Saturday, January 16, 2010

Naval Base Kitsap Bangor

Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action

Martin Luther King Jr. Commemorative Action

www.gzcenter.org/

 

see this photo large: peacepotential.blogspot.com/2010/01/celebrate-vision-of-r...

 

Nobel Lecture by Martin Luther King Jr.

 

The Quest for Peace and Justice

 

It is impossible to begin this lecture without again expressing my deep appreciation to the Nobel Committee of the Norwegian Parliament for bestowing upon me and the civil rights movement in the United States such a great honor. Occasionally in life there are those moments of unutterable fulfillment which cannot be completely explained by those symbols called words. Their meaning can only be articulated by the inaudible language of the heart. Such is the moment I am presently experiencing. I experience this high and joyous moment not for myself alone but for those devotees of nonviolence who have moved so courageously against the ramparts of racial injustice and who in the process have acquired a new estimate of their own human worth. Many of them are young and cultured. Others are middle aged and middle class. The majority are poor and untutored. But they are all united in the quiet conviction that it is better to suffer in dignity than to accept segregation in humiliation. These are the real heroes of the freedom struggle: they are the noble people for whom I accept the Nobel Peace Prize.

 

This evening I would like to use this lofty and historic platform to discuss what appears to me to be the most pressing problem confronting mankind today. Modern man has brought this whole world to an awe-inspiring threshold of the future. He has reached new and astonishing peaks of scientific success. He has produced machines that think and instruments that peer into the unfathomable ranges of interstellar space. He has built gigantic bridges to span the seas and gargantuan buildings to kiss the skies. His airplanes and spaceships have dwarfed distance, placed time in chains, and carved highways through the stratosphere. This is a dazzling picture of modern man's scientific and technological progress.

 

Yet, in spite of these spectacular strides in science and technology, and still unlimited ones to come, something basic is missing. There is a sort of poverty of the spirit which stands in glaring contrast to our scientific and technological abundance. The richer we have become materially, the poorer we have become morally and spiritually. We have learned to fly the air like birds and swim the sea like fish, but we have not learned the simple art of living together as brothers.

 

Every man lives in two realms, the internal and the external. The internal is that realm of spiritual ends expressed in art, literature, morals, and religion. The external is that complex of devices, techniques, mechanisms, and instrumentalities by means of which we live. Our problem today is that we have allowed the internal to become lost in the external. We have allowed the means by which we live to outdistance the ends for which we live. So much of modern life can be summarized in that arresting dictum of the poet Thoreau1: "Improved means to an unimproved end". This is the serious predicament, the deep and haunting problem confronting modern man. If we are to survive today, our moral and spiritual "lag" must be eliminated. Enlarged material powers spell enlarged peril if there is not proportionate growth of the soul. When the "without" of man's nature subjugates the "within", dark storm clouds begin to form in the world.

 

This problem of spiritual and moral lag, which constitutes modern man's chief dilemma, expresses itself in three larger problems which grow out of man's ethical infantilism. Each of these problems, while appearing to be separate and isolated, is inextricably bound to the other. I refer to racial injustice, poverty, and war.

 

The first problem that I would like to mention is racial injustice. The struggle to eliminate the evil of racial injustice constitutes one of the major struggles of our time. The present upsurge of the Negro people of the United States grows out of a deep and passionate determination to make freedom and equality a reality "here" and "now". In one sense the civil rights movement in the United States is a special American phenomenon which must be understood in the light of American history and dealt with in terms of the American situation. But on another and more important level, what is happening in the United States today is a relatively small part of a world development.

 

We live in a day, says the philosopher Alfred North Whitehead2,"when civilization is shifting its basic outlook: a major turning point in history where the presuppositions on which society is structured are being analyzed, sharply challenged, and profoundly changed." What we are seeing now is a freedom explosion, the realization of "an idea whose time has come", to use Victor Hugo's phrase3. The deep rumbling of discontent that we hear today is the thunder of disinherited masses, rising from dungeons of oppression to the bright hills of freedom, in one majestic chorus the rising masses singing, in the words of our freedom song, "Ain't gonna let nobody turn us around."4 All over the world, like a fever, the freedom movement is spreading in the widest liberation in history. The great masses of people are determined to end the exploitation of their races and land. They are awake and moving toward their goal like a tidal wave. You can hear them rumbling in every village street, on the docks, in the houses, among the students, in the churches, and at political meetings. Historic movement was for several centuries that of the nations and societies of Western Europe out into the rest of the world in "conquest" of various sorts. That period, the era of colonialism, is at an end. East is meeting West. The earth is being redistributed. Yes, we are "shifting our basic outlooks".

 

These developments should not surprise any student of history. Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The yearning for freedom eventually manifests itself. The Bible tells the thrilling story of how Moses stood in Pharaoh's court centuries ago and cried, "Let my people go."5 This is a kind of opening chapter in a continuing story. The present struggle in the United States is a later chapter in the same unfolding story. Something within has reminded the Negro of his birthright of freedom, and something without has reminded him that it can be gained. Consciously or unconsciously, he has been caught up by the Zeitgeist, and with his black brothers of Africa and his brown and yellow brothers in Asia, South America, and the Caribbean, the United States Negro is moving with a sense of great urgency toward the promised land of racial justice.

