Say Brother; Oh My God, Mama King Is Gone

See my landlady. Mrs. King standing here next to her husband and a family portrait was playing the organ when the gunman opened fire. She was shot in the head and died in a hospital a half hour later a deacon in the church was also killed. A third victim a woman is listed in satisfactory condition. Mrs. curettage King the widow of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was not in the church this morning. She went to the king home later to be by Dr. King's side. I was three a week yesterday but. I'm not going to quit. I'm not going to stop. I am tired. Maybe I'll come back and make this plan with somebody like you say you came after me last Sunday. So

let him come back back. You can't do a thing but kill this bridge in this marsh. And I really believe we shall. You're. Welcome to say brother. Dillard with me this evening or Bernice Miller who is the associate director for the Center for Urban Studies. Ruth Betson is the director of consultation and education for the Boston University Community Mental Health Center. And of course Elma Lewis is the director of the Alma Lewis School of Fine Arts we're a special show on say Brother this evening on the death of Mrs. King's Sr.. We're going to talk about some of the things that it means to her family about the man who did it. What possible motive he could have.

What it means to the black community and what it means to the country. I feel so sorry for Mr. King's Sr.. You know he said. After the death when someone asked him how he felt. He said Well. Everyone's here with me now and people are coming in and going out and it's all right. But tomorrow or the day after when they're going to be all gone and I'll be all by myself. I just thought that was the saddest thing. And the most. Insane thing. To kill his son. You can see a reason to kill his wife to kill Mrs. King Sr.. What possible. Reason or motivation can there be. Is it a totally senseless act as far as you see. Except that you know. I don't I think it was a totally senseless act. But if you if it had been a reason that I think all murders senseless because at some point it says this is I think about there being a reason for murder is that King didn't lose sight of whether it

is important to. Anybody but yourself. And that's so self centered that I think it really bore It's insanity at the moment of committing the anger. But when you think of Mrs. King You could also think of her as the source. The source. I don't think. I don't think hoggish not thought of it. But she is the source the background the support of the strength as a family. From what I hear really the power behind the family initiated right. That's right. And of course you know the King family has been to has represented in a sense black families in this country. And I think this is why the people have felt this way about Mrs. King's death that this was a family that stood for so much that produced this fine leader. Do any of you see anything to a conspiracy theory. I do. Yes I'm willing to believe that this young man just came here of his own volition came to Alabama up to Atlanta

and all of his own volition just deliberately set out he seems so obviously insane. Yes. But people feel sick. Was you can't use mentally healthy people to commit senseless. All right. But if you're going to hire someone you know to do this kind of thing and I just can't believe that that's what it is you would hire someone who's responsible. And you you don't even have to pay the person who's jail. Now you can convince him that it is a lot it is not correct. Ah. The thing that really is so appalling is that. Such a ridiculously high price is required for doing the right thing. And somehow the people who like society are never asked to pay that supreme blah price. All those people who in fact dignifies a world asked to pay the assassin's bullet if you choose though and I hear you saying that you agree with his views on this why Who is this unanimous.

Well you know somehow in America we never want to discover the source of evil and it's easier to cover it over and say because the source of evil is us. I want to point out to Gwen that black people have never been the assassin type in this country and it is very very easily. And this an unusual role for black people. So therefore you would have to use someone who was not. Acting in his normal pattern. I don't think you could get the not even the average criminal if is such a place to go. You know Martin Luther King's mother. That's right. Yes. Yes. The black young man who was immediately killed after shooting from Colombo who was said to be acting radically in what. And we'll never know. If you look at the pattern of people who've been shot assassinated murdered and whatnot they have been erratic. At

some point in their life. And I'm saying when you say used I think that is precisely the right term. There are so many sophisticated techniques there so there are all kinds of interesting the jury wouldn't have to have a conspiracy as such. But the people who down say we're going to do with the brain like why when you say that they asked for it. Because that's what you mean by this. I believe that it comes from places of very high places like very high such well-lived I couldn't find them. I would be just to someone to speak with that of. Which. I know not. But I think what that is not any small group of inconsequential people. It happens too often and to the same type of people consistently for me to believe in talking about the King and Kennedy and people like that. Now connects that people to people who are. Reaching a plateau of people thinking. People who are

approaching a level where maybe they can turn things around. Or maybe they can cause us to look at life differently before they can really make the clear enunciation their voices are stilled. And that would seem to be too much coincidence for me. I. See this too. As a rising tide against people who as you say can turn things around. I don't see it as any kind of concerted conspiracy but I see it as directed against people who seem to be able to make a difference in the moral life of the country the moral behavior that you see as I watched the reverend the senior Reverend King speaking there. And I looked at Martin's older son standing next to him with that look of quiet. Mature strength and determination. You can't kill an idea. You've got an idea. There some the young ones. And I saw his cousin sitting there listening attentively to her grandfather. You see.

