Here is a short video excerpt from MLK's speech. See below
for the transcript.
It follows the full text transcript of
Martin Luther King's I've Seen the Promised Land speech, delivered at the
Mason Temple Church in Memphis, Tennessee - April 3, 1968.
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 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 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. So 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.
Also called the
Persian Wars, the Greco-Persian Wars were
fought for almost half a century from 492 BC -
449 BC. Greece won against enormous odds. Here
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