Sunday Forum; Ralph Abernathy And Coretta Scott King: Coalitions For Non-Violence: Resisting The Storm Together

I was asked when I sat down before why are people who feel as we do on the defensive all over the place today. And I have to tell you I don't feel the least bit on the defensive. I think if you read the newspapers even if you don't you just absorb the atmosphere. You know who's on the defensive and it is not us. It is a president who uses his office to spy on his opponents to make sure that the ordinary citizen can't meet his tax burdens while United States Steel with five billion dollars in business and one hundred fifty four million dollars in profits pays no taxes. But if you're a charwoman who works for United States Steel and you earn $10000 you pay $800 in taxes. And he says we can't afford tax reform who's on the defense of us or him who's on the defensive this man that doesn't know how to deal with the problems of this country except to turn group against group while he spends our funds on cost overruns for airplanes to put on the museums in Dayton Ohio. You know they spend more money on the overruns on one airplane to put it in a museum I mean they put it in a museum so it won't fly. I don't know what else to do with it. And that was more money than the whole war on poverty the same year and so what do they do they

close down the war on poverty and make more airplanes to put museums in Dayton Ohio. So I'm not on the defensive and I think nobody in this room is I don't think we're tired. I don't think that if we are tired or going to admit it and I don't think if we're tired admit it it means we're quitting. I think what it means is that we're angry enough to regroup and to resist as the conference we're at. This weekend is. Doing to resist this wave of repression and regression and stupidity and corruption because just as surely as you and I here we know that this country is our country and we are in the phrase that Robert Kennedy made immortal going to reclaim it from these people who misuse it and despoil it and who represent so little of it. And none of it's spirit. Now I say all of that because I'm about to introduce somebody who represents what all of us know America ought to be. And I think maybe what I'm going to do next is to quote from the unpublished works of

myself on this subject because I like most of you read an article in New York Times magazine that drove me up the wall. And I wrote him a letter which they didn't print as many of you did. And I read this to you because in introducing her I want her to know that all of us know that what she is is beyond any kind of yapping at her heels by any magazine or any kind of distortion by any writer who wants to find some way to try to attack those whose greatness is beyond that kind of trivia. This is king may seem regal to some people as did Mrs. Roosevelt. But an article that spends so much type conjuring up a regal Mrs. Roosevelt while ignoring her compassion and

selflessness would be a caricature. Like Mrs. Roosevelt Mrs. King tries to go wherever she is needed and be available no matter what the inconvenience to herself. If she was beloved at first because she was a great man's wife she soon came to be loved for herself as well. Like Mrs. Roosevelt her stature and influence have grown with her widowhood. She has kept faith with her husband's ideals and supporters and has managed to update his projects in the process. It says something important and good about America that you produced correct a Scott King. Not many people work as hard to make America a better place and millions of Americans are grateful to her and for her. I remember a speech five years ago. I think this week after the horror of Memphis Robert Kennedy said that the future of this

country might lie beyond our vision. But it was not beyond our shaping. And that it was in the spirit of this country that the works of our own hands matched to reason and principle could produce a land in which at last we would be brothers. Well today we welcome you with our hands in the hands of one of the greatest of our citizens who works all the time to shape that future into the kind of place where we can at last with a movie love justice and still love our own country. Mrs. King I. Thank. You good afternoon and thank all of you.

Thank you Alex Lowenstein for those words. Generous or gracious I feel indeed humbled. I cannot tell you how deeply appreciative I am to see all of you here. Most of you are our guest today. I'm not going to take a lot of time trying to fight everybody because I can't and would prolong this luncheon that is already. Long overdue for having been completed but I'll just say from the bottom of my heart thank all of you for all the things that you've done to help bring us to this point. I do want to thank Robin Abernathy for his presence here today. I know how busy his schedule is and the demands of this.