 

Fortunately, some significant strides have been made in the struggle to end the long night of racial injustice. We have seen the magnificent drama of independence unfold in Asia and Africa. Just thirty years ago there were only three independent nations in the whole of Africa. But today thirty-five African nations have risen from colonial bondage. In the United States we have witnessed the gradual demise of the system of racial segregation. The Supreme Court's decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools gave a legal and constitutional deathblow to the whole doctrine of separate but equal6. The Court decreed that separate facilities are inherently unequal and that to segregate a child on the basis of race is to deny that child equal protection of the law. This decision came as a beacon light of hope to millions of disinherited people. Then came that glowing day a few months ago when a strong Civil Rights Bill became the law of our land7. This bill, which was first recommended and promoted by President Kennedy, was passed because of the overwhelming support and perseverance of millions of Americans, Negro and white. It came as a bright interlude in the long and sometimes turbulent struggle for civil rights: the beginning of a second emancipation proclamation providing a comprehensive legal basis for equality of opportunity. Since the passage of this bill we have seen some encouraging and surprising signs of compliance. I am happy to report that, by and large, communities all over the southern part of the United States are obeying the Civil Rights Law and showing remarkable good sense in the process.

 

Another indication that progress is being made was found in the recent presidential election in the United States. The American people revealed great maturity by overwhelmingly rejecting a presidential candidate who had become identified with extremism, racism, and retrogression8. The voters of our nation rendered a telling blow to the radical right9. They defeated those elements in our society which seek to pit white against Negro and lead the nation down a dangerous Fascist path.

 

Let me not leave you with a false impression. The problem is far from solved. We still have a long, long way to go before the dream of freedom is a reality for the Negro in the United States. To put it figuratively in biblical language, we have left the dusty soils of Egypt and crossed a Red Sea whose waters had for years been hardened by a long and piercing winter of massive resistance. But before we reach the majestic shores of the Promised Land, there is a frustrating and bewildering wilderness ahead. We must still face prodigious hilltops of opposition and gigantic mountains of resistance. But with patient and firm determination we will press on until every valley of despair is exalted to new peaks of hope, until every mountain of pride and irrationality is made low by the leveling process of humility and compassion; until the rough places of injustice are transformed into a smooth plane of equality of opportunity; and until the crooked places of prejudice are transformed by the straightening process of bright-eyed wisdom.

 

What the main sections of the civil rights movement in the United States are saying is that the demand for dignity, equality, jobs, and citizenship will not be abandoned or diluted or postponed. If that means resistance and conflict we shall not flinch. We shall not be cowed. We are no longer afraid.

 

The word that symbolizes the spirit and the outward form of our encounter is nonviolence, and it is doubtless that factor which made it seem appropriate to award a peace prize to one identified with struggle. Broadly speaking, nonviolence in the civil rights struggle has meant not relying on arms and weapons of struggle. It has meant noncooperation with customs and laws which are institutional aspects of a regime of discrimination and enslavement. It has meant direct participation of masses in protest, rather than reliance on indirect methods which frequently do not involve masses in action at all.

 

Nonviolence has also meant that my people in the agonizing struggles of recent years have taken suffering upon themselves instead of inflicting it on others. It has meant, as I said, that we are no longer afraid and cowed. But in some substantial degree it has meant that we do not want to instill fear in others or into the society of which we are a part. The movement does not seek to liberate Negroes at the expense of the humiliation and enslavement of whites. It seeks no victory over anyone. It seeks to liberate American society and to share in the self-liberation of all the people.

 

Violence as a way of achieving racial justice is both impractical and immoral. I am not unmindful of the fact that violence often brings about momentary results. Nations have frequently won their independence in battle. But in spite of temporary victories, violence never brings permanent peace. It solves no social problem: it merely creates new and more complicated ones. Violence is impractical because it is a descending spiral ending in destruction for all. It is immoral because it seeks to humiliate the opponent rather than win his understanding: it seeks to annihilate rather than convert. Violence is immoral because it thrives on hatred rather than love. It destroys community and makes brotherhood impossible. It leaves society in monologue rather than dialogue. Violence ends up defeating itself. It creates bitterness in the survivors and brutality in the destroyers.

 

In a real sense nonviolence seeks to redeem the spiritual and moral lag that I spoke of earlier as the chief dilemma of modern man. It seeks to secure moral ends through moral means. Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon. Indeed, it is a weapon unique in history, which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it.

 

I believe in this method because I think it is the only way to reestablish a broken community. It is the method which seeks to implement the just law by appealing to the conscience of the great decent majority who through blindness, fear, pride, and irrationality have allowed their consciences to sleep.

 

The nonviolent resisters can summarize their message in the following simple terms: we will take direct action against injustice despite the failure of governmental and other official agencies to act first. We will not obey unjust laws or submit to unjust practices. We will do this peacefully, openly, cheerfully because our aim is to persuade. We adopt the means of nonviolence because our end is a community at peace with itself. We will try to persuade with our words, but if our words fail, we will try to persuade with our acts. We will always be willing to talk and seek fair compromise, but we are ready to suffer when necessary and even risk our lives to become witnesses to truth as we see it.

 

This approach to the problem of racial injustice is not at all without successful precedent. It was used in a magnificent way by Mohandas K. Gandhi to challenge the might of the British Empire and free his people from the political domination and economic exploitation inflicted upon them for centuries. He struggled only with the weapons of truth, soul force, non-injury, and courage10.

 

In the past ten years unarmed gallant men and women of the United States have given living testimony to the moral power and efficacy of nonviolence. By the thousands, faceless, anonymous, relentless young people, black and white, have temporarily left the ivory towers of learning for the barricades of bias. Their courageous and disciplined activities have come as a refreshing oasis in a desert sweltering with the heat of injustice. They have taken our whole nation back to those great wells of democracy which were dug deep by the founding fathers in the formulation of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. One day all of America will be proud of their achievements11.

 

I am only too well aware of the human weaknesses and failures which exist, the doubts about the efficacy of nonviolence, and the open advocacy of violence by some. But I am still convinced that nonviolence is both the most practically sound and morally excellent way to grapple with the age-old problem of racial injustice.

