Oversight hearings of Michigan’s utilities critical after nearly a million left in the dark again 

From the Michigan League of Conservation Voters

Outages come as DTE asks for historic rate hikes on customers, touts its record profit of $1.1 billion

With tens of thousands of Michiganders still without power following last week’s ice storm, the Michigan League of Conservation Voters is calling on legislators to swiftly conduct oversight hearings to investigate how the state’s utilities have once again failed customers.

Nearly a million people across Michigan have spent multiple days without power and the latest outage continues the state’s pattern of having the most expensive rates for the worst service.

The outages come as severe weather threatens Michigan yet again this week. DTE recently requested the largest rate hike in state history – $622 million – while reporting profits from the past year of $1.1 billion.

“The irony is lost on no one that while Michiganders shivered in their homes and tossed out medicine and food, DTE was submitting paperwork to jack up our rates yet again – because massive rate hikes, massive profits and massive campaign donations are the calling card of DTE,” said Bob Allison, deputy director for the Michigan League of Conservation Voters. “Our outdated, broken energy grid is the direct result of money flowing for years to the pockets of their CEOs versus investing in improving the service we receive. Power outages have real consequences to people’s health, and these have become too commonplace and widespread in Michigan – we have reached a tipping point.”

FACTS: A recent piece by ProPublica found DTE was shutting off service to tens of thousands of customers while the utility was among a list of recipients receiving hundreds of millions in COVID relief dollars from the federal government.

Media reports have shown that DTE didn’t pay federal taxes in 2020, with utility spokespersons saying it would ultimately trickle down into savings to customers. Two years ago, both Consumers Energy and DTE spent more than $10 million paying their CEOs. 

The Detroit News exposed that 140 out of 146 Michigan lawmakers received some kind of campaign donation from DTE or Consumers Energy, while the monopoly utilities funneled $55 million to political and civic spending. 

Thank you, Ella!

During the Winter of 2023, students at Allendale Christian School studied the theme of heroism using a variety of texts. Students read stories about heroes from history, such as Harriet Tubman, Miep Gies, and Jackie Robinson, and analyzed what made them heroes and why they decided to act heroically. They applied these same ideas of heroism to our current world and communities, and they ended up finding heroes all around us. They wrote essays about a chosen hero to celebrate the important and impactful things that they do. One student, Ella, chose Our Kitchen Table as her hero! We were honored and humbled by her request. You can read all of the students’ essays here.

Join OKT in the Walk for Good Food!

#Walk4GoodFood

Click here to join or donate to the OKT walk team!
-Optional in-person kick-off event May 7 at Mulick Park.
-Walk in your neighborhood anytime between May 7 and 17.

The 2023 Access of West Michigan Walk for Good Food – In Your Neighborhood is an annual 5k walk in Grand Rapids. The goal of the Walk is to fund non-profit organizations that address issues of food access and poverty. Our Kitchen Table has been chosen as a recipient agency. Money OKT receives from the Walk will help fund the Southeast Area Farmers’ Market, a walkable neighborhood market in a Grand Rapids neighborhood with little access to healthy, fresh foods.

OKT’s work, and the work of the other recipient organizations aligns with the definition of Good Food, which is food that is:

  • Healthy (provides nourishment and enables people to thrive)
  • Fair (no one along the production line was exploited during its creation)
  • Affordable (All people have access to it)
  • Green (produced in an environmentally sustainable manner)

The work of the recipient organizations ranges from community gardening and urban farming, nutrition programs, food pantries and meal programs, to food justice and community development initiatives. Our collaborative work has a vision of a thriving Good Food system for all people.

The Walk brings non-profit organizations, businesses, congregations, farms, and individuals together to bring awareness of the great work happening in our community to address food access and poverty. By walking together we unite in vision of a Good Food system for all and broaden our shared impact for social good. Over the last 44 years, the Walk has raised millions of dollars for dozens of local and international non-profit organizations.

What if everyone in our community could have equal access to food that nourishes, creates good jobs, is affordable, and treats the earth well as it is produced? What if non-profit organizations, businesses, congregations, farms, and individuals could come together to achieve this vision?

We believe it’s possible.
That’s why we walk.
Share the vision.
Walk with us.

Have Medicaid? You’ll need to renew it this year.

Michigan provides Medicaid enrollees with information about options as eligibility requirements restart following recent federal legislation   

Eligibility redetermination packets to start being mailed to beneficiaries depending on renewal date

LANSING, Mich. – Medicaid beneficiaries will have to renew their coverage this year, starting in June, as Michigan resumes Medicaid eligibility redeterminations to comply with federal legislation. 

During the federal COVID-19 Public Health Emergency, Congress enacted the Families First Coronavirus Response Act that required state Medicaid agencies continue health care coverage for all medical assistance programs, even if someone’s eligibility changed. Michigan’s Medicaid caseload grew by more than 700,000 people during the public health emergency. This requirement was ended by the federal Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023 signed Dec. 29, 2022. 