These Christian Southern Christian Leadership Conference that all of us on the member practically all of us on the board boards of directors and trustees have been working actively over the years to support. At this fourth annual conference of the Santa we meet with a theme called Mission strategies for Nonviolent Social Change. Resist in the storm together. As we discussed the issues and problems which relate to this theme during our meeting I began with the direct recollection of the Spirit engendered by the movement my husband and I had it was and he is a spirit that cannot be extinguished. It is a spirit profound in its implications for the course of history. It is the spirit of people coming together of people working and driving and moving for social justice through a nonviolent Law Society which is at once loving and

powerful. It is appropriate at this meeting to view the movement in the context of the center and recent history. We lost our leader five years ago this week. But we did not lose his noble mission and I think everyone here can rightfully say that the mission is in fact being carried out by and by that same spirit which has ignited when which was ignited when an unknown black woman Mrs. Rosa Parks refused to give up a seat on a bus in Montgomery Alabama on that dreary December day and 1955. Very significant progress has been made in the struggle for nonviolent social change since the first assembly four years ago and the Sunnah itself has been in the vanguard. We have

initiated serious programs and activities for men. We have moved ahead with plans for the construction of the physical site which will permanently on all the lights and ideals of Martin Luther King Jr.. We have brought this project to a point where we can safely describe the model the King Jr. Memorial Park with a complex of recreational and educational fill facilities as fully planned and financed the remains of the Sunnah site remains to be funded but the amount achieved is substantial and when completed this will be the largest Memorial to a black leader in the nation's history. We have developed what we call the center's outreach involvement in the movement. For example we have been deeply involved in the struggle of millions of blacks brown and white poor working people for economic justice notably the causes of the United Farm Workers and the national hospital workers

union. These people who have been suffering from part time poverty wages for full time disrespected work. These are people who would fare better on relief rolls but prefer it but prefer to work. These are people who are black brown and white. And have found that unity benefited all races and cultures. We have directly supported these working people men and women in demonstrations and organizing drives and in helping them up Jain church support legal and financial aid and media exposure. Another area of our outreach work is the quest for representative government for minorities. This is so pivotal. And the destiny of black people that it has called my continuous personal involvement and that of many

of the persons associated with the center. And dramatic progress of vast importance has been taken place prior to the Voting Rights Act in 1985. There were fewer than 100 black elected officials in the south. The voter education project found in a recent survey that there are one thousand one hundred and forty elected black officials in 11 states today. And that's a net increase of two hundred seventy one as a result of the 1972 elections was the largest of any year since Reconstruction. This means two things. It means that the movement has followed through with the critical task of political organizing voter registration political education getting out the vote which was necessary to implement the hard

won right to vote. The movement did not die as so many proclaim it transferred its energy to the political arena with the same effectiveness it had in the 60s. Secondly it means that power is changing hands. Politicians are now compelled to consult the black community as a decisive bloc and black elected officials are now in a position to make the decisions and policies which affect the daily lives of millions of people. To give only one example which is repeated a hundred fold every day the blacks now control the blacks now in control of the county commission and Board of Education in Green County Alabama decide where upwards of 40 million dollars for schools and health and other services money that the black community never saw in the

past. And the sheriff in that same county Thomas a veteran like so many of today's black office holders is there to see that there will be no reign of terror no on equal administration of justice. Brothers and Sisters. That is revolutionary. Power is changing hands when white liberal and effective leadership all the Mises from its set backs. They will find a vital black political force prepared for honorable coalition and for a powerful assault on reaction. The multiple activities of the sun are diverse and widespread but of common relevance to the movement to touch briefly on these additional efforts we have developed and submitted to the city of Atlanta an

unusual community crime prevention program designed to involve churches young people Street leaders high schools and literally the entire community in solving the problem of crime which debilitates our communities. The server is engaged in continuing studies of violence in the schools and in the American factories with the aim of clearly identifying the real sources of these problems so that workable solutions can be developed. The center is proud of our continuing working partnership on real action and cooperative and largely on Herald but effective programs to bring about real economic independence and rural poor communities by the development of businesses and cooperatives. Generations to come and with them future struggles will be the beneficiaries of our own growing collection of the documentary materials on the past and present movement

and at a library is already a service available on a day to day basis. Even small children are learning through weekly store hours portraying the African and African American experience. Finally they are two major projects of tremendous kum continuing importance. One is the repeated showings of the odyssey of Martin Luther King Jr. The film has instructed and inspired more than 10 million people and he is a most powerful educational tool for young and old alike. In schools prisons military installations churches. To understand the nonviolent movement the other project is the annual celebration of my husband's birthday Jan. 15. This isn't this is a useful and certainly a means of

keeping our movement alive and vigorous. Symbolic of all of these activities of the center is the physical side itself. And I am pleased to report that the plans are moving rapidly ahead. We now have a timetable for completion of the permanent entombment area and dedication of the birth home in January 1970 for the dedication of the community center and Memorial Park in January 1975 and completion of the son of law including facilities housing in various activities of the entire South and January 19 76 which is the bicentennial year of the founding of this nation. We come now to conditions we face and the nation and in the world today. By definition the mission of the nonviolent movement is to

