I See The Promised Land
I See The Promised Land
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.