The strong man is turning brown says keep coming on. The strong men get stronger. You said that until recently. Black assassins were not. A common thing. They were coming out of the black community right. Until very recently right now is the same kind of idiotic. Pointless random violence that has marked the white community that has come out of the white man. Why is this becoming a black thing. Well I think that as we. People have gone to war and they've learned how to use these kind of instruments I think they are copying the wrong things. I think that we're beginning to get confused in our own search for our identity and we I think we have Alman I have a friend who constantly says that we have trouble identifying the enemy and the enemy is confused here. And asked the dress myself that we have in mind of what stock market shopping A young men

of approximately the age of Chanel came up to me. It was the day after Mrs. King was buried and he could see some justification. And I went crazy and was talking so loud in the supermarket and scolding them you could see just as he could he said that the ministers should go. And then I had to stand up in the little supermarket and stop teaching. And I called Jesse Jackson. Yes he said that he never raped me and you have never sent your father from getting a job. Did any of you know and I had to also remind him of what the church has done for one. I said how did the black slaves even know there was a revolution in Haiti. They realized that the at time was putting out a newspaper to tell you what was happening. Maybe they haven't done everything in the world. They've got a lot more than many but they haven't you know all get on the scale of who who your enemies are speaking of knowing your relatives you know that in terms of those people who are going to help or not help our

community and those people we should turn our ire against where we are where we do put the black budget. I mean they are highly organized and they are doing it and they are helping them. We have our enemies in anger against the black church is not that uncommon to say. And I'm not criticizing that common because you see here I am at the one corner of Elm Hill Avenue and down at the other end of the street. Reverend Davis has 2000 members many of them children. He has children who go there and sing in that choir. Fifty two weeks a year 100 children. So it's not common. But that isn't even the point where we're digressing from the main point. One of the main points is when you are angry. Learn how to direct that anger. Black people would be crazy if they weren't crazy. And we went because if we weren't angry riots right now when I get ready to be angry I have to say do I want to fight or do I want to win.

You say and the healthy mind wants to win that young man not only wanted to be a loser he wanted to create a home of losers with him. And I think we'd better start to think about what it is we teach young people. All right but the question is why would he want to create a room of black losers in the black community when can I can I say I don't know which is a racial kind of music or can I make this point. I think when we're talking about what we teach our people this is a very important point. We've just started talking about black history and it's very important to know our history not only not just the old old history but the more contemporary history. I have been amazed to find that there are children coming up who do not know Martin Luther King. That's right. And just almost history that its heyday and it was I've heard people for example who claim to be great jazz enthusiasts so they don't know Billie Holiday and I wonder how we can know our craft when we don't know certain kinds of.

That's part of the phenomenon that and I talked about on another occasion the blacks living permanently in the present their past this appears as soon as they leave them there. And so if you don't know the past and have respect for. And allow for differences of opinion this is another matter and that is what you see young blacks. I I was young blacks are not allowing for the differences of opinions and feelings that give us any color and dimension. And this has come about because I think of the kind of divisiveness that white people have gone into the black community seeing that with the Monohan reported by black women. You've seen it with other conferences. The first thing you do I've been to go to meetings where they'll say well you know the young people don't feel the way you feel you know and so do you stop another gap between blacks and all blacks are one man bandgap and we don't need any more gaps. And I see one of the basic problems is a lack of respect for the past history. People want to talk about what happened way

back there but we need to talk about the immediate past and the basic respect for the contributions that everybody has made in order to bring us any place. Let me go back just a minute to something we mentioned before we were talking about suicide or racial suicide meant that blacks who kill blacks are committing a form and show suicide so hate kill themselves when I go up the street and look at all those light poles knocked down et cetera. I mean largely by young people and young men they must be pretty hopeless to be that careless with their lives that they're up there quarreling with light poles and one I had a very trying experience young man rang my bell and he I let him into my house before I thought. And he said that he had come to kill both of us because he felt that we as a people could not win and he loved me so much. He didn't take me when in his seat but I love me so much that I think I can win. But he evidently was that hopeless that took a little talking little