 

A second evil which plagues the modern world is that of poverty. Like a monstrous octopus, it projects its nagging, prehensile tentacles in lands and villages all over the world. Almost two-thirds of the peoples of the world go to bed hungry at night. They are undernourished, ill-housed, and shabbily clad. Many of them have no houses or beds to sleep in. Their only beds are the sidewalks of the cities and the dusty roads of the villages. Most of these poverty-stricken children of God have never seen a physician or a dentist. This problem of poverty is not only seen in the class division between the highly developed industrial nations and the so-called underdeveloped nations; it is seen in the great economic gaps within the rich nations themselves. Take my own country for example. We have developed the greatest system of production that history has ever known. We have become the richest nation in the world. Our national gross product this year will reach the astounding figure of almost 650 billion dollars. Yet, at least one-fifth of our fellow citizens - some ten million families, comprising about forty million individuals - are bound to a miserable culture of poverty. In a sense the poverty of the poor in America is more frustrating than the poverty of Africa and Asia. The misery of the poor in Africa and Asia is shared misery, a fact of life for the vast majority; they are all poor together as a result of years of exploitation and underdevelopment. In sad contrast, the poor in America know that they live in the richest nation in the world, and that even though they are perishing on a lonely island of poverty they are surrounded by a vast ocean of material prosperity. Glistening towers of glass and steel easily seen from their slum dwellings spring up almost overnight. Jet liners speed over their ghettoes at 600 miles an hour; satellites streak through outer space and reveal details of the moon. President Johnson, in his State of the Union Message12, emphasized this contradiction when he heralded the United States' "highest standard of living in the world", and deplored that it was accompanied by "dislocation; loss of jobs, and the specter of poverty in the midst of plenty".

 

So it is obvious that if man is to redeem his spiritual and moral "lag", he must go all out to bridge the social and economic gulf between the "haves" and the "have nots" of the world. Poverty is one of the most urgent items on the agenda of modern life.

 

There is nothing new about poverty. What is new, however, is that we have the resources to get rid of it. More than a century and a half ago people began to be disturbed about the twin problems of population and production. A thoughtful Englishman named Malthus wrote a book13 that set forth some rather frightening conclusions. He predicted that the human family was gradually moving toward global starvation because the world was producing people faster than it was producing food and material to support them. Later scientists, however, disproved the conclusion of Malthus, and revealed that he had vastly underestimated the resources of the world and the resourcefulness of man.

 

Not too many years ago, Dr. Kirtley Mather, a Harvard geologist, wrote a book entitled Enough and to Spare14. He set forth the basic theme that famine is wholly unnecessary in the modern world. Today, therefore, the question on the agenda must read: Why should there be hunger and privation in any land, in any city, at any table when man has the resources and the scientific know-how to provide all mankind with the basic necessities of life? Even deserts can be irrigated and top soil can be replaced. We cannot complain of a lack of land, for there are twenty-five million square miles of tillable land, of which we are using less than seven million. We have amazing knowledge of vitamins, nutrition, the chemistry of food, and the versatility of atoms. There is no deficit in human resources; the deficit is in human will. The well-off and the secure have too often become indifferent and oblivious to the poverty and deprivation in their midst. The poor in our countries have been shut out of our minds, and driven from the mainstream of our societies, because we have allowed them to become invisible. Just as nonviolence exposed the ugliness of racial injustice, so must the infection and sickness of poverty be exposed and healed - not only its symptoms but its basic causes. This, too, will be a fierce struggle, but we must not be afraid to pursue the remedy no matter how formidable the task.

 

The time has come for an all-out world war against poverty. The rich nations must use their vast resources of wealth to develop the underdeveloped, school the unschooled, and feed the unfed. Ultimately a great nation is a compassionate nation. No individual or nation can be great if it does not have a concern for "the least of these". Deeply etched in the fiber of our religious tradition is the conviction that men are made in the image of God and that they are souls of infinite metaphysical value, the heirs of a legacy of dignity and worth. If we feel this as a profound moral fact, we cannot be content to see men hungry, to see men victimized with starvation and ill health when we have the means to help them. The wealthy nations must go all out to bridge the gulf between the rich minority and the poor majority.

 

In the final analysis, the rich must not ignore the poor because both rich and poor are tied in a single garment of destiny. All life is interrelated, and all men are interdependent. The agony of the poor diminishes the rich, and the salvation of the poor enlarges the rich. We are inevitably our brothers' keeper because of the interrelated structure of reality. John Donne interpreted this truth in graphic terms when he affirmed15:

 

No man is an Iland, intire of its selfe: every

man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the

maine: if a Clod bee washed away by the Sea,

Europe is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie

were, as well as if a Mannor of thy friends

or of thine owne were: any mans death

diminishes me, because I am involved in

Mankinde: and therefore never send to know

for whom the bell tolls: it tolls for thee.

 

A third great evil confronting our world is that of war. Recent events have vividly reminded us that nations are not reducing but rather increasing their arsenals of weapons of mass destruction. The best brains in the highly developed nations of the world are devoted to military technology. The proliferation of nuclear weapons has not been halted, in spite of the Limited Test Ban Treaty16. On the contrary, the detonation of an atomic device by the first nonwhite, non- Western, and so-called underdeveloped power, namely the Chinese People's Republic17, opens new vistas of exposure of vast multitudes, the whole of humanity, to insidious terrorization by the ever-present threat of annihilation. The fact that most of the time human beings put the truth about the nature and risks of the nuclear war out of their minds because it is too painful and therefore not "acceptable", does not alter the nature and risks of such war. The device of "rejection" may temporarily cover up anxiety, but it does not bestow peace of mind and emotional security.