Michiganders who no longer qualify for Medicaid will receive additional information about other affordable health coverage options available, including on HealthCare.gov. Affected Michiganders will be able to shop for and enroll in comprehensive health insurance as they transition away from Medicaid, and many Michiganders can purchase a plan for less than $10 per month.

Renewals for traditional Medicaid and the Healthy Michigan Plan will take place monthly starting in June 2023 and run through May 2024. Monthly renewal notices will be sent three months prior to a beneficiaries’ renewal date starting with June renewal dates. Beneficiaries can check their renewal month at www.michigan.gov/MIBridges.

“MDHHS is strongly committed to ensuring Michiganders who are eligible for Medicaid coverage remain enrolled,” said Elizabeth Hertel, Michigan Department of Health and Human Services director. “More than three million Michiganders, including one million Healthy Michigan enrollees, have benefitted from keeping their Medicaid coverage without redeterminations on eligibility during the COVID-19 pandemic. MDHHS is preparing to assist residents who will be affected by changes in their coverage.” 

Here is what Michigan Medicaid beneficiaries need to do to prepare: 

  1. Make sure your address, phone number and email address are up to date at michigan.gov/MIBridges. You can also call your local MDHHS office. If you do not have an online account for MI Bridges to access your Medicaid case or report changes, visit www.michigan.gov/MIBridges to sign up for an account. You can also locate organizations that can help you by searching for community partners.
  2. Report any changes to your household or income. You can report changes at michigan.gov/MIBridgesor by calling your local MDHHS office
  3. If you get a renewal packet, be sure to fill it out, sign the forms and return it by the due date with any proof needed. NOTE: If you do not complete and return the renewal, you may lose Medicaid coverage. 

“The Michigan Department of Insurance and Financial Services (DIFS) is committed to working with MDHHS and our partners nationwide to help impacted Michiganders get the affordable, comprehensive health insurance they need,” said DIFS Director Anita Fox. “DIFS stands ready to answer questions about purchasing a health insurance plan. Call DIFS at 877-999-6442, Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. or visit Michigan.gov/HealthInsurance to learn more.”

To ensure beneficiaries are aware of upcoming federal redetermination requirements and help them keep their coverage if eligible, MDHHS is launching a multi-media advertising campaign. This will include radio, audio streaming, outdoor, mobile and social media ads, including minority media outlets and stakeholder communications. 

More information about the how benefits connected to the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency are changing can be found at www.Michigan.gov/2023BenefitChanges.

Michigan’s breastfeeding networks educate parents, address disparities, advocate for parent rights

Reposted from Second Wave Michigan

Support networks for breastfeeding parents are helping more little Michiganders get their best start in life. Amy Zaagman, executive director of the The Michigan Council on Maternal Child Health (MCMCH), explains that the state’s breastfeeding networks serve as a structure of supports to ensure that lactation support professionals have the education, resources, and tools they need to engage with families and ultimately increase breastfeeding rates and the associated positive health and societal outcomes.

“Lactation support comes in various forms and should be centered on what each individual wants and needs to have breastfeeding ‘success’ – whatever that looks like for them,” Zaagman says via email. “Having a network of lactation supporters driven by locally-grown community partners that share this commitment to honoring individuals’ choices and goals is the best way to capitalize upon the uniqueness of Michigan’s communities to see overall statewide breastfeeding rates rise and give partners a platform to work together for policy and societal support.”

The MCMCH highlights the mental and physical health benefits of breastfeeding in its Birth Equity Education Project, which published a report entitled “Breastfeeding: Removing Barriers and Supporting Equitable Outcomes” in February 2022. The report also highlights the work of Michigan’s breastfeeding support networks. 

Specifically targeting disparities in successful breastfeeding among Black and Indigenous families, the Michigan Breastfeeding Network (MIBFN) collaborates with organizations and individuals to bring about actionable, system-level changes through advocacy, education, and community building with a focus on making breastfeeding successful for working lactating parents on the job and at child care centers.

MIBFN partners with 17 community organizations across the state including Milk Like Mine in Battle Creek, Birth Queens and Milk Queens in Southwest Michigan, and You Overcoming Lactation Obstacles (YOLO) in Flint. Providing breastfeeding support in accessible locations and staffed by skilled lactation professionals, these organizations help the families they serve to understand and overcome systemic and policy barriers to breastfeeding success, as well as personal or medical challenges that may arise.


The MCMCH also notes that 13 certified Baby-Friendly hospitals in Michigan are increasing breastfeeding success by helping new parents initiate breastfeeding within the first hour after birth. This facilitates skin-to-skin contact between parent and baby, and keeps the baby in the same room as their parents during the hospital stay.

Benefits and challenges

Current science confirms that breast milk offers many benefits for babies and parents. Antibodies in breast milk help babies develop a strong immune system. Breastfed babies have a lower risk for ear infections, stomach bugs, asthma, obesity, type 1 diabetes, and sudden infant death syndromeStudies have found that breast milk supports healthy cognitive and language development. Breastfeeding also comforts babies as they come to terms with the new world they find themselves in.