achieve social change by confronting injustice. It is to transform what is based and humanity and to what is good and humanity. Non-violence seeks to all come violence and social injustice. Is violence of the worst or in 1967 my husband remarked that on his and 1967 my husband remarked that his own national government was the greatest purveyor of violence in the world. Today it is tragically necessary to say that this condition has not changed. Overshadowing all of the personal violence that exists in our nation. Is the violence being perpetrated by our national government. To those who rejoice in the current use of the word the words

peace with honor. I would ask what is honorable about the deeds of brutality bombing Vietnam only last Christmas and doing the same thing to the people of Cambodia today. Thank you. There can be no honor in violence. And of course no peace. But let us not forget the violence being inflicted upon people here at home by our own government. Let us not forget that guns and bombs are not the only instruments of violence. And in Washington we have seen an administration attacking a wide range of social programs as being inflationary and irresponsible. Well let us examine these attacks. I do not believe that a mentally retarded child is responsible for inflation. I do not buy

that. To close down the community center which ministers to him is unscrupulously violent. I do not think that the family farmer who faces bankruptcy because of the damage of an ice storm is causing inflation. I think that tonight I am a disaster is a violent action. I cannot fathom how every elderly citizens living on fixed incomes can cause inflation. The truth is that all the citizens are the victims of violence when they are forced by budgetary cutbacks to pay 1 billion additional dollars each year for medical care. We might ask if children drinking milk and eating lunch in school are the some of the creators of inflation. But I can answer that depriving hungry children of school food programs is valid.

Thanks. And it must be stopped. Just think of some of the policies coming from the administration these days. The closing down of 977 community action programs the reduction of 4 million for an 8 10 billion dollars in manpower programs to provide training and help people to find meaningful and productive work. The cutbacks and phasing out of one hundred five federal educational programs including those assisting disadvantaged children and helping communities to desegregate the elimination of Grant and loan programs which have been the only hope for so many minority students for higher education. The veto of programs to provide vocational training for the deaf blind the severely handicapped the phasing out of five hundred fifteen local mental health centers over the next eight

years with slashes and funds for pollution control for medical research legal services to the poor child care public service employment and summer jobs for the young. The freeze and building homes for low and moderate income families. Sometimes the American people have been told that we must all suffer and hard times but blacks and other poor people know that we do not all suffer equally. We still aren't out of the Great Depression of the 1930s. The present situation is even worse in the sense that some are not suffering at all but are benefiting from the national policies and priorities. The proposed military spending budget shows an increase of 5 billion dollars to an all to an all time high. Corporate profits are astronomical. I say it is violent to waste the people's money on instruments of death and destruction at

the expense of people in desperate need of social services. Coalition strategy is for Nonviolent Social Change resisting the storm together. I view our three message jesting some directions which the sun and the whole movement for social change can take in the days ahead. The concept of coalition around political economic and other issues is not easily accepted because it often is assumed that any given component group should yield on its most urgent concerns to a collective compromise. Black people have had some bitter experience with coalitions. It was the center call of use of racist politics which destroyed the hopes of the black poor alliance of black poor white alliance in the all Southern populist movement. But this need not be so

strong and healthy coalition can bring together widely disparate interests working for a common goal. The key to this is mutual trust and respect for the most vital interests of each component group in the coalition. What this means for example is that the coalition must follow the leadership and direction of blacks on racial issues. All of the working poor on the issue of collective bargaining rights or the academic community and the question of education are all environmentalists on the need for protecting our national natural resources. When we take the notion of coalition out of the realm of abstract discussion it can be legitimately asked but will it work. And I think the answer is that it can work. After all most of the progressive national legislation over the last 40

years from Social Security to the civil rights statues was brought about by coalition politics the alliance of minorities labor and other liberal elements and the combination of black leadership and white support and movement as bad as conditions are today God knows what would have happened without at least the progress that we have made. Another very legitimate question is What if there are no coalitions working for progressive change. I think we can answer that by looking at recent history in the late 1960s the old coalition that went back to the New Deal began falling apart and honestly the civil rights movement became fragmented. The witness coalition marked a faltering of social change. Some of the results are ominous indeed. We now see a policy of appointing strict constructionists

to the Supreme Court which means an emerging reversal of the lip of the libertarian course of decisions which have been so crucial not only to blacks but to the very idea of freedom itself. We have benign neglect which translated comes out as malignant in Metairie. We have the new federalism actually the transfer of responsibility for grave national problems to the state and local governments which are ill prepared at best and racist or reactionary at worst. We have the work ethic but no jobs for millions. And we have a torrent of impoundment and claims of executive privilege which in its totality is a record of aperture and secret government coverups cutbacks and the seizure of powers from the representatives of the people in Congress.