 

So man's proneness to engage in war is still a fact. But wisdom born of experience should tell us that war is obsolete. There may have been a time when war served as a negative good by preventing the spread and growth of an evil force, but the destructive power of modern weapons eliminated even the possibility that war may serve as a negative good. If we assume that life is worth living and that man has a right to survive, then we must find an alternative to war. In a day when vehicles hurtle through outer space and guided ballistic missiles carve highways of death through the stratosphere, no nation can claim victory in war. A so-called limited war will leave little more than a calamitous legacy of human suffering, political turmoil, and spiritual disillusionment. A world war - God forbid! - will leave only smoldering ashes as a mute testimony of a human race whose folly led inexorably to ultimate death. So if modern man continues to flirt unhesitatingly with war, he will transform his earthly habitat into an inferno such as even the mind of Dante could not imagine.

 

Therefore, I venture to suggest to all of you and all who hear and may eventually read these words, that the philosophy and strategy of nonviolence become immediately a subject for study and for serious experimentation in every field of human conflict, by no means excluding the relations between nations. It is, after all, nation-states which make war, which have produced the weapons which threaten the survival of mankind, and which are both genocidal and suicidal in character.

 

Here also we have ancient habits to deal with, vast structures of power, indescribably complicated problems to solve. But unless we abdicate our humanity altogether and succumb to fear and impotence in the presence of the weapons we have ourselves created, it is as imperative and urgent to put an end to war and violence between nations as it is to put an end to racial injustice. Equality with whites will hardly solve the problems of either whites or Negroes if it means equality in a society under the spell of terror and a world doomed to extinction.

 

I do not wish to minimize the complexity of the problems that need to be faced in achieving disarmament and peace. But I think it is a fact that we shall not have the will, the courage, and the insight to deal with such matters unless in this field we are prepared to undergo a mental and spiritual reevaluation - a change of focus which will enable us to see that the things which seem most real and powerful are indeed now unreal and have come under the sentence of death. We need to make a supreme effort to generate the readiness, indeed the eagerness, to enter into the new world which is now possible, "the city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God"18.

 

We will not build a peaceful world by following a negative path. It is not enough to say "We must not wage war." It is necessary to love peace and sacrifice for it. We must concentrate not merely on the negative expulsion of war, but on the positive affirmation of peace. There is a fascinating little story that is preserved for us in Greek literature about Ulysses and the Sirens. The Sirens had the ability to sing so sweetly that sailors could not resist steering toward their island. Many ships were lured upon the rocks, and men forgot home, duty, and honor as they flung themselves into the sea to be embraced by arms that drew them down to death. Ulysses, determined not to be lured by the Sirens, first decided to tie himself tightly to the mast of his boat, and his crew stuffed their ears with wax. But finally he and his crew learned a better way to save themselves: they took on board the beautiful singer Orpheus whose melodies were sweeter than the music of the Sirens. When Orpheus sang, who bothered to listen to the Sirens?

 

So we must fix our vision not merely on the negative expulsion of war, but upon the positive affirmation of peace. We must see that peace represents a sweeter music, a cosmic melody that is far superior to the discords of war. Somehow we must transform the dynamics of the world power struggle from the negative nuclear arms race which no one can win to a positive contest to harness man's creative genius for the purpose of making peace and prosperity a reality for all of the nations of the world. In short, we must shift the arms race into a "peace race". If we have the will and determination to mount such a peace offensive, we will unlock hitherto tightly sealed doors of hope and transform our imminent cosmic elegy into a psalm of creative fulfillment.

 

All that I have said boils down to the point of affirming that mankind's survival is dependent upon man's ability to solve the problems of racial injustice, poverty, and war; the solution of these problems is in turn dependent upon man squaring his moral progress with his scientific progress, and learning the practical art of living in harmony. Some years ago a famous novelist died. Among his papers was found a list of suggested story plots for future stories, the most prominently underscored being this one: "A widely separated family inherits a house in which they have to live together." This is the great new problem of mankind. We have inherited a big house, a great "world house" in which we have to live together - black and white, Easterners and Westerners, Gentiles and Jews, Catholics and Protestants, Moslem and Hindu, a family unduly separated in ideas, culture, and interests who, because we can never again live without each other, must learn, somehow, in this one big world, to live with each other.

 

This means that more and more our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. We must now give an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in our individual societies.

 

This call for a worldwide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one's tribe, race, class, and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing and unconditional love for all men. This oft misunderstood and misinterpreted concept so readily dismissed by the Nietzsches of the world as a weak and cowardly force, has now become an absolute necessity for the survival of man. When I speak of love I am not speaking of some sentimental and weak response which is little more than emotional bosh. I am speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life. Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality. This Hindu-Moslem-Christian-Jewish-Buddhist belief about ultimate reality is beautifully summed up in the First Epistle of Saint John19:

 

Let us love one another: for love is of God; and everyone

that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.

He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.

If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and His

love is perfected in us.

 

Let us hope that this spirit will become the order of the day. As Arnold Toynbee20 says: "Love is the ultimate force that makes for the saving choice of life and good against the damning choice of death and evil. Therefore the first hope in our inventory must be the hope that love is going to have the last word." We can no longer afford to worship the God of hate or bow before the altar of retaliation. The oceans of history are made turbulent by the ever-rising tides of hate. History is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path of hate. Love is the key to the solution of the problems of the world.