Breastfeeding also has benefits for the lactating parent. Baby’s food is always available and ready to eat — and there’s no need to run to the store for more expensive formula. During breastfeeding, the body releases oxytocin, a feel-good hormone that calms the parent and promotes emotional bonding with baby. Breastfeeding also reduces the risk of breast and ovarian cancer, type 2 diabetes, and high blood pressure.

“We know the evidence is clear that human milk has many benefits,” says Kaitlyn Bowen, MIBFN communications and data manager. “Especially in light of a pandemic, it is lifesaving medicine, full of nutrients, antibodies, and more.”

In the early to mid-20th century, nature’s perfect plan for feeding small humans was scuttled by a perfect storm of “modern” developments. The perfection of feeding bottles and artificial nipples made offering animal milk to infants more convenient. The medical profession began promoting formula feeding over breastfeeding. And formula companies seeking profits mounted huge advertising campaigns to discourage breastfeeding. While more than 70% of first-born infants breastfed in the ’30s, less than 30% breastfed by the mid-’60s. The rise of formula feeding impacted families of color even more.

“Breastfeeding is also a traditional practice that was stolen through genocide and slave trade,” Bowen says. “The many systemic factors that prevent lactating families from reaching their goals are rooted in racism, capitalism, and the patriarchy.”

Before abolition, enslaved African mothers were prevented from breastfeeding their own infants so that they could act as wet nurses for the wives of plantation owners. In addition, greedy enslavers prevented new mothers from breastfeeding because they knew it naturally Kaitlyn Bowen.
spaced pregnancies, resulting in fewer babies being born into slavery.

“We know the evidence is clear that human milk has many benefits,” says Kaitlyn Bowen, MIBFN communications and data manager. “Especially in light of a pandemic, it is lifesaving medicine, full of nutrients, antibodies, and more.”

“There is that relationship with wet nursing, the impact of mass marketing of infant formula to Black communities, and also the lack of support in hospitals. Often the assumption is that Black women are not going to breastfeed,” says Kiddada Green, CEO, Black Mothers’ Breastfeeding Association. “Then there’s the lack of paid maternity leave. Often Black women have to return to work much sooner than our counterparts.”

Free breastfeeding support for families in Flint

Flint-based YOLO is just one of the many community-based organizations supporting breastfeeding across Michigan. YOLO, led by board-certified lactation consultant Shonte’ Terhune-Smith, offers doula services, which include prenatal check-ins, birthing support, post-natal consults, and lactation support. The organization also offers childbirth education and breastfeeding Kiddada Green. classes to parents and caregivers as well as courses for professionals who want to broaden their knowledge and skills in serving lactating families, especially families of color. Grant funding currently allows Terhune-Smith to provide free lactation services, including breastfeeding classes, home visits, and breastfeeding supplies, to families across the Genesee County area. Terhune-Smith also recently won funding to open a lactation clinic, which offers a nurse practitioner and an occupational therapist to help with breastfeeding questions.

Occupational therapy can help babies with a lip tie, tongue tie, or other difficulties feeding. Babies with long-term medical issues are also referred for physical therapy to help maintain breastfeeding. As a trained health professional, Terhune-Smith also recognizes issues that lie outside the scope of her own practice. For example, when one mother brought in her baby for a routine postnatal check-in, Terhune-Smith recognized the baby was failing to thrive. 

“As soon as I saw the baby, I knew something was wrong,” Terhune-Smith says. “When she tried to put the baby to the breast, he looked really frail. His cry was alarming.”

She called for an ambulance to bring mother and baby to the hospital, where he received life-saving treatment. He and mom are now back home and happy, supplementing breast milk with additional nutrition.

“The mom was relieved afterwards. She was very grateful,” Terhune-Smith says. “When people think of lactation consultants, they sometimes think, ‘Oh, how difficult can breastfeeding be?’ Or, ‘Oh, you only help babies to latch on to the breast.’ We can be such a critical part of a medical intervention. We really are part of the health care team.”

More support needed

Michigan’s breastfeeding networks are advocating for a variety of additional social supports to make it easier to breastfeed children. The U.S. ranks worst out of 40 countries for paid maternity leave, with zero weeks required. Even the second-worst, Switzerland, offers parents 14 weeks off, paid at 53.9% of full wage. Estonia, Bulgaria, Hungary, Japan, Lithuania, Austria, Slovakia, Latvia, Norway, and Slovenia all offer more than a year’s worth of paid leave. With the World Health Organization and the American Academy of Pediatrics agreeing that it’s best for infants to be exclusively breastfed for at least six months, six months’ paid leave would seem a logical starting point.

“Paid leave is the biggest policy we’re advocating for,” Bowen says. “We had two really big federal policy wins in December: The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act and the PUMP for Nursing Mothers Act passed.”

The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act gives workers the right to receive reasonable accommodations, like light duty, breaks, or a stool to sit on, for pregnancy, childbirth recovery, and related medical conditions, including lactation, unless it would be an undue hardship on the employer. ​The PUMP for Nursing Mothers Act provides the right to break time and space to pump breast milk at work to millions more workers, including teachers and nurses.