maneuvering to get him out. And I see that as a great great problem in our community. I want to add to this a minute I want to caution those in leadership positions who do not take a risk themselves. Their rhetoric is of guns and fighting. And then the young people do not understand that it is rhetoric and they take it up and make it an actual fight. Now those are the rhetoric retire to the comfortable place they should all go on down to the halls of leadership positions and demand extreme responsibilities because you don't know when you where your words go. These words go out and they're received by so many different people so many different ones right that it really is a highly responsible act to take on and nothing happens in Quantum Leap. And one of the weekend syndrome and the lack of space and the compression which happens in the ghetto. Makes one wish that they.

Could be catapulted out. You know I think this whole thing of the Monday morning they are going up the retreat and seeing all the polls and all the residual of the Saturday night syndrome. You know what. Wait let me finish. OK. If it relates to it Ruth was saying about how younger people are on to see back of themselves to where they've come and how they were brought there step by step because they're so anxious to move. We see Madame succeeds like success. Yes. And if I finish points they don't know how to classify say the leaps and bounds is what young people see. And that all has to do with this other thing. I think we're losing out of the leaps and bounds are fewer than ever that now more than ever we're the fading race the disappearing. Well that's part of the timing of the batting that we were moving. That is really true. That isn't really true. You think about this sometimes when we have

a problem with students and I'm talking to them about this sense of despair. I say you consider those slaves jammed in on those slave ships and coming through that passage with no hope of relief. You consider those slaves whipped to death working in a reasonable fashion in those fields. And you consider women like my mother worked to death at an early age doing housework on her knees for people and that you can then you consider people like me who had to walk to college back and go hungry. And then you look at the day you came to how dare you. They say they will not disappear but what I'm talking about is when I talk to people about the death of Mrs. King and black people and say What do you feel. How do you react to it. How does it strike you. Does it make you angry. And they say well I don't know I don't feel anything. I mean it wasn't Martin Luther King. It was his mother. I don't know. You must really to be outraged by this.

I don't believe that you must remember that you don't get a chance in your position to talk to a wide cross-section of the USA and we sometimes talk to ourselves and we forget that we're talking to ourselves. There are another whole group of people who take that very personally. Take that very well. Yes I think so. I could talk to someone who lived very near a bar room where a lot of people just hang out. And people who you know you would think wouldn't be concerned but. This person said they walked past then a man came out and he said hey hey did you hear what happened. And this was the whole talk in this place. But if we were really angry about Mrs. King's death about any assassinations about the assassinations down on Columbus Avenue to go on on Saturday night if the country still had the ability to feel and to react to senseless violence.

Why doesn't it have the courage to do something about guns. You said you said two things. You said we and then you said the country and our country we are not we are not for we are right. I for one thing I think that we in the black community have got to learn to look at the things that plague us as a group in our own community and supper. And that's right because our country is concerned the mental health field. All right are we as horrified by violence as we should be or have we internalized the capacity for violence that I think is a long continuum of white people and not the people that we are talking to is almost as we're talking to each other about it. Mrs. King again back to what you said earlier is an older woman. When you look at the continuity there you know that in her father's church she gets killed and is buried in some way said You know if they have one more funeral they're going to have to at condition the church. And I said Well God forbid. You know when they will have to do it

for that reason because so many funerals. You know we've seen the inside of Ebenezer Church just think a small church two or three or four times going on or not knowing what to even be known but the continuity is lost on people who are trying to catapult themselves out of situations. And that's part of what we're saying. So that when you talk about identifying our concerns as a people as opposed to the concerns of the country. You know I think we've really been hit on it. We agree on thing because people do not react does not mean they do not feel. You cannot react unless you know what to do. And sometimes I think sometimes the low is a period of consideration. I think more of us I have heard more people than usual. Let me erase that about five years ago. You had so many people in the black community saying get a gun get a gun get a gun. We're hearing more and more people saying to the guy give up don't give up the gun.

