In Black America

John L. Hanson Jr.: In Black America is a listener supported production of KUT and KUTX in Austin, Texas. You can support our work by donating@supportthispodcast.org.

Speaker 2: From the University of Texas at Austin, KUT radio, this is in black America.

Rev Dr. Martin Luther King Jr: Then I got into Memphis and some began to say the threats or talk about the threats that were out or what would happen to me from some of. Our sick white brother. Well, I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead, but it really doesn’t matter with me now because I’ve been to the mountain top.

I don’t mind

like anybody, I would like to live. A long life. Longevity has its place, but I’m not concerned about that now. I just wanna do God’s will and he’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over and I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you, but I want you to know the night that we as a people will get to the Promised Land.

So I’m happy tonight. I’m not wary about anything. Fearing any man, my eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.

John L. Hanson Jr.: The late Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Would’ve been 97 this year had he lived out a dream for raceway equality in this country. He was a man who walked among the oppressed and poor, a man who questioned unfair laws and went to jail rather than submit to them.

King was a passionate fighter for civil rights, and although he died by violence, his life and teachings were dedicated to a deep disrespectful violence and his consequences. He won a Nobel Prize for peace. His lectures and dialogue stirred the conscience of a nation. In November, 1983, legislation was signed, created Martin Luther King, Jr.

Day, making it only the third national holiday. Born in the 20th century. In fall, 1991, the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, where he was assassinated, was dedicated to his remembrance. On October 16th, 2011, the MLK Memorial was dedicated on the National Mall. I’m Johnny O. Hanson Jr. And welcome to another edition of In Black America on this week’s program, A tribute to the late Reverend Dr.

Martin Luther King, Jr. In black America.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Is considered by many as the father of the Civil Rights movement. Born on Tuesday, January 15th, 1929 at the family home in Atlanta, Georgia. He was Chris at Michael Luther King, but in 1934, daddy King changed his name after Young Martin experienced racial prejudice in 1944. At the age of 15, he graduated high school and entered Morehouse College in Atlanta with intention on becoming a medical doctor, but changed his mind in his junior year.

In April, 1948, king received his Bachelor’s degree in Sociology in Inter Crot Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania. In May, 1951, he graduated with a Bachelor’s of Divinity degree, and as Valedictorian and Student Body President in 1955, he earned his doctorate in systematic theology from Boston University.

In spring 1963, king nonviolent taxes were put to their most severe test in Birmingham, Alabama during a mass protest for fair hiring practices and the desegregation of department stores police brutal retired to use against the marches dramatized supply of African Americans to the nation at large with enormous impact.

King and others were arrested, but his voice was not silent. While in his cell, he read a published statement by eight Alabama clergymen that criticizes activities as untimely and unwise on the margins of the newspaper. He composed his classic replied letter from a Birmingham jail to refute his critics.

Speaker 6: In your statement, you assert that our actions, even though peaceful must be condemned because they precipitate violence, but is this a logical assertion? Isn’t this like condemning a robbed man? Because his possession of money precipitated the evil act of robbery. Isn’t this like condemning Socrates Because his unswerving commitment to truth and his philosophical inquiries precipitated the act by the misguided populous in which they made him drink hemlock.

Isn’t this like condemning Jesus because his unique God consciousness and never ceasing devotion to God’s will precipitated the evil act of crucifixion. More and more I feel that the people of ill will have used time much more effectively than have the people of goodwill. We will have to repent in this generation, not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people.

Now is the time to make real, the promise of democracy. And transform our pending national GY into a creative Psalm of brotherhood. Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of human dignity. I have no fear about the outcome of our struggle in Birmingham.

Even if our motives are at present misunderstood, we will reach the goal of freedom in Birmingham and all over the nation. Because the goal of America is freedom, abused and scorned. Though we may be, our destiny is tied up with America’s destiny. Before the pilgrims landed at Plymouth, we were here before the pen of Jefferson Edson Majestic words of the Declaration of Independence.

Across the pages of history, we were here. For more than two centuries, our forebears labored in this country without wages. They made cotton king. They built the homes of their masters while suffering gross injustice and shameful humiliation. And yet, out of a bottomless vitality, they continue to thrive and develop.