 

Let me close by saying that I have the personal faith that mankind will somehow rise up to the occasion and give new directions to an age drifting rapidly to its doom. In spite of the tensions and uncertainties of this period something profoundly meaningful is taking place. Old systems of exploitation and oppression are passing away, and out of the womb of a frail world new systems of justice and equality are being born. Doors of opportunity are gradually being opened to those at the bottom of society. The shirtless and barefoot people of the land are developing a new sense of "some-bodiness" and carving a tunnel of hope through the dark mountain of despair. "The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light."21 Here and there an individual or group dares to love, and rises to the majestic heights of moral maturity. So in a real sense this is a great time to be alive. Therefore, I am not yet discouraged about the future. Granted that the easygoing optimism of yesterday is impossible. Granted that those who pioneer in the struggle for peace and freedom will still face uncomfortable jail terms, painful threats of death; they will still be battered by the storms of persecution, leading them to the nagging feeling that they can no longer bear such a heavy burden, and the temptation of wanting to retreat to a more quiet and serene life. Granted that we face a world crisis which leaves us standing so often amid the surging murmur of life's restless sea. But every crisis has both its dangers and its opportunities. It can spell either salvation or doom. In a dark confused world the kingdom of God may yet reign in the hearts of men.

 

* Dr. King delivered this lecture in the Auditorium of the University of Oslo. This text is taken from Les Prix Nobel en 1964. The text in the New York Times is excerpted. His speech of acceptance delivered the day before in the same place is reported fully both in Les Prix Nobel en 1964 and the New York Times.

 

1. Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), American poet and essayist.

 

2. Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947). British philosopher and mathematician, professor at the University of London and Harvard University.

 

3. "There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world and that is an idea whose time has come." Translations differ; probable origin is Victor Hugo, Histoire d'un crime, "Conclusion-La Chute", chap. 10.

 

4. "Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around" is the title of an old Baptist spiritual.

 

5. Exodus 5:1; 8:1; 9:1; 10:3.

 

6. "Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka", 347 U.S. 483, contains the decision of May 17, 1954, requiring desegregation of the public schools by the states. "Bolling vs. Sharpe", 347 U.S. 497, contains the decision of same date requiring desegregation of public schools by the federal government; i.e. in Washington, D.C. "Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka", Nos. 1-5. 349 U.S. 249, contains the opinion of May 31, 1955, on appeals from the decisions in the two cases cited above, ordering admission to "public schools on a racially nondiscriminatory basis with all deliberate speed".

 

7. Public Law 88-352, signed by President Johnson on July 2, 1964.

 

8. Both Les Prix Nobel and the New York Times read "retrogress".

 

9. Lyndon B. Johnson defeated Barry Goldwater by a popular vote of 43, 128, 956 to 27,177,873.

 

10. For a note on Gandhi, seep. 329, fn. 1.

 

11. For accounts of the civil rights activities by both whites and blacks in the decade from 1954 to 1964, see Alan F. Westin, Freedom Now: The Civil Rights Struggle in America (New York: Basic Books, 1964), especially Part IV, "The Techniques of the Civil Rights Struggle"; Howard Zinn, SNCC: The New Abolitionists (Boston: Beacon Press, 1964); Eugene V. Rostow, "The Freedom Riders and the Future", The Reporter (June 22, 1961); James Peck, Cracking the Color Line: Nonviolent Direct Action Methods of Eliminating Racial Discrimination (New York: CORE, 1960).

 

12. January 8, 1964.

 

13. Thomas Robert Malthus (1766-1834), An Essay on the Principle of Population (1798).

 

14. Kirtley F. Mather, Enough and to Spare: Mother Earth Can Nourish Every Man in Freedom (New York: Harper, 1944).

 

15. John Donne (1572?-1631), English poet, in the final lines of "Devotions" (1624).

 

16. Officially called "Treaty Banning Nuclear Weapons Tests in Atmosphere, in Outer Space, and Underwater", and signed by Russia, England, and United States on July 25, 1963.

 

17. On October 16, 1964.

 

18. Hebrews II: 10.

 

19. I John 4:7-8, 12.

 

20. Arnold Joseph Toynbee (1889- ), British historian whose monumental work is the 10-volume A Study of Story (1934-1954).

 

21. This quotation may be based on a phrase from Luke 1:79, "To give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death"; or one from Psalms 107:10, "Such as sit in darkness and in the shadow of death"; or one from Mark Twain's To the Person Sitting in Darkness (1901), "The people who sit in darkness have noticed it...".

 

From Nobel Lectures, Peace 1951-1970, Editor Frederick W. Haberman, Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 1972

 

retrieved January 18, 2010 from nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1964/king-lec...

‘human emotion, everyday life, personal humiliation (you only have to watch television)―violence is part of human nature. Even within the most beautiful landscape, in trees, under the leaves the insects are eating each other; violence is part of life.’ Francis Bacon, Art Newspaper, 2003

Streets of Whitechapel, East London.

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Made from solid wooden beams set in worn brass - based on a stone & concrete base.

 

The N4RS Humiliation posts are filled with original and exclusive animations, high quality rez objects and is Aeros compatible.

 

To be released at February FameshedX - available in MM and MF. Both sets include RLV and no-RLV versions.

 

Try it, if you dare.

There is a recurring temptation for any nation, and for any writer who operates within its field of force, to make an ornament of the past: to turn the losses to victories and to restate humiliations as triumphs.

- Eavan Boland

Friendship marks a life even more deeply than love. Love risks degenerating into obsession, friendship is never anything but sharing.

Elie Wiesel.

  

Eliezer "Elie" Wiesel (September 30, 1928 – July 2, 2016) was a Romanian-born American Jewish writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate and Holocaust survivor. He was the author of 57 books, written mostly in French and English, including Night, a work based on his experiences as a prisoner in the Auschwitz and Buchenwald concentration camps.