I think that we have to look at the whole. Mental health issue because I come from there because the mental health of a community is affected. And we have to look at some of these things just in that way that carrying guns changes the carry the gun carrier into an entirely different person. I mean you know you know people who I'm with a gun become a different person you know they have our lives and so that Howard you have to look at the kinds of things that happen to people when guns become assessable and available and the kinds of things that makes them feel that they can do the kind of power that it gives them. And see this as a negative kind of thing a start to work on those kinds of issues and you're sick and mentally disturbed as he might have been had he not had a gun could not have created that kind of hovered over the polar bear or punched a few people or broken the future. And then you say he could have been treated and probably regained his mental health.

What a great many people do not consider is that he is going to have a long agonized period of suffering. Well one of the young men who has spent maybe eight or 10 years in prison told me that one of the things that is. Just irrevocable is that a murderer never forgets that he has nightmares that he must talk about his crime. I'm just not sure he has the mental stability to have that kind of root of all this and we don't know this we don't really know anything about him we don't know whether this is a temporary thing. We really don't know a lot about mental illness to say anything like that. And also maybe even if he is going to try to do something else about him that intrigues me when we're talking about mental aberrations more than that that may be you know turning on ourselves here from everything that we read was a religious fanatic of some sort that he was into and out of the ordinary fairly. Mystic religion the proposed solution is to actually reject

his plan. How strange though. That in a sense Malcolm X who should also come from a religious fanatic background if you want to characterize it that way should go on to use that background and turn it into being a strong person a positive person is positive and to sit and visit his community. Know should turn into a twisted murderer. This fine line isn't there. And as Ruth pointed out we don't even understand that fine line is that kind of religious mysticism part of. Self-destructive tendencies. Well I wouldn't I wouldn't even begin to talk about it because you know some people who that this kind of religious adherence has strengthened them. It has been the only way that they've been able to say that Malcolm. So you point that out yourself. And it's kind of hard to make any kind of diagnosis. I am more concerned with the broad issues that affect a community in a broad sense and thereby affects the individuals within that come from a political philosophy of

philosophizing or an armchair is laughably activist. I would really want us to address us as to how to change the small areas in which we live all over the country. There are black people in black communities who want to reconstitute that particular community. That's what we talked about taking the quantum leap and moving forward. Well where is the quantum leap to now if we move through the Martin Luther King period where are we moving forward to now. Well the Nazis and Malcolm X said that the goal was not to integrate ourselves with a country but to separate ourselves from the country where do we stand. Were we moving toward where these community organizations and groups. Where do we see is our new mindset. Maybe we have to be precise when we speak of what Malcolm said when I was very well liked that one of the that was it. Right. But when he doesn't want to get caught. Yes but he was not saying toward the end that we should separate ourselves from. He was saying we should make

certain kinds of alliances that would strengthen us while retaining our identity. But I think though that the thing that we have to say is that. We sorrow while we sorrow so much with the King family we our sorrow also goes to the parents of Szczytno. Oh yes. And then we have to sorrow for all of us. Because we have to believe that this is this is our start taking the lead but by getting on. It is at this point it is not a lot but it has been our lot in this country. Now we must find a way to give ourselves a new position. Work in the world position where you say a new position in the world you're talking about as us not as part of the country I'm talking about us as a people because when I think about black people I think about black people in the Caribbean in Africa in the south and think about black people and the totality of the world

where they are in fact the majority. Do still has use practical use for the leaders and members of the King generation. You know they had his list of 10 or 12 or whatever it was people when you are addressing yourself to what you see. How are you. I don't see how any young person to be arrogant enough to want to erase his past. I don't know any human being for whom I have no practical use. If nothing else he serves as a model of what not to do sometimes. But there is a practical use for every human being. Who am I. Who made me God to make that judgment. That's exactly right. Not the meat but you know it isn't going to be done badly by sincere reason people in a long continuum and everybody fits into that continuum. And when you said our lot has always been S.R.O as well as our tribe.

Let's take a look at an earlier period not of sorrow but a strength not spoke deprecatingly at the King family as the dreaming kings. Let's take a look at the film clip of the dream when it was most alive most vital. I really am an American dream. I have a dream that one day. When. We. Had a dream one day.