These are the kinds of systems changes that the Michigan Breastfeeding Network works for as it seeks to influence legislators and public health decision makers.

“We are emphasizing the importance of breastfeeding and how providing breastfeeding support benefits everyone,” Bowen says. “Also, we want to see prioritized funding for community-rooted, skilled lactation professionals who work with Black, Indigenous, and people of color families.”

Green says community organizations are critical to helping more lactating families have success with establishing and continuing breastfeeding. She emphasizes the value of home visiting programs and peer breastfeeding counselors. She would also like to see breastfeeding being viewed as a critical component of maternal-infant health within health care systems and health departments.

“It’s often assumed that when you’re talking about maternal child health, breastfeeding is included. But it’s not always explicitly mentioned. So those assumptions are not helpful,” Green says. “Breastfeeding needs to be par for the course when we’re talking about maternal child health, when we’re talking about building vibrant, thriving communities for families. Unfortunately, I have attended many maternal child health conferences and professional development opportunities [where the topic] is either very limited or nonexistent. As a state and as professionals who lead this work, we have to be very, very clear that we’re explicitly including breastfeeding in the work that we’re doing.”

Kiddada Green photos by Nick Hagen. All other photos courtesy of the subjects

Virtual Cook, Eat and Talk – Free!

Register to join the Zoom or attend via Facebook Live.

Are you pregnant, breastfeeding, or the mom of a low-birth weight baby? Are you a mom diagnosed with overweight or obesity? Do you receive SNAP, WIC, or other food assistance? Then you are invited! Actually, everybody is welcome. Join Our Kitchen Table cooking coach Belinda Henderson for a cooking demo and registered dietitian Winona Bynum in conversation on you can make easy, healthy, affordable meals for your family.
• Ask Winona what foods work for you and your medical issues.
• Grow a food garden in your window or on your porch.
• Learn how to stretch your food budget.
• Find out how to maximize your SNAP and WIC dollars at grocery stores and farmers markets.

#Walk4GoodFood 2023

Thank you Access of West Michigan!

Our Kitchen Table has again been chosen as a recipient of funds raised by the Access of West Michigan Walk for Good Food. OKT uses these funds to support the operations of the Southeast Area Farmers Market. Stay tuned to learn how you can support the 2023 Walk for Good Food by joining a walk team, donating to OKT’s team, or becoming an OKT corporate walk sponsor.

Black History Month 2023: Black Resistance

The theme for this year’s observance of Black History Month is Black Resistance.

We are reposting the following from The Association for the Study of African American Life and History

African Americans have resisted historic and ongoing oppression, in all forms, especially the racial terrorism of lynching, racial pogroms, and police killings since our arrival upon these shores. These efforts have been to advocate for a dignified self-determined life in a just democratic society in the United States and beyond the United States political jurisdiction.

The 1950s and 1970s in the United States was defined by actions such as sit-ins, boycotts, walk outs, strikes by Black people and white allies in the fight for justice against discrimination in all sectors of society from employment to education to housing. Black people have had to consistently push the United States to live up to its ideals of freedom, liberty, and justice for all. Systematic oppression has sought to negate much of the dreams of our griots, like Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston, and our freedom fighters, like the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Septima Clark, and Fannie Lou Hamer fought to realize. Black people have sought ways to nurture and protect Black lives, and for autonomy of their physical and intellectual bodies through armed resistance, voluntary emigration, nonviolence, education, literature, sports, media, and legislation/politics. Black led institutions and affiliations have lobbied, litigated, legislated, protested, and achieved success.

In an effort to live, and maintain and protect economic success Black people have organized/planned violent insurrections against those who enslaved them, such as in Haiti,, and armed themselves against murderous white mobs as seen in Memphis, TN (1892), Rosewood, FL (1923), and New Orleans, LA (1900). Additionally, some Black people thought that the best way to resist was to self-liberate as seen by the actions those who left the plantation system, of Henry Adams and Benjamin “Pap” Singleton, when they led a mass exodus westward in 1879 and Bishop Henry McNeal Turner of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, who organized emigration to Liberia.

Black faith institutions were spaces where Black communities met to organize resistance efforts, inspired folk to participate in the movements, and offered sanctuary during times of crisis. To promote awareness of the myriad of issues and activities media outlets were developed including radio shows, podcasts, newspapers (i.e. Chicago DefenderChicago Beethe AfroThe California Eagle, Omaha Star, the Crisis, etc.). Ida B. Wells used publications to contest the scourge of lynching. These outlets were pivotal in sharing the successes and challenges of resistance movements.

Cultural centers such as libraries including George Cleveland Hall Library (Chicago, IL), Dart Hall (Charleston, SC) and social, literary, and cultural clubs, such as Jack and Jill, Phillis Wheatley Literary Societies, fraternal and sororal orders, associations (i.e. Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, National Association of Colored Women, etc.) worked to support the intellectual development of communities to collect and preserve Black stories, sponsor Black history and literature events, and were active in the quest for civil, social, and human rights.

