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S T R I D E T O W A R D F R E E D O M

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––––––––––––––––––– Martin Luther King, Jr. –––––––––––––––––––

Oppressed people deal with their oppression in three characteristic ways. One

way is acquiescence: the oppressed resign themselves to their doom. They tacitly

adjust themselves to oppression, and thereby become conditioned to it. In every

movement toward freedom some of the oppressed prefer to remain oppressed.

Almost 2800 years ago Moses set out to lead the children of Israel from the slavery

of Egypt to the freedom of the promised land. He soon discovered that slaves do

not always welcome their deliverers. They become accustomed to being slaves.

They would rather bear those ills they have, as Shakespeare pointed out, than flee

to others that they know not of. They prefer the “fleshpots of Egypt” to the

ordeals of emancipation.

There is such a thing as the freedom of exhaustion. Some people are so worn

down by the yoke of oppression that they give up. A few years ago in the slum

areas of Atlanta, a Negro guitarist used to sing almost daily: “Ben down so long

that down don’t bother me.” This is the type of negative freedom and resignation

that often engulfs the life of the oppressed.

But this is not the way out. To accept passively an unjust system is to cooperate

with that system; thereby the oppressed become as evil as the oppressor.

Noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with

good. The oppressed must never allow the conscience of the oppressor to slumber.

Religion reminds every man that he is his brother’s keeper. To accept injustice or

segregation passively is to say to the oppressor that his actions are morally right.

It is a way of allowing his conscience to fall asleep. At this moment the oppressed

fails to be his brother’s keeper. So acquiescence—while often the easier way—is

not the moral way. It is the way of the coward. The Negro cannot win the respect

of his oppressor by acquiescing; he merely increases the oppressor’s arrogance and

contempt. Acquiescence is interpreted as proof of the Negro’s inferiority. The

Negro cannot win the respect of the white people of the South or the peoples of

the world if he is willing to sell the future of his children for his personal and

immediate comfort and safety.

A second way that oppressed people sometimes deal with oppression is to resort

to physical violence and corroding hatred. Violence often brings about momentary

results. Nations have frequently won their independence in battle. But in spite of

temporary victories, violence never brings permanent peace. It solves no social

problem; it merely creates new and more complicated ones.

Violence as a way of achieving racial justice is both impractical and immoral. It

is impractical because it is a descending spiral ending in destruction for all. The old

law of an eye for an eye leaves everybody blind. It is immoral because it seeks to

humiliate the opponent rather than win his understanding; it seeks to annihilate

rather than to convert. Violence is immoral because it thrives on hatred rather than

love. It destroys community and makes brotherhood impossible. It leaves society in

monologue rather than dialogue. Violence ends by defeating itself. It creates

bitterness in the survivors and brutality in the destroyers. A voice echoes through

time saying to every potential Peter, “Put up your sword.” History is cluttered with

the wreckage of nations that failed to follow this command.

If the American Negro and other victims of oppression succumb to the

temptation of using violence in the struggle for freedom, future generations will

be the recipients of a desolate night of bitterness, and our chief legacy to them

will be an endless reign of meaningless chaos. Violence is not the way.

The third way open to oppressed people in their quest for freedom is the way

of nonviolent resistance. Like the synthesis in Hegelian philosophy, the principle of

nonviolent resistance seeks to reconcile the truths of two opposites—acquiescence

and violence—while avoiding the extremes and immoralities of both. The

nonviolent resister agrees with the person who acquiesces that one should not

be physically aggressive toward his opponent but he balances the equation by

agreeing with the person of violence that evil must be resisted. He avoids the

nonresistance of the former and the violent resistance of the latter. With

nonviolent resistance, no individual or group need submit to any wrong, nor

need anyone resort to violence in order to right a wrong.

It seems to me that this is the method that must guide the actions of the Negro

in the present crisis in race relations. Through nonviolent resistance the Negro will

be able to rise to the noble height of opposing the unjust system while loving the

perpetrators of the system. The Negro must work passionately and unrelentingly

for full stature as a citizen, but he must not use inferior methods to gain it. He

must never come to terms with falsehood, malice, hate, or destruction.

Nonviolent resistance makes it possible for the Negro to remain in the South

and struggle for his rights. The Negro’s problem will not be solved by running

away. He cannot listen to the glib suggestion of those who would urge him to

migrate en masse to other sections of the country. By grasping his great

opportunity in the South he can make a lasting contribution to the moral strength

of the nation and set a sublime example of courage for generations yet unborn.

By nonviolent resistance, the Negro can also enlist all men of good will in his

struggle for equality. The problem is not a purely racial one, with Negroes set

against whites. In the end, it is not a struggle between people at all, but a tension

between justice and injustice. Nonviolent resistance is not aimed against oppressors

but against oppression. Under its banner consciences, not racial groups, are

enlisted.

If the Negro is to achieve the goal of integration, he must organize himself into

a militant and nonviolent mass movement. All three elements are indispensable.

The movement for equality and justice can only be a success if it has both a mass

and militant character; the barriers to be overcome require both. Nonviolence is

an imperative in order to bring about ultimate community.

A mass movement of a militant quality that is not at the same time committed to

nonviolence tends to generate conflict, which in turn breeds anarchy. The support

of the participants and the sympathy of the uncommitted are both inhibited by the

threat that bloodshed will engulf the community. This reaction in turn encourages

the opposition to threaten and resort to force. When, however, the mass movement

repudiates violence while moving resolutely toward its goal, its opponents are

revealed as the instigators and practitioners of violence if it occurs. Then public

support is magnetically attracted to the advocates of nonviolence, while those

who employ violence are literally disarmed by overwhelming sentiment against

their stand.

Source: License granted by Intellectual Properties Management, Atlanta, Georgia,

as exclusive licensor of the King Estate.