When injustice from freedom and greed. This is the second time that friends and neighbors political leaders and newsman have gathered at the king home. The first time was after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis. At that time his father took some comfort in the knowledge that his son's life had a special purpose and that his death by violence was proof of that purpose. I had a dream. Where's the dream. This is newish life without dreams. That's you all right. Life without dreams. If he made that speech over 10 years ago I'd say something if he had not in fact dreamed. I went to Jackson Mississippi to speak in Tougaloo and Jackson Mississippi has always been in the back of my mind a chamber of horrors. And I've been terrified to think

about going to Jackson and I was riding through Jackson and saw black and white junior high school kids playing football together at a junior high school. And I don't even see that in Boston right. So so in fact something has changed. I'm going to tell you something else and I'm going to personalize this a little bit things in America have not come to be what they should be for black people things in the world have not come to be. But. I had to go to four southern cities in six days and I am a diabetic and that does not mean I will how many people died of things like that not lynching. Right. I could go in the ladies room and take care of my feet and probably not lose my leg by amputation. I could go in the dining room I know that a lot of young people say what is the lunch counter I see. But I could go and get the correct food and not have to walk down the dusty road to a greasy spoon. I could in fact go in the first available drugstore and get

insulin. I know that that. And. The fact that that movement exists and changed that for me and made this whole trip possible. Prior to that I would not have been able to stop for any reason would have been fleeing through. We've never been able to do that many groups of black people in that few days would not have been able to try to constitute something I know and the ironic thing is someone said was that it was Martin Luther King who made it possible for Marco Schnall to travel down to it. That's right in the front of the bus and stay in a hotel and either the lunch counter if it hadn't been for he would not have been able do the math of course the movement can't stop for that because of that. The other thing I was thinking of when you were talking that in July of 1964 just about 10 or even 10 years ago you might remember I went to Mississippi and at that time Mississippi was a chamber of horrors and we went in a integrated group where women went from all over the country

to see if they could relieve the problem of the young people who were working in Mississippi you know there were a lot of young students black and white who were working Mississippi and were catching hell because of it. As we got off the plane we immediately had to separate. And at that time I was the only black woman in that group and I had to go by myself and the white woman went with their group. And it was a pretty desolate feeling for me who would always make ask me and I was scared to death. And so things have changed. I also was thinking as King was speaking them I was there at that moment and I forget it. And I'll never forget the feeling of all of these people standing close together and walking and talking together. When you asked earlier Gwen about the leadership you know whether it's true that we need leaders. I still think we need but we haven't come to a leader like not leaders but the old leaders. Well I don't know what kind of lead with them over Mrs. King thinks about that.

We saw a film of her being comforted for King. No. Yes grammatically correct. Still believes. She would have to still believe you. I had a conversation with a couple of months ago. I think we know more than most of us. I was going to say does she believe that it's been worthwhile they talk to evaluate whether it's worth losing your husband. She is however desolate she is. I think in fact gave her life a new turn and made her a larger person and certainly has given those children a larger view of life. Does it strengthen the family you made the comment once the dust would either destroy the family or strength to go. I'm not sure about the other Mrs. King's death. And that I never knew her but the younger people of that family are very strong young people. But isn't it interesting though that you have heard more about the older Mrs. King now in her death than we did before.

I don't think we're all of Christ. Had he not died the kind of death he died we probably wouldn't have heard about it. Had Dr. not died. The kind of death he died. With the movement probably would have been lost. Sometimes there does need to be that kind of punctuation mark. Unfortunately I don't know quite human learns her quite that right away. They do responsibility in the idiom of Dr. King's philosophy. As someone said the other day. Yes. They have done absolutely nothing to deserve it. So they suffer. Know for no real reason. The damage is redemptive. Women used to to hold each other down in the south as I'm sure you've heard about this. When you bear sons don't expect them to grow up to maturity just don't come along. Don't expect them to live out their lives. And I think they still say that. Well yes I said that somebody said all over America. And in fact one of the things that I find incumbent upon teaching in my situation is to make young

boys 12 years old aware of the fact that they can have the same kind of childhood that a white suburban kid has to fooling themselves if they try to catch that their childhood has to be early manhood. I call black children very immature. That's what I call them. And they must soon come cost. Two of our youngsters one or two Bradleys the other day shopping and had a very unpleasant experience. 12:14 first time shopping by themselves I said all right now you're tasting being a black man you're a black little boy. When people thought you were killed. And all of a sudden you're not cute. You get to be what might be a threat. So now you have to be looking over your shoulder every minute. You have to be aware if you want to survive and amount to something in either physical survival is taken away of a psychic survival. And in order to retain both then all of the black community must constantly strengthen we have nobody to say only those new leaders not anybody else. We're all natives.