If the inexpressible cruelties of slavery could not stop us, the opposition we now face will surely fail. We will win our freedom because the sacred heritage of our nation and the eternal will of the Almighty God are embodied in our echoing demands. Never before have I written so long a letter. I’m afraid it is much too long to take your precious time.

I can assure you that it would’ve been much shorter if I had been writing from a comfortable desk. But what else can one do when he is alone in a narrow jail cell? Other than write long letters, think long thoughts and pray Long praise. If I have said anything in this letter that overstates the truth and indicates an unreasonable impatience, I beg you to forgive me if I’ve said anything that understates the truth and indicates my having a patience that allows me to settle for anything less than brotherhood.

I beg God to forgive me. I hope this letter finds you strong in the faith. I also hope that circumstances will soon make it possible for me to meet each of you, not as an integrationist or as a civil rights leader, but as a fellow clergyman and a Christian brother, let us all hope that the dark clouds of racial prejudice will soon pass away and the deep fog of misunderstanding.

We’ll be lifted from our fear drench communities and in some not too distant Tomorrow, the radiant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over to our great nation with all their scintillating beauty. Yours for the cause of peace and brotherhood Martin Luther King, Jr.

John L. Hanson Jr.: In 1957 in New Orleans, sticking to build upon the success of the Montgomery Bus boycott with the hope of upgrading the status of southern blacks and America’s poor King summed together a number of black leaders to lay the foundation for the organization, now known as the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, SCLC.

King was elected as first president, and then Sue began helping other communities organize their own protest against discrimination. The Honorable Andrew Young, former mayor of Atlanta and US Ambassador was one of King’s most trusted advisors.

Speaker 7: Looking back on it, we think of those as the best days of our lives.

Actually, at the time it was, uh. I mean, we really didn’t know what we were doing. We knew things were wrong and that somebody had to do something about it. And we just stumbled along from one thing to the other, to we found a way to make it work. And uh, fortunately most of us had read a lot about India, and we understood some of the nonviolent methods of Gandhi.

And we just experimented until we found out how to organize people. Nobody was trained as an organizer. We knew the black community. We knew the cities that we were working in fairly well, and, uh, we learned gradually over a period of time how to get things done.

John L. Hanson Jr.: What type of impact did the late Dr.

Martin Luther King have on you at that time?

Speaker 7: Well, Martin was an amazing young man. He had been sort of thrust in the leadership. He never really wanted it, and yet he couldn’t get away from it, and he was essentially trying to do something for other people. That kind of dedication and the sort of things that he said.

Matter of factly, if a person hadn’t found something that they’re willing to die for, they’re probably not fit to live anyway. You know, somebody dropped that on you in a joking kind of friendly conversation, it makes you think, you know, what is it that I’m willing to die for? And you begin to, to think about your life and think about other people in a new way.

I mean, he was amazing that all of the things that he did, and he never lived to be 40 years old. And yet in the midst of it all, he was still privately a very easygoing, uh, friendly, joking, clowning, you know, lovable guy

John L. Hanson Jr.: you’re listening to in Black America with Johnny O. Hanson, Jr. We’ll be back in just a moment.

Now back to this episode of In Black America in 1953, king completed his doctrine and was granted the degree. Two years later, upon completion of his dissertation, married at the time, he returned to the south to become pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. There. He made his first mark on the civil rights movement.

King ply for justice and equal rights began on December 5th, 1955. Five days after the late Rosa Park refused to obey the city rules, mandating segregation on buses. In 1956, as the boycott continued King Gang national prominence as the result of his exceptional speaking skills and personal courage, although increasingly betrayed as a preeminent black spokesperson, king did not mobilize mass protest activities during the first five years after the Montgomery bus boycott had ended.

On August 28th, 1963, king led a massive march on Washington DC and delivered one of his most passionate addresses of his career.

Rev Dr. Martin Luther King Jr: Even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream.

That my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day down. In Alabama with its vicious racists. Yeah. With its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification. Yes. One day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls.