 

Along with writing, he was a professor of the humanities at Boston University, which created the Elie Wiesel Center for Jewish Studies in his honor. He was involved with Jewish causes, and helped establish the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. In his political activities he also campaigned for victims of oppression in places like South Africa and Nicaragua and genocide in Sudan. He publicly condemned the 1915 Armenian Genocide and remained a strong defender of human rights during his lifetime. He was described as "the most important Jew in America" by the Los Angeles Times.

 

Wiesel was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986, at which time the Norwegian Nobel Committee called him a "messenger to mankind," stating that through his struggle to come to terms with "his own personal experience of total humiliation and of the utter contempt for humanity shown in Hitler's death camps", as well as his "practical work in the cause of peace", Wiesel had delivered a message "of peace, atonement and human dignity" to humanity. He was a founding board member of the New York Human Rights Foundation and remained active throughout his life. Source Wikipedia.

 

This World War II memorial is known as the Bunyan window, as it features Christian, St George and the Dragon and Christian vanquishing Apollyon in the Valley of Humiliation. It was made in 1951 by Harry Stammers in memory of the Officers and Men of the Staffordshire Yeomanry who gave their lives for King and Country.

Digital art by me

I am not a "pro" graphic editor/designer. I picked up techniques here and there so critique and tips are more then welcome!

Black

       

Once upon a time, three little girls lived in a cottage in the middle of the woods while their parents went on a business trip.

 

Goldilocks, Whiteylocks and Hazelocks.

 

You have most probably read about Goldilocks's story before, but have you heard of what happens next?

       

After Goldilocks fled from the home of the 3 bears, she was angry and humiliated, being the spoiled little girl she was, she felt that she had done no wrong. She vowed to get them back somehow, some day.

    

One early morning, Goldilock's youngest sister Hazelocks barged into her room excitedly announcing that a baby bear was in their kitchen. Hazelocks had medium length brown hair, she was tomboyish and did not act like a proper lady, she also had certain strange sadistic habits and was fascinated with torturing insects.

   

Goldilocks was delighted when she rushed to the kitchen and saw the familiar bear, although it had messed up the kitchen and was even stealing oatmeal from one of their bowls. Hazelocks started jumping around in excitement, and Goldilocks started formulating a plan.

     

Goldilocks was vain, arrogant and as aforementioned, terribly spoiled. She wanted a fur coat, her parents had promised to buy her one but their business trip was taking forever. She came up with a stupid and cruel plan, she wanted to skin the bear and use the baby bear's fur for a coat.

      

She told her sister who happily agreed that she would help Goldilocks with any "bloody disgusting" jobs when they skinned the bear. She was as excited as her sister and because of her warped mind, she enjoyed seeing any living organism suffer, except for herself or her family members.

    

Just then, Goldilock's 2nd sister, Whiteylocks (the middle child) rushed in and in her gentle persuasive tone, tried to stop her sisters from such acts of cruelty against animals. Whiteylocks was demure, gentle, well-mannered and she loved animals. Like all sickeningly sweet fairy tale princesses, she was adored by everyone but her eldest sister who was jealous of her.

    

Ignoring Whiteylocks, Goldilocks and Hazelocks were still bent on carrying out their plans. Advancing towards the bear cub with a knife, Hazelocks had a murderous look in her eyes as she raised the sharp deadly object.

The bear cub sensed danger and started squealing and calling for its mother in its own bear-speak that none of the three girls understood.

   

Just then, the girls heard a growl and charging with miraculous speed for an animal so large, the mother bear jumped through the window and continued growling menacingly at the three girls while protectively defending her baby cub.

She recognized Goldilocks as the intruder to her home and roared with anger, firstly, she had stolen their food, ruined their furniture and slept in her baby's bed and now, she wanted to hurt her baby.

   

Goldilocks and her sisters were already cornered, in her fury, the mother ripped Goldilocks apart and that sent her other 2 sisters screaming and crying, running for their lives. The mother bear turned to chase Hazelocks whom she had seen holding the knife and tore her into shreds. Whiteylocks being well read knew that there were 2 ways to escape a bear,

1. Climb a tree

2. Act dead

and since there was no tree in the house, she sprawled on the floor, trying to hold her breath and keep her calm, faking death. But the mother bear did not hurt her, she and her baby cub left the house which had been so clean a few minutes ago. (In comparison to it's current state the messed up kitchen would have been considered "clean")

   

Whiteylocks stared at her sister's dead bodies, or rather, what was left of them, and froze, her already semi-white hair turned whiter from shock into a pure white, her naturally pale skin paled further and her large eyes remained opened to the fullest, she couldn't stop shaking, she couldn't talk, she sat there in the house in the same position for days.

   

Eventually when the parents of the three girls returned, they were shocked to see the blood and the torn up bodies.

  

Whiteylocks was also dead. She sat in the same position, wrapping her arms around her own body. She had died from the lack of water and food.

And that was the sad end of the three little girls who lived in the cottage in the middle of the woods.

         

credits: Little-Crow-Stock

for the bear

 

and

 

Drezdany-stocks for the garden.

For those who have really seen the real human misery. Those who have been tortured, burn to death, dismembered, humiliated in the most hideous ways, seeing their families get kill in front of their eyes, and other unimaginable things. Those are the ones who makes me believe that despite there is no justice to us, there is on the other side, in God's arms.

--------------------------

This one is for those who in some kind of way are or have been deprived of their freedom, for the abused ones and the innocents.

 

For a new sunrise full of hope for those alive,

and may God have in his glory those who have left.

 

Do not stop praying.

