karne ya 18 za Goldwater." """Tumewaona wakazi wa Kusini kuwa ni watu wa kuaminika na wenye nguvu, ambao wameamini kuwa watu wa Kusini wanaweza kuundwa upya katika sura ya kikatiba." """Tulikuwa waotaji wa ndoto kwamba jana giza la ukatili wa mwanadamu kwa mwanadamu hivi karibuni litabadilishwa kuwa kesho nyeupe ya haki." Sasa, ni vigumu kuepuka kuvunjika moyo kwa sababu ya kuuawa. Matumaini yetu yameharibika na ndoto zetu zimevunjika. Ahadi ya Jumuiya Kuu iliharibika kwenye pwani ya Asia, kwenye peninsula ya Vietnam yenye kuogopesha. Wenye umaskini, weusi na weupe, bado wanakufa katika kisiwa cha upweke cha umaskini katikati ya bahari kubwa ya ufanisi wa vitu vya kimwili. Ni nini hutokea kwa ndoto iliyoahirishwa? "Mkutano wa Kitaifa wa Siasa Mpya (NCNP) ulifanyika katika nyumba ya Palmer ya Chicago mwishoni mwa wiki ya Siku ya Wafanyakazi mnamo 1967 na Martin Luther King Jr. alikuwa msemaji mkuu.""" Watu zaidi ya 3,000 kutoka mamia ya mashirika ya kimataifa walihudhuria mkutano huo. Lengo lilikuwa kuunganisha wanaharakati wa kisiasa wa jamii zote ambao waliamini katika haki za kiraia na kupinga Vita vya Vietnam. Rais Lyndon B. Johnson alishtuka sana na mkutano huo, akaamuru FBI kujaribu kufuatilia harakati za wahudhuriaji na kuzuia mipango yoyote ya muda mrefu ya NCNP. Chanzo: Palermo, J. A. (Mwanzo wa Sura ya 2) (2001). Katika haki yake mwenyewe: odyssey ya kisiasa ya Seneta Robert F. Kennedy. New York: Columbia University Press. "Mwaka huu, ""Moral Mondays"" ni maandamano ya kisiasa nchini Marekani." Maandamano hayo ni majibu kwa hatua kadhaa kali zilizochukuliwa na serikali ya North Carolina iliyochaguliwa na wananchi wa North Carolina mwaka 2013. Waandamanaji hao walifanya maandamano ya kutotii kwa kuingia kwenye jengo la bunge la jimbo hilo na kisha kukamatwa kwa amani. Harakati hiyo inapinga masuala mengi ya kina chini ya blanketi ya matibabu yasiyo ya haki, ubaguzi, na athari mbaya za sheria za serikali kwa raia wa North Carolina. Maandamano ya North Carolina yalianzisha harakati ya haki ya kijamii ambayo, mnamo 2014, ilienea hadi Georgia na South Carolina, na kisha hadi majimbo mengine ya Amerika.