I. I I would hope then that the need for coalitions for progressive action is clear and compelling. What we must do you know in my view are viable coalitions for Nonviolent Social Change coalitions which always give. Priority to the needs of the masses of people. And it is here that the center can play a role. And the spirit of many kinds of polarization in the society. The center can be a unique agency and pulling people together. People who have common interests but who have strayed and drifted apart to cite some examples of what I mean. The black community itself is somewhat polarized politically economically and ideologically. I think the center is challenge with the task of helping blacks to get together not

only on social issues but also in terms of dealing with blacks every day relationships with each other. We have much to do in advancing the philosophy of nonviolence as the loving caring sharing way of life within our own community. Another area in which the center can now move forward is in the international dimension that must be a part of the nonviolent movement. Just because the troops are out of Vietnam does not mean that global tensions and poverty and racism on a world wide scale are diminished. I think that the idea of progressive coalition much of it must reach across national boundaries more than ever before and the center should relate to this with special attention of African Affairs. And the third world countries to return to the subject of pulling people together here at home. The center is in a position to cooperate with a

wide variety of groups and problems. For example the work of the peace movement and in regard to Vietnam is not completed. The president of the United States served tend to law and to Mr. To this week while the bombs fell on Cambodia and thousands still languished in the tiger cages of Vietnam. The struggle of the poor has only just begun. Recognition of decent employment and incomes as a right of all people has not been won. The quest of women for full equality is in its infancy. The problem of alienation and drug abuse cries out for solutions. There is a desperate need to overhaul the whole system of education. The pollution of the air we all breathe in the water we all drink beers of elemental importance and we all know that the struggle for black liberation and the search for a cure for rape white racism more than

lifelong pursuits. These efforts can span the centuries. It is the role of the Senate to help unite people behind coalitions for Nonviolent Social Change. It is our role to do bold and original research and planning so that issues will be sharply defined and coherent solutions can be worked out. It is our role to teach the young the history of the nonviolent movement and its application to present and future situations. It is our role to unite forces collaborate with the weapon strengthen the movements going in a progressive direction. Daum has struck America it threatens to engulf us and more hate and greed more suffering and discrimination. What we must do is resist the stone together. Let us show people that

they need each other. Black and white rich and poor Gentile Protestant Catholic all of us. Let us dispel the illusion that a black and poor are the only victims of the present course of American history. The student the veteran the woman the consumer the consumer conservationist even the hardhat alternately stand to lose and a power structure seeking to divide and conquer to exploit racism and class differences. The conflict in America today is essentially one of a lot of people against the greed for things. But when the givers and the takers. But when non violence and violence I have seen nonviolence transform the lives of individual human beings. I have seen nonviolent social change take

place in my own lifetime and revolutionary propulsion and that is why I believe that we shall prevail against the stone. Because we have the spirit and imagination to develop coalition strategies for further nonviolent social change and the experience and resolve to resist the storm together. My brothers and sisters. Martin Luther King Jr. in his lifetime. It wasn't goeth by many storms and yet he dared to dream the impossible dream and to then to do the impossible things. Let us all like Martin Luther King Jr. dare to

dream the impossible dream to find the unbeatable foe to bear the unbearable sorrow Toronto where the brave dare not go to write the unrideable wrong to love pure interest from afar to try when your arms are too weary to reach the unreachable star. This is my quest. This should be our quest to follow that star no matter how hopeless no matter how far. To fight for the right without question appalls to be willing to march into hell for a heavenly cause. And I know and I believe that if we will only be true to this glorious quest that our hearts will lie peaceful and calm when they are laid to rest and the world will be peaceful and calm. That one

individual very collective group of individuals told one. With and the world will be peaceful and calm that a collective group of individuals torn and covered with scars still strolls with their last ounce of courage to reach yes to reach to reach the unreachable star. Thank. You.