 

Make a difference, now.

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1975 One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

1994 The Shawshank Redemption

1999 The Green Mile

2002 The Pianist

2009 Sin nombre

2012 Lincoln

2013 12 Years a Slave

2016 The Birth of a Nation

2016 13th

2016 I Am Not Your Negro

--------------------------

UPPERROOM + Power To The Weak

UPPERROOM + Come Unify Us (Heal Our Country)

 

Let the drummer kick that: youtu.be/a8DAHYmXWeM

youtu.be/yLhjKI-nmUw?si=ks8MPazW3mizRkUT&t=2552

Rachel Maddow: Trump’s Alaska Summit With Putin Is an ‘Abject Humiliation’ | Pivot

  

music:

youtu.be/sscyqZFBsmg?si=XhZfK7a2oV1LcFSw

George Enescu: Impressions d'enfance

Op. 28: No. 4. L'oiseau au cage et le coucou au mur ·

[The bird in the cage and the cuckoo clock on the wall]

  

.

 

photo:

Mogosoaia Palace [finished in 1702], near Bucharest, Romania

with major restoration works [1912-1945]

by architects Domenico Rupolo and G.M. Cantacuzino

for Marta Bibescu

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mogo%C5%9Foaia_Palace

palatebrancovenesti.ro/

www.monumenteromania.ro/index.php/monumente/detalii/en/Pa...

Category: Palaces

Period: 1702

Importance: A

LMI code: IF-II-m-A-15298.01

Address: Str. Valea Parcului 1

Location: sat MOGOŞOAIA; comuna MOGOŞOAIA

District: Ilfov

Region: Muntenia

 

Brâncovenesc style

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Br%C3%A2ncovenesc_art

 

Constantin Brâncoveanu

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantin_Br%C3%A2ncoveanu

Marthe Bibesco

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marthe_Bibesco

Domenico Rupolo

it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domenico_Rupolo

George Matei Cantacuzino

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Matei_Cantacuzino

 

.

 

Stand with Ukraine!

Place I Bethamcherla, Andhra Pradesh

  

Art is born of humiliation ~ W. H. Auden

Worcester, MA '22

Worcester Art Museum

 

Flemish, c. 1515-1525. School of Antwerp

 

Shapur is very clearly modeled on Charles V Habsburg

To make sure you remove your panties before she gets home

I have learned that the poodle cut has a very practical purpose.

Returning from a humiliating 5-1 loss in Phoenix...but made for a cool FLL pic anyway.

This was taken about an hour before game time at a game in which the San Diego Padres humiliated the Dodgers (two days before the famous 4+1 home run game!) At least I had fun taking pictures. We like to sit on the Top Deck at Dodger Stadium where the seats are cheap ($6), the fans are for the most part well behaved, and it's not impossible to get a seat in the section behind home plate. The view is wonderful. The field is laid out in front of you so that you can study the game, noting things like the positions of the fielders for various batters. The steep walk down to your seats can be unnerving, so if you have any fear of heights, get seats on the lower levels. Also, it takes a while to realize that every flyball in not a homerun.

 

This is my first attempt at HDR. To create this shot I took three exposure bracketed shots propping my arm on the armrest to steady the camera. The pictures were combined and tone-mapped in Photomatix.

How to humiliate boys

 

Please see more of this litter of five

The Doel Nuclear Power Station is one of the two nuclear power plants in Belgium. The plant is located on the bank of the Scheldt, near the village of Doel in the Flemish province of East Flanders.

Doel is threatened with complete demolition due to the future enlargement of the harbour of Antwerp. This has seen many people having to sell their homes to the development corporation of that enlargement.

 

The Flemish Executive started with the demolition of the village of Doel on a massive scale. The historic village is situated in the vicinity of the Port of Antwerp. However, there are still inhabitants in the village who resist the demolition of their homes. This triggered the Flemish Executive to send a squad of riot police to the village in order to force through the start of the demolition works. The sheer brutality and heavy-handed approach of the Flemish Executive has left the remaining villagers humiliated and the wider region in a state of shock. The streets are strewn with rubble, big ugly gaps appeared in between the houses. The village now looks like a war-torn zone.

“[In] spite of extreme demographic density and the lack of machinery and work animals, the members of Precolumbian societies enjoyed physical health, individual independence, security, some leisure, which implies a distribution of resources and an integration to the collectivity that in our days would seem a utopia. From all of this follows that if we refuse to analyze the invasion that destroyed a civilized world and laid the seed of a system in which hunger, humiliation, and bloddy repression constitute the only form of survivorship, contemporary underdevelopment should be a result of congenital incapacity, of the irremediable racial inferiority that justified extermination and vassalage”

 

Laurette Sejourné

 

Quetzalcoatl Temple. Teotihuacan Archeological Zone. San Juan Teotihuacan, Estado de México, México.

Model: Me

Photographer and Edit: Me

 

Movie quote:

White Oleander

"Love humiliates you, hate cradles you."

 

On a personal note this is my favorite book of all time, and I love the movie just the same. It holds so much truth of my relationship with my own mother.

 

I added some grain, what do you think?

 

I dyed my hair black last night and I love it :)

Love parade tlv

today we see many children in the street we can understand that certains children help their parents but the others who are rejectected and humiliated by their families walk everyday like beggar out side. Sad life is not only in Africa but everywhere in the world.

 

Thanks to follow me

I experience every day only humiliation and extreme stress lately, I realize more and more that I come to this zero point, but I hope that I can find a bit of luck!

Its all about Humiliation.

Sissy Flora at the party in the Club in Tuscany, dinner soon and then I will be eaten by the males who will surround me with their powerful, huge and very hard cocks! I love satisfying many cocks, even together, it's always nice to have a necklace of erect, turgid, purple, very hard cocks!

