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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