Black medical professionals worked with others to establish nursing schools, hospitals, and clinics in order to provide spaces for Black people to get quality health care, which they often did (and do not) receive at mainstream medical institutions. For economic and financial independence businesses, such as Binga Bank, Johnson Publishing Company, Parker House Sausage Company, Soft and Sheen, etc., were developed to keep funds within the community. In order to resist inequality and to advocate for themselves Black men and women formed labor unions based on trades and occupations, some examples, include the Colored National Labor Union, Colored Musicians Club, Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, and Negro American Labor Council.

Education, whether in elementary, secondary, or higher education institutions have been seen as a way for Black people and communities to resist the narrative that Black people are intellectually inferior. When Carter G. Woodson founded Negro History Week (NHW) in 1926, he saw it as a way to provide a space and resources to critically educate students about their history. The grassroots network of Black teachers used this week not only to lionize individuals and narratives, but also to teach students about racial progress, and as well as shared and collective responsibility. They developed assignments and curriculum to provide students with the tools to succeed. Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), were developed by Northern white philanthropists, but they emerged as a space for the formation of activists, artists, business owners, educators, etc. and their continued operation have stood as testament to Black investment and creative thinking in the face of the changing landscape of higher education. Furthermore, students at HBCUs were at the forefront of the Civil Rights Movement, Black Power Movements, and social justice movements from the nineteenth to twenty-first centuries.

African American spirituals, gospel, folk music, hip-hop, and rap have been used to express struggle, hope, and for solidarity in the face of racial oppression. Music has been used to illustrate societal issues including white and state sanctioned violence (i.e. Billie Holiday’s Strange Fruit), sexual politics (i.e. Salt-N-Pepa’s Let’s Talk About Sex), as motivation, for strength against harassment, and to experience freedom. The Black artists, writers, photographers, and musicians who participated in the Black Arts Movement, the Harlem Renaissance, and the Chicago Black Renaissance were the soundtrack and the visual representation of resistance movements. These individuals created art that supported the resistance movements, but also provided a space for Black people to express love and joy. Creatives used poetry, fiction, short stories, plays, films, and television to counter stereotypes and to imagine a present and future with Black people in it.

Sports are a world pastime, and it both brings people together and separates them. Black athletes have used sports as a way to advocate for social issues and for political agendas. Serena Williams, Flo Jo, Jesse Owens, Tommie Smith, John Carlos, Jackie Robinson, Colin Kaepernick, Simone Biles, and many others have used their public forum to bring awareness to issues that affect society as they resisted the idea that they cannot or should not speak about political, cultural, or social issues. Black athletic activists have often suffered personal and economic consequences due to their stances, speech, and actions, but to them it has been worth it to see changes.

Historically and today in the 21st century, Black people have worked the political angle to seek their rightful space in the country. Where race is concerned, legislative or judicial action to deal with controversial issues has often come late. The historic Executive Orders 8802 and 9346 were responses to A. Phillip Randolph and the all-Black March on Washington Movement’s threat to lead a 50,000-strong Black worker’s march into Washington, D.C. And all three of the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act and the Fair Housing Act were concessions to the Civil Rights and Black Power movements. Every advance, improvement in our quality of life and access to the levers of power to determine our destiny has been achieved through struggle. John Lewis advised, “Do not get lost in a sea of despair. Be hopeful, be optimistic. Our struggle is not the struggle of a day, a week, a month, or a year, it is the struggle of a lifetime. Never, ever be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble.”

Lewis’ advice is true not just for the 21st century, but also during the antebellum period, as seen in the narratives of the enslaved, such as Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs, to testimonials about lynchings and ongoing police violence against African Americans. With the murders of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Sandra Bland, Breonna Taylor, and thousands of other Black women, men, and trans people there are new movements (i.e. #Sayhername) and organizations (i.e. Black Lives Matter) that are pushing for the justice system to investigate police involved shootings and white supremacist vigilantes. Nearly 179 years ago, the Rev. Henry Highland Garnett proposed that the only path to freedom, justice, and equality; self-determination; and/or social transformation is resistance. In thunder tones, Garnett shouted, “Let your motto be resistance! resistance! RESISTANCE!

By resisting Black people have achieved triumphs, successes, and progress as seen in the end of chattel slavery, dismantling of Jim and Jane Crow segregation in the South, increased political representation at all levels of government, desegregation of educational institutions, the passage of Civil Rights Act of 1964, the opening of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History in DC and increased and diverse representation of Black experiences in media. Black resistance strategies have served as a model for every other social movement in the country, thus, the legacy and importance of these actions cannot be understated.

As societal and political forces escalate to limit access to and exercise of the ballot, eliminate the teaching of Black history, and work to push us back into the 1890s, we can only rely on our capacity to resist. The enactment of HR 40, the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, the Breathe Act, and the closure of the racial wealth gap is not the end. They too will require us to mobilize our resources, human and material, and fight for “freedom, justice, and equality”; “self-determination”, and/or “social transformation.”

This is a call to everyone, inside and outside the academy, to study the history of Black Americans’ responses to establish safe spaces, where Black life can be sustained, fortified, and respected.