What does it take. To strengthen within ourselves our communities. What does it take to take care of the market. That's why they're still children. What does it take for us to coalesce and it starts it takes not listening to all of that garbage that is largely taught in American society. And to understand the almost impossible ethics no it's not. Pretty sure you're you're into continental health it's. I don't. Think they should rufous into mental health. All right. That is so difficult when you live in the center. That kind of country it's so difficult to isolate yourself as a community and raise yourself with different standards. You say that when the community's already isolated the community's been isolated for us we're already. Those of us who live in Roxbury know that there are already services that are taken away from certain kinds of things that we can have there within the drugstore. We're already isolated. I have filed a suit in federal court against the Dybvig

company. Now that may seem like a crazy kind of suit because they refused to deliver diapers to as a gift that I gave to one of my my daughters and I'm going to live in that kind of isolation. Lisa I'm going to try. So you are stronger because you fight it. So I'm going to find. That's right. And you develop as a human being. Let me tell you what that is the kind of thing. And we're already in isolation to the As someone said to me I said you know I may be wrong but I think that perhaps the arts are as important many times as food and this person said perhaps even more. And I'm saying that. If you look. Back and I'm really my grandmother was a slave that my great grandmother my grandmother and I knew her. So therefore I look back a lot. But as we all know people always were heavy into art. So that. You have that. And it's there. And I think that part of being able to stand living in the situation that we're in is the development

concomitantly with our skills of the arts. So we got to do that for kids. We got to constantly enrich their lives for other people. So it may be a friend who maybe like camp in the summer you know that with of the evils of it it's our right got home. Another thing you know we do truly live in a ghetto and that's where you live together only because somebody else objects when you so black children early see really really elevated professionals. Geniuses are very forms pushers ordinary people who just go to work and come home. They see everything. And when you think of the large numbers of black children who come through as beautiful human beings they're not good by accident. They have thought it over and made a commitment to the good life early in life you see. And I think sometimes we involve ourselves so much with the negative that we don't see the positive aspects of life in the black community. And when I look around I look

at them this morning as we left I saw hundreds of kids going into high school. Right. They know so much so young. And they know I'm not going to do that. Second and third graders No I'm not going to take away by conscious decisions my conscious decision because they've had to do it that early and it's my job and they know in fact that was one little girl was lonesome another little girl was saying well you don't need to be lonesome. Everybody here will talk to you. And what I want to talk to some expectant mother shall I go and talk to law is she had made last night and got my 12 year old and I have all kinds of mechanisms that make us strong and heroic epic in. That's right. But don't you think when we have got to start demanding certain things of the people who come into the community businesses only for example I think the stores that come in and that are dirty I walk to the mall for example disrespect and it's total disrespect and we can continue to accept this

disrespect but sometimes people are apt to think of these things as trivial. But this is not to start with the parents and how people treat the community and I was started with the cessation of the garbage collection downtown and then it deteriorates from there on them. And if you don't start with it starts with the dumpster outside of my fence yet you can't get moved because it's on somebody else's property. Downtown can't find out but you don't find a dumpster in Cambridge. You know sometimes it's property people are apt to say well you know that's actually a real thing and I'd rather go for this big thing. But you know you can get used to looking at certain things and it says what you think about it and so you get used to it. You walk by every day and every day and so you get used to it. I'm always upset by the mothers I see sitting on a doorstep with little children playing among beer cans and things like that. And I say now that's not loving yourself enough. You know if those people who are into the church have to remember that you have to love your neighbor. As yourself. So you can't really love anybody else till you love

yourself. You have to say I am too good for this. So what I hear you saying Out of all this is is develop on those within the sense of the children the way you want them without worrying about reference to where am I in the mirror that I'm going with just white America to think that they can get away with it without a fight because we fight with the is we are going to keep on continuing to say you can do this. You can occupy something because that is your due for your taxes and your contributions to this country are mental contributions your moral contributions your financial contributions that you do. That's why you require it. Much so that you can occupy a place in white America. Gross we do occupy a place like it or not. Yes but I would like to say this that no man's estimate of you is who you are. Your own estimate of you is who you are. So if all of White America decides I'm a bum that doesn't make me a bum what I did. Insulate yourself from that attitude. Well you have to look at it like this.

