"The fact is, America has been backlashing on the civil rights question for centuries now. The backlash is merely the surfacing of prejudices, hostilities, hatreds, and fears that already existed but they're just now coming out in the open." - Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (LL.D. '57)

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. visited and spoke at Howard several times, but it could not have been more fitting that Dr. Martin Luther King's last speech at Howard was to deliver the Gandhi Memorial Lecture on November 9, 1966, just a few weeks before the university's 100th birthday. King developed his nonviolent approach to directing confronting oppression by studying the life and works of India's Mahatma Gandhi, who employed nonviolence as the core of his successful campaign for Indian independence from Great Britain. 

Coming Home to Howard

"I always feel like I'm coming home when I come to Howard," King said as he started his lecture. "I happen to be an honorary alumnus of Howard University so that I always come here not as a stranger, but as one who loves this institution of learning, who has a deep sense of gratitude for all that Howard University has done for the cultural life of our nation, and not only our nation, but for the whole world."

King talked about the struggle for racial justice in America and his conflicting feelings about the nation's related trajectory. He asserted that a realistic viewpoint would recognize the significant strides which had been made, but also the large amount of work left to do.

"I happen to feel that the struggle for peace and the struggle for justice are inextricably bound together and there can be no peace ultimately without justice and there can be no justice without peace," King said.

"At points the most poignant question that I receive as I talk with people and as I talk with reporters all over this nation is the question of whether we are making any real progress in the struggle for racial justice," King continued. "And I always try to answer that question by avoiding on one hand what I consider a deadening pessimism but by avoiding on the other hand what I consider a kind of superficial optimism."

"We have come a long, long way, but we have a long way to go."

Echoes Through Time

In his scholarly way, King assessed the progress Blacks had made in their perception of self-worth. He noted the history of hamstringing of Blacks in this country, beginning with the arrival as slaves in 1619 and reinforced with the Dred Scott decision. He proposed a theory that the all too apparent horrors of America's treatment of Blacks only perpetuated a system designed to rationalize it. 

"It seems to be a fact of life that human beings cannot continue to do wrong without eventually reaching out for some thin rationalization that clothes an obvious wrong in the beautiful garments of righteousness."

"It seems to be a fact of life that human beings cannot continue to do wrong without eventually reaching out for some thin rationalization that clothes an obvious wrong in the beautiful garments of righteousness," King said, noting the use of the Bible and Noah's curse upon the children of Ham by preachers who were trying to justify the country's "original sin" of slavery.

Kings observation has echoed through time, evidenced by the state of Florida's current K-12 curriculum which teaches children that slaves benefited from the experience.

Nevertheless, King argued that the opportunity to travel, read, and take industrial jobs had helped Blacks reevaluate their intrinsic worth. He also spotlighted changes in the law, which climaxed when the Supreme Court decided that "separate but equal" was inherently unconstitutional, thanks in large part to the Brown vs. Board of Education, Topeka, Kansas case spearheaded by Howard alumnus Thurgood Marshall (J.D. '33) and architected by Howard Law School Dean Charles Hamilton Houston. King reflected on the modern Civil Rights Movement, including the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the Freedom Rides, and protests in Albany, Georgia and Birmingham, Alabama, which set the stage for the Civil Rights Act. It might have seemed like the nation was on the threshold of a bright future built upon racial integration, King said, but the truth was more opaque. The truth, King said, was that the nation still had a long way to go, and the most difficult days were ahead. 

As highly appropriate at institution committed to "veritas et utilitas," King began his analysis of the America's progress on racial justice by explaining his views on the difference between fact and truth.

"Fact is merely the absence of contradiction," King said, while arguing that truth is "the presence of coherence."

"Truth is the relatedness of facts," he said. "It's a fact that we've come a long, long way, but it isn't the whole truth, and if I stop at this point, I'm afraid that I would leave you the victims of a dangerous optimism and all of us will find ourselves victims of an illusion wrapped in superficiality," he said.

King pointed to de facto segregation in the North; rampant poverty among Blacks; unemployment and underemployment; and inadequate, overcrowded, and poor-quality schools. He pointed out statistics showing that economically, Blacks were worse off than they had been 20 years before, with a widening gulf between Blacks and whites. 

There is nothing more dangerous than to build a society with a large segment of individuals in that society who feel that they have no stake in it and who feel that they have nothing to lose."

King took a stand against riots, maintaining that they only intensify the fears of the white community while conveniently alleviating the guilt. He instead advocated for a determined, passionate effort to ease economic burdens in America as opposed to a focus on the war in Vietnam or putting a man on the moon. According to him, the United States was the richest nation in history and owed all of its people a decent quality of life. It was an issue he fully intended to keep at the forefront of the national conversation.

"God never intended for some of his children to live in inordinate superfluous wealth while others live in abject and deadening poverty, and he's left enough and to spare in this world for all of his children to have the basic necessities of life," King preached.

Lessons for Today

King's speech fifty-nine years ago has lessons for today. Much has been made of the "backlash" against the diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts put in place by many corporations and government agencies in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd, and unarmed Black man, by Minneapolis, Minnesota police officers. King noted an eerily similar phenomenon in the aftermath of the gains of the Civil Rights Movement. He urged those listening to move forward anyway. The hard part, he argued, was not in getting the nation to end segregation, but in forcing an acquiescence to the demands for full economic participation. In the end, he seemed to be saying, it all comes down to money.

"We are in the most difficult phase of the struggle," King said. "People talk about the white backlash, and we've heard a lot about it today and yesterday because we are in this election period. Now my answer to this question is that there's really no white backlash because that gives the impression that the nation had decided it was going to solve this problem and that the nation had really decided that justice should be granted to the Negro in all dimensions and then there was a step back because of developments in the Civil Rights Movement. Now the fact is, America has been backlashing on the civil rights question for centuries now."

"The backlash is merely the surfacing of prejudices, hostilities, hatreds, and fears that already existed but they're just now coming out in the open," he postulated.

The backlash is just responding to the fact that now we are saying everybody ought to have a job and everybody out to have a guaranteed annual income and everybody ought to have the right to live in a decent house and anywhere that he wants to live an everybody ought to have an adequate education. This is the problem."

"Public accommodations didn't cost the nation anything," he continued. "The right to vote didn't cost the nation anything. But now we are grappling with basic class issues between the privileged and underprivileged and in order to solve this problem not only will it mean a restructuring of the architecture of American society but it will cost the nation something. And the backlash is just responding to the fact that now we are saying everybody ought to have a job and everybody out to have a guaranteed annual income and everybody ought to have the right to live in a decent house and anywhere that he wants to live an everybody ought to have an adequate education. This is the problem. There are those who are not willing to do this."

King also argued against what he called, the "myth of time." This was the concept that if those seeking equity would only wait patiently, then time would take care of the problem. This, King insisted, was a naive fallacy.

My answer to this myth is that time is neutral. It can be used either constructively or destructively, and I must say to you tonight my friends that I'm convinced that the forces of evil in our nation have often used time more effectively than the forces of good."

"My answer to this myth is that time is neutral," King said. "It can be used either constructively or destructively, and I must say to you tonight my friends that I'm convinced that the forces of evil in our nation have often used time more effectively than the forces of good.  We will have to repent for the appalling silence and indifference of the good people who sit around and say 'wait on time.' Somewhere we must come to see that human progress never rolls in on the wheels of inevitability. It comes through the tireless efforts and the persistent work of dedicated individuals who are willing to be co-workers with God. And without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the primitive forces of social stagnation. And so we must help time and realize time is always ripe to do right. When bad men would seek to preserve an unjust status quo, good men must seek to bring into being a just social order."