Click here to download a printable pdf

MLK Day Special: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in His Own Words

Reposted from Democracy Now! Watch Full Show

Today is the federal holiday that honors Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He was born January 15, 1929. He was assassinated April 4, 1968, at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. He was just 39 years old. While Dr. King is primarily remembered as a civil rights leader, he also championed the cause of the poor and organized the Poor People’s Campaign to address issues of economic justice. Dr. King was also a fierce critic of U.S. foreign policy and the Vietnam War. We play his “Beyond Vietnam” speech, which he delivered at New York City’s Riverside Church on April 4, 1967, as well as his last speech, “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop,” that he gave on April 3, 1968, the night before he was assassinated.


Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: Today is a federal holiday that honors Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He was born January 15th, 1929. He was assassinated April 4th, 1968, at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. He was just 39 years old.

While Dr. King is primarily remembered as a civil rights leader, he also championed the cause of the poor, organizing the Poor People’s Campaign to address issues of economic justice. And Dr. King was a fierce critic of U.S. foreign policy and the Vietnam War.

“Beyond Vietnam” was the speech he delivered at New York’s Riverside Church on April 4th, 1967, a year to the day before he was assassinated. In it, Dr. King called the United States “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.” Life magazine called the speech “demagogic slander that sounded like a script for Radio Hanoi.” The Washington Post said King, quote, “diminished his usefulness to his cause, his country, his people,” unquote. Well, today we let you decide. We play an excerpt of Dr. King’s speech, “Beyond Vietnam.”

REV. MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.: After 1954, they watched us conspire with Diem to prevent elections which could have surely brought Ho Chi Minh to power over the united Vietnam, and they realized they had been betrayed again. When we ask why they do not leap to negotiate, these things must be remembered.

Also, it must be clear that the leaders of Hanoi considered the presence of American troops in support of the Diem regime to have been the initial military breach of the Geneva Agreements concerning foreign troops. And they remind us that they did not begin to send troops in large numbers and even supplies into the South, until American forces had moved into the tens of thousands.

Hanoi remembers how our leaders refused to tell us the truth about the earlier North Vietnamese overtures for peace, how the president claimed that none existed when they had clearly been made. Ho Chi Minh has watched as America has spoken of peace and built up its forces, and now he has surely heard the increasing international rumors of American plans for an invasion of the North. He knows the bombing and shelling and mining we are doing are part of traditional pre-invasion strategy. Perhaps only his sense of humor and of irony can save him when he hears the most powerful nation of the world speaking of aggression as it drops thousands of bombs on a poor, weak nation more than 8,000 miles away from its shores.

At this point, I should make it clear that while I have tried in these last few minutes to give a voice to the voiceless in Vietnam and to understand the arguments of those who are called “enemy,” I am as deeply concerned about our own troops there as anything else, for it occurs to me that what we are submitting them to in Vietnam is not simply the brutalizing process that goes on in any war where armies face each other and seek to destroy. We are adding cynicism to the process of death, for they must know after the short period there that none of the things we claim to be fighting for are really involved. Before long, they must know that their government has sent them into a struggle among Vietnamese, and the more sophisticated surely realize that we are on the side of the wealthy and the secure, while we create a hell for the poor.

Somehow this madness must cease. We must stop now. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. I speak for the poor of America, who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home and death and corruption in Vietnam. I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as one who loves America, to the leaders of our own nation: The great initiative in this war is ours; the initiative to stop it must be ours.

This is the message of the great Buddhist leaders of Vietnam. Recently one of them wrote these words, and I quote: “Each day the war goes on, the hatred increases in the heart of the Vietnamese and in the hearts of those of humanitarian instinct. The Americans are forcing even their friends into becoming their enemies. It is curious that the Americans, who calculate so carefully on the possibilities of military victory, do not realize that in the process they are incurring deep psychological and political defeat. The image of America will never again be the image of revolution, freedom and democracy, but the image of violence and militarism,” unquote.

If we continue, there will be no doubt in my mind and in the mind of the world that we have no honorable intentions in Vietnam. If we do not stop our war against the people of Vietnam immediately, the world will be left with no other alternative than to see this as some horrible, clumsy and deadly game we have decided to play.

The world now demands a maturity of America that we may not be able to achieve. It demands that we admit that we have been wrong from the beginning of our adventure in Vietnam, that we have been detrimental to the life of the Vietnamese people. The situation is one in which we must be ready to turn sharply from our present ways.

In order to atone for our sins and errors in Vietnam, we should take the initiative in bringing a halt to this tragic war and set a date that we will remove all foreign troops from Vietnam in accordance with the 1954 Geneva Agreement.

Part of our ongoing — part of our ongoing commitment might well express itself in an offer to grant asylum to any Vietnamese who fears for his life under the new regime, which included the Liberation Front. Then we must make what reparations we can for the damage we have done. We must provide the medical aid that is badly needed, making it available in this country, if necessary.