As sisters and brothers, I have a dream. Today,

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted. Every hill and mounting shall be made low. The rough places will be made plain and the crooked places will be made straight. And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed in all flesh shall see it together. This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the south with.

With this faith, we will be able to hue out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope with this faith. Yeah, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

This will be the day. This will be the day when all of God’s children. Well be able to sing with new meaning my country, tears of thee sweet land, of liberty of thee. I sing land where my father’s died. Land of the pilgrim’s. Pride from every mountainside. Let freedom ring. And if Americas to be a great nation, this must become true.

So let freedom rain from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom, rain. Yeah, from the mighty mountains of New York, let freedom ring from the heightening Allegheny’s of Pennsylvania. Let freedom ring from the snow cap Rockies of Colorado. Let freedom ring from the CVAs of slopes of California.

But not only that. Wow, let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia. Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee. Let freedom ring from every hill and Mo Hill of Mississippi from every mountain side. Let freedom ring. And when this happens, when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every Hamlet.

From every state. In every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants, and Catholics will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro. Spiritual free at last, free at last. Thank God Almighty. We fear that

John L. Hanson Jr.: in 1963, Ty Magazine named him its person of the Year.

A few months later, in December, 1964, he was recipient of the Nobel Prize for peace. After his return from Norway, king took on new challenges in Selma, Alabama. He led a voter registration campaign. They ended in the Selma to Montgomery Freedom. March King brought his crusade to Chicago where he started programs to rehabilitate the slums and provide housing.

In April, 1968, king lent his support to the Memphis sanitation workers. He wanted to discourage violence and wanted to focus national attention on the ply of the poor and unorganized workers of the city. The men were bargaining for basic union representation and long overdue raises. The strike became the new testing ground for the new direction of the poor People’s Campaign was taking, which merged civil rights issues, economic concerns on the eve of his assassination.

This was King and SLCs second attempt at a nonviolent protest march.

Rev Dr. Martin Luther King Jr: I just wanna do God’s will and he is allowed me to go up to the mountain and I’ve looked over and I’ve seen. The promised land, I may not get there with you. But I want you to know the night that we as a people will get to the Promised Land.

So I’m happy tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not. Fear in a man. My eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.

Speaker 8: Civil Rights leader, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Was shot in the head and is now in critical condition in a Memphis, Tennessee hospital. The latest reports from Memphis say, Dr. King was hit by gunfire while standing on the balcony of his hotel room just before seven o’clock Eastern Standard time.

Speaker 4: The bullet exploded in his face.

He was standing at an acute angle and the bullet knocked him up off of his feet in that direction against that ledger over there. You couldn’t tell it was a shot until it hit his face. It sounded like a, a stick of dynamite or a large firecracker.

Speaker 8: Police say a man wearing a dark suit dropped the weapon about a block from the shooting scene and jumped into a late model white car.

Speaker 9: Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention please at seven 10 this evening. Martin Luther King was shot in Tennessee. Martin Luther King 20 minutes ago died.

Speaker 10: For those of you who are black and are attempted 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

Speaker 11: is too small for his spirit, but we commit his body. No to the ground. The grave is too narrow for his soul, but we commit his body to the ground. No coffin, no crypt, no vault, no stone can hold his greatness, but we commit his body to the ground.

John L. Hanson Jr.: On Sunday, October 16th, 2011, some 10,000 spectators and dignitaries gathered on the National Mall for the dedication of the memorial for Dr.

Martin Luther King Jr. Among the speakers were a who’s who of civil rights leaders, king’s children, as well as President Obama. President Obama urge the nation that day to celebrate the dedication of Memorial by continuing to press for the goals and hopes of the black preacher with no official rank or title, who somehow gave voice to our deepest dreams and helped make the nation more perfect.

Speaker 12: An earthquake and a hurricane may have delayed this day, but this is a day that would not be denied. For this day, we celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s. Return to the National Mall. His life, his story tells us that change can come. If you don’t give up, he would not give up no matter how long it took.

Because in the smallest hamlets and the darkest slums, he had witnessed the highest reaches of the human spirit because in those moments when the struggle seemed most hopeless, he had seen men and women and children conquer their fear because he had seen hills and mountains made low. And rough places made plain and the crooked places made straight and God make a way outta no way.