Who wrote history from whose standpoint from whose perspective is it written if it were written just American history by the Indian It would be very different to literature white man would become the intruder. Right. So when you start thinking about black people. It's very easy to inculcate in a black child exactly what you said from whence we came. And the way we came Look where we've come. It's a. Fabulous fantastic. Kind of record of achievement. My younger sister read everything that's going you know. So therefore it's very easy in a ghetto. People live in income enclaves. We never get a window pane to you so we've got examples of people to point out things that look at what she did. My younger sister says we have so much to celebrate. It's no more than that we survived on the articular insides of Pigs and stuff like that beautifully made by life to bring other people along. Well you know I was thinking again of Dr. King and his teeth.

He talked about love and continue talking about love as a group and how you love your neighbor. And your love for yourself and your love for the animals. Now this is the kind of thing that young people have found just sticking their father. You know I've heard them I remember standing in the common when King came here one day and I was fortunate enough to be on the program with the MS verge what had brought that program to Boston and a young man came up to Martin Luther King and asked him for his autograph and he wrote it and he said you know Dr. King I admire you but I can't go for all that stuff that you're talking about you know somebody beat you in the head and so forth. And King looked at him and smiled and said well why did you come down in Mississippi with your philosophy. Yes. It isn't too hard to be related to any other young man. I looked about 20 in his early 20s just sort of smiled and looked a little shamefaced because immediately King's point was clear that you have to

love yourself and you had to be taken as well. And in Mississippi you just didn't go. I just realized I had to survive and I think he taught survival. You know one of the things that we overlook is that we let whites get away with overlooking too is that his message isn't just us you know nice to them to say I'm sorry you're Peter King dog like Boston. Don't want to be identified with Mississippi. OK. All right. What difference what impact has the message made on white America. You can see. And Cain brought his message to cicerone. He didn't fare too well. Has it made any dent on them. Well you see sometimes we see yet that any build the building of anything is a long and slow process. We have built towards a nation and instead of looking at that message I have a dream from 10 years ago that yes things have changed. That's typically progress. I can not see the eradication of problems in

10 years maybe not in 100 building. It's a slow process. You say we did this last year and it didn't work. How do you know whether it worked or didn't. Unique perspectives. And historic perspective. To find out whether or not a thing works now assessing what America I would be presumptuous to try that. You know the president has tried to be a large job for God. So I would be presumptuous to try to manage a grading Europe that was easier than integrating but the Boston school I mean how can we sit here and say But look at one thing. I don't know whether it was because of the assassination and because of the way Martin Luther King died. But if you just want to talk about the mood of white America they always talk about the mood of black America. I think they're regressing and I think they're going back but that doesn't have anything to do with us. Do you think they're regressing. I think they're regressing of course. I know they are. I mean the backward slide is evident. In the fights they're having in New York over open admissions. I'm

only talking about my own my own bill. Your open admissions is up for scrutiny. Black studies are being cut. You know we're all available for study as likes. But when you start talking about black studies have you ever noticed that that it gets to be an invalid. Pursuit. I have to say which is just so interesting. But if anybody can come in and study us and it becomes sociology. But I'm saying that yes we are certainly going back as fast as we can to the 50s. Certainly the educational community is on the downward slide you know. But that doesn't mean it doesn't obliterate the fact that there were 17 blacks at Harvard graduate school in 1960 before Martin Luther King died. And there may be 200 there now. And they are there. And if you look at our leaders our leaders have been trained. They have been trained either by themselves or by. Black colleges or by their parents but they have been reading literate intelligent.

Bright. People. I think the thing that's troubling me and made me troubling you too that while we have seen much progress in that spear of life when we come to people who really are. Who are under educated as we would say and there hasn't been any progress I can't see movement among certain groups of people but where where and why people in the bar room are way our way. They have an awareness that they once didn't have they're not living at a better standard. But as I read that is them then we see the rise in the crime and the rise in the the frustrations because of how those things frustrate the frustration is that such a high level. And I would like to get to the place that we can move that to be. Yes but birth and death are both painful and if you're going to see that the death of a daughter and the birth of a mother you're going to get a lot of pain. We have been in a very real sense a war. And. We've had a lot of casualties a lot of our