Meanwhile — meanwhile, we in the churches and synagogues have a continuing task: While we urge our government to disengage itself from a disgraceful commitment, we must continue to raise our voices and our lives if our nation persists in its perverse ways in Vietnam. We must be prepared to match actions with words by seeking out every creative method of protest possible.

These are the times for real choices and not false ones. We are at the moment when our lives must be placed on the line if our nation is to survive its own folly. Every man of humane convictions must decide on the protest that best suits his convictions, but we must all protest.

Now, there is something seductively tempting about stopping there and sending us all off on what in some circles has become a popular crusade against the war in Vietnam. I say we must enter that struggle, but I wish to go on now to say something even more disturbing. The war in Vietnam is but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit, and if we ignore this sobering reality — and if we ignore this sobering reality, we will find ourselves organizing clergy and laymen concerned committees for the next generation. They will be concerned about Guatemala and Peru. They will be concerned about Thailand and Cambodia. They will be concerned about Mozambique and South Africa. We will be marching for these and a dozen other names and attending rallies without end, unless there is a significant and profound change in American life and policy. So such thoughts take us beyond Vietnam, but not beyond our calling as sons of the living God.

In 1957, a sensitive American official overseas said that it seemed to him that our nation was on the wrong side of a world revolution. During the past 10 years, we have seen emerge a pattern of suppression, which has now justified the presence of U.S. military “advisers” in Venezuela. This need to maintain social stability for our investments accounts for the counterrevolutionary action of American forces in Guatemala. It tells why American helicopters are being used against guerrillas in Cambodia and why American napalm and Green Beret forces have already been active against rebels in Peru. It is with such activity in mind that the words of the late John F. Kennedy come back to haunt us. Five years ago, he said, “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”

Increasingly, by choice or by accident, this is the role our nation has taken, the role of those who make peaceful revolution impossible by refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investments.

I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin — we must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism and militarism are incapable of being conquered.

A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand, we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life’s roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life’s highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.

A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth with righteous indignation. It will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say, “This is not just.” It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of South America and say, “This is not just.” The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.

A true revolution of values will lay a hand on the world order and say of war, “This way of settling differences is not just.” This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation’s homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.

America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this revolution of values. There is nothing, except a tragic death wish, to prevent us from reordering our priorities, so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war.

AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Martin Luther King, April 4th, 1967, at Riverside Church in New York, explaining why he opposed the war in Vietnam. We’ll come back to his speech in a minute.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: Mahalia Jackson, “Take My Hand, Precious Lord,” Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s favorite song. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, as we return to Dr. Martin Luther King’s speech “Beyond Vietnam.” He gave this speech April 4th, 1967, a year to the day before he was assassinated. He was speaking at Riverside Church in New York.

REV. MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.: These are revolutionary times. All over the globe men are revolting against old systems of exploitation and oppression, and out of the wombs of a frail world new systems of justice and equality are being born. The shirtless and barefoot people of the land are rising up as never before. “The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light.” We in the West must support these revolutions.

It is a sad fact that, because of comfort, complacency, a morbid fear of communism, and our proneness to adjust to injustice, the Western nations that initiated so much of the revolutionary spirit of the modern world have now become the arch anti-revolutionaries. This has driven many to feel that only Marxism has a revolutionary spirit. Therefore, communism is a judgment against our failure to make democracy real and follow through on the revolutions that we initiated. Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism and militarism. With this powerful commitment, we shall boldly challenge the status quo and unjust mores and thereby speed the day when “every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight and the rough places plain.”

A genuine revolution of values means, in the final analysis, that our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Every nation must now develop an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in their individual societies.

This call for a worldwide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one’s tribe, race, class and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing and unconditional love for all mankind. This oft-misunderstood, this oft-misinterpreted concept, so readily dismissed by the Nietzsches of the world as a weak and cowardly force, has now become an absolute necessity for the survival of man.

When I speak of love, I am not speaking of some sentimental and weak response, I am not speaking of that force which is just emotional bosh. I’m speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life. Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality. This Hindu-Muslim-Christian-Jewish-Buddhist belief about ultimate reality is beautifully summed up in the First Epistle of Saint John: “Let us love one another; for love is God and everyone that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. If we love one another God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us.”

Let us hope that this spirit will become the order of the day. We can no longer afford to worship the god of hate or bow before the altar of retaliation. The oceans of history are made turbulent by the ever-rising tides of hate. History is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path of hate. As Arnold Toynbee says, “Love is the ultimate force that makes for the saving choice of life and good against the damning choice of death and evil. Therefore the first hope in our inventory must be the hope that love is going to have the last word,” unquote.

We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked and dejected with a lost opportunity. The “tide in the affairs of men” does not remain at the flood; it ebbs. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is adamant to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words: “Too late.” There is an invisible book of life that faithfully records our vigilance or our neglect. Omar Khayyam writes, “The moving finger writes, and having writ moves on…” We still have a choice today: nonviolent coexistence or violent co-annihilation.

We must move past indecision to action. We must find new ways to speak for peace in Vietnam and justice throughout the developing world, a world that borders on our doors. If we do not act, we shall surely be dragged down the long dark and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight.

