The RELEVANT Martin Luther King, Jr.
Part 1: Vietnam or Iraq?
Part 2: Poverty and Race
Part 3: The Mountaintop Prescription
Part 4: Sports Writers Speak about MLK

 

 

“The RELEVANT Martin Luther King” series continues during MLK week. "Part I" dealt with King’s positions on The Vietnam War. "Part II" dealt with King’s demands for government intervention in the war against poverty and racial discrimination. In this "Part III", King’s final speech is displayed and its non-popularized messages of black economic consolidation and self reliance complemented those demands made in Part II. Last month I came across MLK: The Nationalist Moment from Temple3 that spoke to a mutual point of serious historical aggravation. T3 writes:

“A great deal must have happened between 1963 and 1968 in his life. I cannot recall another leader, aside from Minister El-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz for whom the last few years of life have been stricken from national memory. .. For most Americans, the late Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. died the moment he stepped down from the podium after his “I Have a Dream” speech in 1963. The legacy of Dr. King, in the minds of many – and in the advertising of every single government, state and corporation that sings his praises – ends in the summer of 1963. … Dr. King should not be remembered merely as a naive political dreamer, but as a centered, crystal clear advocate for the liberation of his people.”

T3 goes on to dissect MLK’s famous final “Mountaintop” speech. I know, I know, we’ve seen the Mountaintop Speech 1000 times on TV. But, just like MLK’s “Dream” speech, how many times has a mainstream media depiction shown anything other than his final verse? You know the one that starts with “Well, I don’t know what will happen now” followed by a “mountaintop”, “the promised land” and “I may not get there with you” before finally seeing “the glory of the coming of the Lord”. Chances are you are quite familiar with that one. But what about the rest of the speech on the day before King died? How often have we heard that without actively seeking it out?

Below are select excerpts from MLK’s “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop”  final speech made on April 3, 1968. These selected passages are basically a replication of T3’s original post which contains additional interpretive commentary not found here.   

·        “Human Rights Revolution”: 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." … 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. 

·        “We Mean Business Now”: 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.

·        “Power of Economic Withdrawal”: 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 nations 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.

·        “Redistribute the Pain”: 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.

·        “Strengthen Black Institutions”: But not only that, we’ve got to strengthen black institutions. I call upon you to take your money out of the banks downtown and deposit your 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 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 these 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.

·        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.

 

Final Note: King – addressing an African-American audience in the Mountaintop Speech – spread messages of Black Self-Empowerment. On other occasions, he addressed white audiences with messages of "white responsibility". This complementary theme will be addressed in Part 4 of the RELEVANT MLK series.