casualties. Now we've got to try to win some battles so that finally we can win the war. We've got to address that. Did you conceive of winning the war as it comes. I that winning the war as the moral reconstitution of our people and the acknowledgement of interdependence among our people. Now what I've said our reconstitution if we become morally a strong community then we can not do this to ourselves or anyone else. We won't. Even have that as a concept. Also the morally strong person does not accept. Abuse. I have never believed in that as a philosophy. You say I am rather it's popular I'm not a witnessing practicing Christian and I remember that Christ went into the temple with a whip. I do not notice that you are supposed to bear other people's indignities. You are supposed

to respond when the Lord love it. He chases it so I will chasten. On the other hand I would not feel like much of a person if I was aggressive against other people. I have to be aggressive in the favor of humanity and that's what we need to be teaching in our community. So many people who consider themselves responsible leaders as I said earlier concerned themselves too much with. I say Tammet message really saying that if I can in fact violate my enemy I will be made happier. I have not noticed that it happened for them that any kind of annihilation made them happy. It left them even more frustrated because it didn't give them what they hoped to purchase with. I will quote another young man who was used to drive me. He said those people who recommend going to jelling never been.

But. You see the thing that I am thinking about. I'm thinking about children and you look at a child in the fourth grade. It's just a young man in the fourth grade and his whole life is affected by what happens to him in the fourth grade not only his life but the life of his life of their children to learn and for and way of reaching certain groups of people. And I don't have an answer. I don't have any answer except for this kind of. I firmly believe in the doctrine that King preached a that of love. That of caring for your neighbor that of looking out for your neighbor that of being concerned the whole community has and whether the community want you to be concerned or not. This is a philosophy that I firmly believe and I think is the only thing that can work for black people. We have got to learn how to love and we've got to learn how to be concerned. And we have to stop there and maybe if we stop there with the general concern for everyone we might be able to move towards winning the war. I think it's got to stop.

When I was fighting with loving ourselves you could have you on the side when you don't love yourself you have nothing to eat no no not any of it is seeing yourself in this light. This continual this achieving. Becoming light in spite of what the message may be from the outside world. Then you begin to not be a self. Hater you begin to not see yourself in this. Struggle to believe that this drive and the you know all the language of deprivation that is you see yourself not as the obverse of white life. But. As a person rather than that that a reactor as a person moving creating and living rather than this you said that you had that you brought that up because one of the dangers that I see is

of us becoming quite score as much as possible points. That's not a goal for us. That's not a goal that is what it is it. If it even were it's impossible. To get over that. But rather it was. But. Now I think since we said Black Power and I think there have been milestone. When he said black power and people got very nervous and very squeamish you know because. At that time there were some people who were getting ready to see some power. But there are people who don't understand the nature of power that is as bad as it can be expanded it is not necessarily mercantile and that's hydraulic and you don't have to fight over it. You know your hour is what people need to address just because as you point out Bernice's not necessarily financial.

My thinking is that the only power is the only power the power of correct makes love is the only power. And I find that a lot of people are afraid. Of people perhaps. So it must then be less that big. You know I wish I had the chance to talk with Mrs. King to get her view on how much it's been accomplished whether it was worthwhile in a way it's you know it's a term be cruel question to wonder whether if she had ever had the choice of having her son alive or having her son accomplish what her son did I wouldn't even think of asking. I would never ask. But you can't help. I have never wondered about it because a man proposes but God is Moses and love was not her privilege to decide. So why ask a person something over which he has no control. Had you not said yourself I did they say to my mother.

Given a choice I suppose that is Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. has said long life is a good thing and to some of us it is given your Merimbula songs everything is a good thing. She had a long life and I will say to my mother that if I were given the choice I would exchange with her gladly. I personally would say that I probably would have been the progenitor of all the things that you've done but I'm just saying that it was to be shot. It is a horrible thing. You do not die in your bed with your loved ones round is an awful thing but those are the kinds of things that I would give up if I could be the mother of Martin Luther King Jr.. But then he had to look in his face and I think just to look at her as a mother that the look on your child's face. Did you really believe she rose above it running out of time so we're going to have to wrap it up.

We've given up a great deal. We've given up a tremendous amount. And people were very dear to us. We've gotten some things there's an awful lot more that we can get for. Must must. Thank you very often. That's. Alma lows for this film. Thank you Glenn. And by Gwen Dillard you say brother. Good evening. Compre a. Truly for. Me.

You could always be. Better. Than. Common. With. You. You. Do. Love love love and

hate not his way. When. I make a. Down. The. People seem. To. Always be. There. For. Me.

We. Can. Get