And that is why we honor this man, because he had faith in us and that is why he belongs on this long, because he saw what we might become. That is why Dr. King was so quintessentially American, because for all the hardships we’ve endured, for all our sometimes tragic history, ours is a story of optimism.

And achievement and constant striving that is unique upon this earth, and that is why the rest of the world still looks to us to lead. This is a country where ordinary people find in their hearts the courage to do extraordinary things. The courage to stand up in the face of the fiercest resistance. And to spare and say, this is wrong, and this is right.

We will not settle for what the cynics tell us. We have to accept and we will reach again and again no matter the odds for what we know is possible. That is the conviction we must carry. Now in our hearts, as tough as times may be, I know we will overcome. I know there are better days ahead. I know this because of the man towering over us.

I know this because all he and his generation endured. We are here today in a country that dedicated a monument to that legacy. And so with our eyes on the horizon and our faith squarely placed in one another. Let us keep striving. Let us keep struggling. Let us keep climbing toward that promised land of a nation in a world that is more fair and more ju-just and more equal for every single child of God.

Thank you. God bless you, and God bless the United States of America.

John L. Hanson Jr.: In September, 1991, the National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel was dedicated. The museum traces the history of the Civil Rights movement from its beginning to the present, the museum has been built around the hotel where King stayed while in.

His room and that of his age have been kept as it was that faithful evening in April, 1968.

Speaker 13: Dr. King had been in Memphis, uh, prior to the assassination and prior to the, uh, uh, um, coming in March for the, for the march that, uh, broke out in violence. He’d come here before and he’d stayed at the Lorraine. He, this was the room that he’d usually stay in.

It’s a nice room, a nice, uh, king size bed, even for that time, you know, that would’ve been nice. So he stayed here and we have kept the original furniture that was in the room at the time, and it’s been redone to look as it, uh, did in 1968, but this is where he was the night of the assassination. That’s room 3 0 7.

Now, across here is room 3 0 6, and this is the room that was being occupied by some of Dr. King’s age with the double, with the two beds in here. Uh, but this is the room that he walked out of, uh, just prior to being shot. Uh, he had been in here with Reverend Abernathy and some others, and they were, as you can see, having some food.

There’s some catfish on the plate over there. And, uh, dishes and the glasses and milk and the like. And this room has been recreated to appear as it did on the evening of the assassination. And again. The furniture in the room is all the furniture that was here at the time. One other thing that I like about this room is the visitor stands in here and reflects and reach these display lines.

You also hear, and they light up, you know, when it acts up, you also hear Maha Jackson, softly singing Precious Lord. And that was Dr. King’s favorite song. So it’s just, it brings tears to your eyes when it, when it all is operating. You know,

Speaker 11: I was just so struck by,

Speaker 13: uh, that last little line there. I just, with them putting the.

A casket on the plane there that just tells it all that somebody said, and it’s just some ordinary person. I said, we, we really lost somebody, didn’t we

Speaker 5: all?

Am we

through the.

Through

the.

Take my hand.

John L. Hanson Jr.: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Was 39 at the time of his death. He was shot while standing on the balcony at the Rain Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. This has been a tribute to the late Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Who would’ve been 97 this week. If you have questions, comments, or suggestions as to future in Black America programs, email us at In Black america@kut.org.

Also, let us know what radio station your heard is over. Don’t forget. Subscribe to our podcast and follow up on Facebook and X. You can have previous programs online@t.org. Also, you can listen to a special collection of In Black America programs at American Archive of Public Broadcasting. That’s American archives.org.

The views and opinions expressed on this program are not necessary though of this station or of the University of Texas at Austin. Until we have the opportunity again for Ken co-producer David Alvarez. I’m Johnny O. Hanson, Jr. Thank you for joining us today. Please join us again next week.

Speaker 2: Cd copies of this program are available and may be purchased by writing in Black America. CDs, KUT. Radio One University Station, Austin, Texas 7 8 7 1 2. That’s in Black America. CDs, KUT Radio One University Station. Austin, Texas 7 8 7 1 2. This has been a production of KUT radio.