Coretta King warns of repression; calls for militance: 1970
Coretta Scott King, civil rights leader and window of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., speaks at the Metropolitan Memorial United Methodist Church at 3401 Nebraska Ave. NW March 11, 1970.
From the Washington Star, written by Joy Billington::
“’Sing unto the Lord a New Song’ was the selection of the Wesley Seminary Singers as they opened Wesley Theological Seminary’s first Martin Luther King Lecture with a beautiful old psalm in Metropolitan Memorial United Methodist Church yesterday morning.
“But the ‘song’ was an old one, when the woman in the robin red suit, with her famous, calm face, rose to give the lecture.
“Coretta Scott King, on the subject ‘Martin Luther King’s Legacy: The Church in Action,’ warned of ‘new repression’ and spoke of a need to return to the King-style militancy of the civil rights movement in the ‘50s.
“Standing in the pulpit under the arched roof of the packed church, its grey solidity around her, Mrs. King said that ‘we are moving forward toward another repressive period in our history,’ similar to that of the ‘50s.
“Appealing to the Christian church to ‘rediscover Jesus, the racial’—who, if he were alive today would ‘be among the poor, the black, the agonized students, the grape workers’ and probably be the victim of police clubbing ‘for his revolutionary, stubborn, activist though and conduct’—Mrs. King gently chided the church as lacking moral leadership.
“’Who would be a man must be a nonconformist,’ she said, quoting Emerson, ‘and we are not speaking of the newly emerged silent minority for whom Vice President Agnew seems to be the spokesman,’ she went on, coming to the heart of her message, which rested in her husband’s famous ‘Letter from Birmingham Jail.’
“Quoting from that 1963 assessment of the role of the white moderate (‘whom I had hoped would understand that law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and that when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress’), Mrs. King said her husband’s words were appropriate for the ‘70s.
“’Nonviolent direct actions are not the creators of tension but a necessary phase in the transition from an obnoxious negative peace to a substantive and positive peace,’ she quoted from him.
“The ‘legacy of Martin Luther King,’ his window concluded, is youth’s dissent.
“’Their voice is still a minority, but, united with millions of black protesting voices, it has become a sound of distant thunder increasing in volume with the gathering storm clouds. This dissent is America’ Hope.’
“Later, at a press conference before returning to Atlanta, Mrs. King more precisely named the ‘new repressions’ she fears for the ‘70s: ‘excessive bail and excessive jail.’ For Negros, a feeling ‘that we don’t have the same kind of protection’ from the federal government’ as in the earlier period of the movement.
“There has not been enough progress for ‘benign neglect’ to be justified, she said; the Lamar incident in South Carolina ‘takes us back to Little Rock.’
“The Kennedy administration and the Johnson administration expected moral influence on the ?American people, Mrs. King went on. ‘This administration finds out what is expedient and says, ‘This is what we’ll do’ she said. This sensed ‘withdrawal’ of the federal government from the civil rights scene caused a feeling of great insecurity among those who would still pursue the nonviolent tactics of King she warned.”
For more information and related images, see flic.kr/s/aHsmJmyGSC
Photo by Schmick. The image is courtesy of the D.C. Public Library Washington Star Collection © Washington Post.
Coretta King warns of repression; calls for militance: 1970
Coretta Scott King, civil rights leader and window of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., speaks at the Metropolitan Memorial United Methodist Church at 3401 Nebraska Ave. NW March 11, 1970.
From the Washington Star, written by Joy Billington::
“’Sing unto the Lord a New Song’ was the selection of the Wesley Seminary Singers as they opened Wesley Theological Seminary’s first Martin Luther King Lecture with a beautiful old psalm in Metropolitan Memorial United Methodist Church yesterday morning.
“But the ‘song’ was an old one, when the woman in the robin red suit, with her famous, calm face, rose to give the lecture.
“Coretta Scott King, on the subject ‘Martin Luther King’s Legacy: The Church in Action,’ warned of ‘new repression’ and spoke of a need to return to the King-style militancy of the civil rights movement in the ‘50s.
“Standing in the pulpit under the arched roof of the packed church, its grey solidity around her, Mrs. King said that ‘we are moving forward toward another repressive period in our history,’ similar to that of the ‘50s.
“Appealing to the Christian church to ‘rediscover Jesus, the racial’—who, if he were alive today would ‘be among the poor, the black, the agonized students, the grape workers’ and probably be the victim of police clubbing ‘for his revolutionary, stubborn, activist though and conduct’—Mrs. King gently chided the church as lacking moral leadership.
“’Who would be a man must be a nonconformist,’ she said, quoting Emerson, ‘and we are not speaking of the newly emerged silent minority for whom Vice President Agnew seems to be the spokesman,’ she went on, coming to the heart of her message, which rested in her husband’s famous ‘Letter from Birmingham Jail.’
“Quoting from that 1963 assessment of the role of the white moderate (‘whom I had hoped would understand that law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and that when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress’), Mrs. King said her husband’s words were appropriate for the ‘70s.
“’Nonviolent direct actions are not the creators of tension but a necessary phase in the transition from an obnoxious negative peace to a substantive and positive peace,’ she quoted from him.
“The ‘legacy of Martin Luther King,’ his window concluded, is youth’s dissent.
“’Their voice is still a minority, but, united with millions of black protesting voices, it has become a sound of distant thunder increasing in volume with the gathering storm clouds. This dissent is America’ Hope.’
“Later, at a press conference before returning to Atlanta, Mrs. King more precisely named the ‘new repressions’ she fears for the ‘70s: ‘excessive bail and excessive jail.’ For Negros, a feeling ‘that we don’t have the same kind of protection’ from the federal government’ as in the earlier period of the movement.
“There has not been enough progress for ‘benign neglect’ to be justified, she said; the Lamar incident in South Carolina ‘takes us back to Little Rock.’
“The Kennedy administration and the Johnson administration expected moral influence on the ?American people, Mrs. King went on. ‘This administration finds out what is expedient and says, ‘This is what we’ll do’ she said. This sensed ‘withdrawal’ of the federal government from the civil rights scene caused a feeling of great insecurity among those who would still pursue the nonviolent tactics of King she warned.”
For more information and related images, see flic.kr/s/aHsmJmyGSC
Photo by Schmick. The image is courtesy of the D.C. Public Library Washington Star Collection © Washington Post.