TBT: Martin Luther King on riots

Brut America

"A riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it that America has failed to hear?"  For many, this 1967 speech by Martin Luther King, Jr. still resonates today...

Transcript

00:00I think America must see that riots do not develop out of thin air.

00:07Certain conditions continue to exist in our society, which must be condemned as vigorously as we condemn riots.

00:19In the final analysis, a riot is the language of the unheard.

00:24What is it that America has failed to hear?

00:28It has failed to hear that the plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the last few years.

00:34It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met.

00:40And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo

00:49than about justice, equality, and humanity.

00:53And so, in a real sense, our nation's summers of riots are caused by our nation's winters of delay.

01:02And as long as America postpones justice, we stand in the position of having these recurrences of violence and riots over and over again.

01:15Social justice and progress are the absolute guarantors of riot prevention.

01:24I'm sure you've heard this idea.

01:27It is the notion almost that there is something in the very flow of time that will miraculously cure all evils.

01:38And I've heard this over and over again.

01:40There are those, and they are often sincere people, who say to Negroes and their allies in the white community

01:47that we should slow up and just be nice and patient and continue to pray,

01:53and in a hundred or two hundred years the problem will work itself out,

01:57because only time can solve the problem.

02:01Well, I think that is an answer to that myth.

02:05And it is that time is neutral.

02:10It can be used either constructively or destructively.

02:14And I'm absolutely convinced that the forces of ill will in our nation, the extreme righteous in our nation,

02:21have often used time much more effectively than the forces of goodwill.

02:28And it may well be that we will have to repent in this generation,

02:31not merely for the vitriolic words of the bad people and the violent actions of the bad people,

02:37but for the appalling silence and indifference of the good people who sit around and say, wait on time.

02:46Somewhere we must come to see that social progress never rolls in on the wheels of inevitability.

02:54It comes through the tireless efforts and the persistent work of dedicated individuals.

02:59And without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the primitive forces of social stagnation.

03:09And so we must help time, and we must realize that the time is always right to do right.

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