Ladies and Gentlemen,

I'm only going to talk to you just for a minute or so this evening, because I have some -- some very sad news for all of you -- Could you lower those signs, please? -- I have some very sad news for all of you, and, I think, sad news for all of our fellow citizens, and people who love peace all over the world; and that is that Martin Luther King was shot and was killed tonight in Memphis, Tennessee.

Martin Luther King dedicated his life to love and to justice between fellow human beings. He died in the cause of that effort. In this difficult day, in this difficult time for the United States, it's perhaps well to ask what kind of a nation we are and what direction we want to move in. For those of you who are black -- considering the evidence evidently is that there were white people who were responsible -- you can be filled with bitterness, and with hatred, and a desire for revenge.

We can move in that direction as a country, in greater polarization -- black people amongst blacks, and white amongst whites, filled with hatred toward one another. Or we can make an effort, as Martin Luther King did, to understand, and to comprehend, and replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed that has spread across our land, with an effort to understand, compassion, and love.

For those of you who are black and are tempted to fill with -- be filled with hatred and mistrust of the injustice of such an act, against all white people, I would only say that I can also feel in my own heart the same kind of feeling. I had a member of my family killed, but he was killed by a white man.

But we have to make an effort in the United States. We have to make an effort to understand, to get beyond, or go beyond these rather difficult times.

My favorite poem, my -- my favorite poet was Aeschylus. And he once wrote:

Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget
falls drop by drop upon the heart,
until, in our own despair,
against our will,
comes wisdom
through the awful grace of God.

What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness, but is love, and wisdom, and compassion toward one another; and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black.

So I ask you tonight to return home, to say a prayer for the family of Martin Luther King -- yeah, it's true -- but more importantly to say a prayer for our own country, which all of us love -- a prayer for understanding and that compassion of which I spoke.

We can do well in this country. We will have difficult times. We've had difficult times in the past, but we -- and we will have difficult times in the future. It is not the end of violence; it is not the end of lawlessness; and it's not the end of disorder.

But the vast majority of white people and the vast majority of black people in this country want to live together, want to improve the quality of our life, and want justice for all human beings that abide in our land.

And let's dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world. Let us dedicate ourselves to that, and say a prayer for our country and for our people.

Thank you very much.

If I recall...Indianapolis was the only major city that did not have riots. He gave that speech despite warnings from the local police that they could not guarantee his safety. Fucking balls, IMO.

No, that's desire. Desire for the Presidency.

50 years ago. Was just reading on his last year. Interesting angle as he was going to shit toward pacification and denouncing Viet Nam.

He would have easily won '68. Probably 1972 as well.

walking and talking creating real, lasting change? I dunno.

Also makes me wonder what would be different....

Sounds like he was compromised. He should've been calling for his people to take up arms against their oppressors.

"Change must come through the barrel of gun" or "Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun." Mao Tse-tung (he was chinese, who knows) Decade later, Mao and his communist brethren took over China and remain in power to this day.

"With our boxes of matches and our necklaces we shall liberate this country" -Winnie Mandela, 1986 5 years later, apartheid ended.

walking and talking creating real, lasting change? I dunno.


Didn't know that until Bobby Seale, Huey Newton and the Black Panthers started "observing" police activity while openly carrying firearms in the late 1960's that the NRA was on the verge of shuttering its DC lobbying office and moving to Colorado to teach Americans to be good marksmen rather than turn the long moribund 2nd Amendment into the best known Constitutional Amendment:

https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/gun-show/

basically, states and municipalities, in order to counter the activity of the Black Panthers, started abridging 2nd Amendment rights. thereby inspiring folks not necessarily aligned with the Black Panthers to get a hair up their arse about gun rights, take over the NRA and use it as a tool to beat back the anti-gun movements (which were en passant anti Black power) .

IMO, one of the best speeches ever..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoKzCff8Zbs

IMO, one of the best speeches ever..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoKzCff8Zbs

It's pretty amazing the Dem's held the White House in 64 and might have in 68 considering the loss of the Dixiecrats. Fucking 'Humphrey. Worthless.

It's pretty amazing the Dem's held the White House in 64 .

Helped that both Dr Strangelove and Fail-Safe were in theaters that year.