Now let us begin. Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter — but beautiful — struggle for a new world. This is the calling of the sons of God, and our brothers wait eagerly for our response. Shall we say the odds are too great? Shall we tell them the struggle is too hard? Will our message be that the forces of American life militate against their arrival as full men, and we send our deepest regrets? Or will there be another message, of longing, of hope, of solidarity with their yearnings, of commitment to their cause, whatever the cost? The choice is ours, and though we might prefer it otherwise, we must choose in this crucial moment of human history.

As that noble bard of yesterday, James Russell Lowell, eloquently stated:

Once to every man and nation
Comes the moment to decide,
In the strife of truth and falsehood,
For the good or evil side;
Some great cause, God’s new Messiah,
Off’ring each the bloom or blight,
And the choice goes by forever
Twixt that darkness and that light.

Though the cause of evil prosper,
Yet ’tis truth alone is strong;
Though her portion be the scaffold,
And upon the throne be wrong:
Yet that scaffold sways the future,
And behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow
Keeping watch above his own.

And if we will only make the right choice, we will be able to transform this pending cosmic elegy into a creative psalm of peace. If we will make the right choice, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our world into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. If we will but make the right choice, we will be able to speed up the day, all over America and all over the world, when justice will roll down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.

AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., April 4th, 1967, speaking at Riverside Church in New York, explaining why he opposed the war in Vietnam, the speech he delivered exactly a year to the day before he was assassinated at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, April 4th, 1968. The night before he died, Dr. King delivered his last major address. He was in Memphis to support striking sanitation workers as he built momentum for a Poor People’s March on Washington. This is some of Dr. King’s last speech, “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop.”

REV. MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.: And you know, if I were standing at the beginning of time, with the possibility of taking a kind of general and panoramic view of the whole of 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, and I would watch God’s children in their magnificent trek from the dark dungeons of 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. And I would watch them 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 aesthetic life of man. But I wouldn’t stop there.

I would even go by the way that the man for whom I am named had his habitat. And I would watch Martin Luther as he tacked his 95 theses on the door at the church of 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 to the early ’30s 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 20th 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 20th 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 are 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 done 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 — we are saying that we are God’s children. And if we are God’s children, 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.

AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., April 3rd, 1968, the night before he was assassinated. We’ll come back to this speech in Memphis, Tennessee, in a minute.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: Nina Simone singing “Why? (The King of Love Is Dead).” This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, as we continue with Dr. Martin Luther King’s speech the night before he was assassinated. It was April 3rd, 1968, a rainy night in Memphis, Tennessee.

REV. MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.: 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 around.”

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 denominations, 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 ’em off.” And they did. And we would just go on in the paddy wagon singing, “We Shall Overcome.” And every now and then we’d get in 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 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. If it means leaving work, if it means leaving school, 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 of life. At points he wanted to trick Jesus and show him that he knew a little more than Jesus knew and 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 the 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 he got down with him, administered first aid and helped the man in need. Jesus ended up saying this was the good man, this was the great 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 a church meeting, 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 24 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 causal root, rather than to get bogged down with an individual effect.

But I’m going to tell you what my imagination tells me. It’s possible that those 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 the setting for his parable.” It’s a winding, meandering road. It’s really conducive for ambushing. You start out in Jerusalem, which is about 1,200 miles — or rather 1,200 feet above sea level. And by the time you get down to Jericho, 15 or 20 minutes later, you’re about 2,200 feet below sea level. That’s a dangerous road. In the days 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 priest asked, 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 my job?” 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?” The question is “If I do not stop to help the sanitation workers, what will happen to them?” That’s the question.

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’re drowned 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 merely 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 wheelchair 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 had received a visit and a letter from the governor of New York, but I’ve forgotten what that 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 White Plains High School.” And she said, “While it should not matter, I would like to mention that I’m 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 tonight that I too 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 here in 1961, when we decided to take a ride for freedom and ended segregation in interstate travel.

If I had sneezed, I wouldn’t have been around here 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 — 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 on 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 the threats or talk about the threats that were out, of 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 really 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 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!

AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Martin Luther King, speaking April 3rd, 1968. Within 24 hours, he would be dead, assassinated on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel, April 4th, 1968. Today is the federal holiday that honors him.

That does it for our show. Democracy Now! is produced by Mike Burke, Deena Guzder, Nermeen Shaikh, Carla Wills, Tami Woronoff, Libby Rainey, Sam Alcoff, John Hamilton, Robby Karran, Hany Massoud, Charina Nadura, Tey-Marie Astudillo, Adriano Contreras and María Taracena. Mike Di Filippo and Miguel Nogueira are our engineers. Special thanks to Becca Staley, Julie Crosby, Miriam Barnard, Hugh Gran, David Prude, Vesta Goodarz and Carl Marxer. And to our camera crew, Jon Randolph, Kieran Krug-Meadows, Anna Özbek and Matt Ealy. I’m Amy Goodman. Thanks so much for joining us.

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This entry was posted on January 16, 2023, in Press.