But I will make them even harder until they dripping, cumshot their warm and delicious cum!

On vacation a year ago in Pisa, apartment with little sister friend!

We made the sluts and met many males as well as going to the clubs by the sea and sex nights!

Yea, how would you "feel" if people dressed you up like a little clown and paraded you around for people to laugh at? The shame of it! You'd be humiliated as well. Please save me!

 

Oh, oh, here comes another outfit to try on!

I just took a dick and made cumshot this male!

Sigh it happened I would just like everyone to know I put up a good fight

 

No Humans were hurt but I am deeply humiliated ...Tiva

I think this is a shot that speaks for itself.

 

Enjoy!

 

500px • Google+ • @Christian_TTV • Website • Getty

What is it about crossdressing that gives some men a such state of mind that only those of us who feel compelled to do it and get to do it can fully experience?

 

As I have mentioned, countless times, I am convinced that I was born a crossdresser and it has to do with my brain's wiring rather than any childhood trauma or fetish. I was not forcefully dressed as a girl or" humiliated" in that way at any point in my life, but have memories, from a very early age, about willingly trying on some of my mother's garments and shoes, that obviously did not fit. I am the oldest of four children and the one sister is the youngest, and ten years younger than I. So, there were no big sisters in the picture either. It has always been something I have felt compelled to do and have found ways to do it throughout my life. At first there was the guilt and shame, then the thrill and excitement and, once I came to terms with it, the real peace and enjoyment.

 

Do I need an answer to the question with which I started this writing? Not really; all I need is self acceptance and ways to express this facet of my being.

 

Young CDs have it easier today since there is more awareness and even acceptance or tolerance from society. Those who are around my age and older had to go through rough times and many still do. My advice to all is to not try to find an explanation or cure but rather for self acceptance. Once you come to terms with who you are, you will be able to fully enjoy your feminine expression and presentation.

 

There is always the issue of keeping it in hiding, and that is perhaps the most difficult phase that most of us, older girls, have gone through. At one point or another we have had to hide it from loved ones and, in most cases, from friends, coworkers and other people around us. The fear of being rejected or disowned by loved ones is always too strong an issue to come clean with our spouse and family. I was lucky to confide my "secret" to my wife, for 30 years now, when we were only friends and know that most of our sisters still live in hiding. In my opinion, a loved one will appreciate our telling them and if they really love us they will at least tolerate it within reasonable limits. It is very important that to have clear information from trustworthy sources so that they can draw their own conclusions and realize that we are not gay or want to be women. Please do not take this as encouragement but rather as something to take into consideration.

 

Feeling AT EASE will only come when the guilt and shame is gone.

_______________________________________________________

 

¿Por qué travestirse causa tal estado mental en algunos hombres que solo quienes sienten el impulso de hacerlo y llegan a hacerlo pueden realmente experimentar?

 

Como he mencionado, innumerables veces, estoy convencido de que nací crossdresser y que esto es a causa de la manera en que mi cerebro está cableado y no tiene que ver con algún trauma de infancia o fetichismo. Jamás fui forzada a vestir de nena cuando era niño o "humillado" de esa manera en mi vida, pero tengo recuerdos, de muy temprana edad, en los que por mi propia voluntad me ponía prendas y zapatos de mi madre aunque me quedaban enormes. Soy el mayor de cuatro hermanos y la única mujer es la menor , con 10 años menos que yo; por lo que tampoco existió el factor "hermana mayor". Siempre he sentido este impulso y, a lo largo de mi vida, he encontrado la manera de hacerlo. Al principio me producía la vergüenza y la culpa, luego era la emoción y éxtasis y, una vez me acepté como soy, vino la verdadera paz y disfrute.

 

¿Necesito tener respuesta a la pregunta con la que inicié este texto? En realidad, no; todo lo que necesito es esa auto-aceptación y oportunidades para expresar esta faceta de mi ser.

 

Los CD jóvenes la tienen más fácil hoy ya que hay más difusión, tolerancia y hasta aceptación por parte de la sociedad. Quienes somos de mi generación o anteriores, tuvieron que pasar por etapas difíciles y muchos las siguen padeciendo. Mi consejo es que no intenten de encontrar una explicación o cura sino que se acepten como son. Una vez dejan de sentirse culpables y se aceptan como son, podrán verdaderamente disfrutar a plenitud de su manifestación y presentación femenina.

 

por supuesto que siempre está el asunto de mantenerlo en secreto y este es, sin duda, el aspecto más difícil por el que la mayoría de nosotros, los CD mayores, hemos tenido que pasar. En algún momento u otro de nuestras vidas hemos tenido que ocultarnos de seres queridos, y en la mayoría de casos, de amistades, compañeros de trabajo y personas a nuestro derredor. El temor a ser rechazados o desconocidos por seres queridas es demasiado fuerte como para confiarlo a nuestras esposas o familiares. Yo tuve la suerte de haberle confiado "el secreto" a mi esposa, con quien llevo 30 años de matrimonio, cuando solamente éramos amigos y sé que muchos CD siguen viniéndolo en secreto. En mi opinión, un apersona amada apreciará que les confiemos esta parte de nosotros y si verdaderamente nos aman, al menos lo tolerarán dentro de ciertos límites. Es muy importante tener argumentos de fuentes confiables para que puedan comprender que no somos gay ni queremos ser mujeres, al momento de explicar. Por favor no tomen esto como motivación pero sí como algo a tomar en cuenta.

 

Nos sentiremos A GUSTO, hasta que la culpa y la vergüenza se hayan ido.