OpEdNews - Page 2 of Article: My May 1963 Interview with Martin Luther King, Jr.

There is little doubt that had Connor been present at that time blood would have been shed. However, members of a Negro civil defense unit and the Rev. Wyatt T. Walker, executive director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference headed by Martin Luther King, Jr., made valiant—and successful—efforts to quiet the disturbance.

Later that evening units of the state highway patrol, which operates on orders from militantly segregationist Gov. George Wallace, moved into the motel area. Both Negroes and white moderates place heavy responsibility on the state patrol for the riot conditions which subsequently developed.

Its members blocked off the area, and during the period of their domination they administered several beatings; as the result of one Mrs. Walker had to be hospitalized. (Significantly, when Pres. Kennedy on Sunday evening dispatched federal troops to stand by to assist local and county law enforcement officers in maintaining order, he did not say that the troops would be available to help the state patrol.) Fortunately, so far no deaths have resulted from the weekend disturbances.

The bombings revealed an ambivalence in attitude on the part of the city's civic leadership. Recently elected Mayor Albert Boutwell deplored the outrage and issued a plea for the cessation of violence. On the other hand, Art Hanes, who continues as mayor on the triumvirate commission which cannot be officially unseated until the state supreme court confirms Boutwell's right to hold office, declared in a public statement that he hoped any drop of blood shed in Birmingham would "stick in Robert Kennedy's throat" (The attorney general is blamed by many segregationists in Birmingham for much of what has happened.)

On Sunday Martin Luther King, Jr., returned from his home in Atlanta, where he had gone on Saturday, and issued a plea for an end to any violence on the part of Negroes. He reiterated what has been a cardinal principle of the nonviolent movement: any blood shed should be Negro blood; any act of violence perpetrated by a Negro serves only to damage the Negro's cause.

On Monday he led a group through pool halls and streets in the disturbed area, repeating the call for nonviolence.

The Birmingham situation raises the question of the future of nonviolence as a tactic in the struggle for justice under the Constitution. Argument over the tactic has been intensified by the outbreak of violence in Birmingham, by the presence on the scene of Black Muslim leaders, and by the widely publicized remarks on television and else-where by Malcolm X, Black Muslim spokesman who considers nonviolence a cowardly evasion. So far the Muslim movement seems to have made little impact on the south; its leaders' presence here was largely ignored. And as for Atlanta, a Negro observer there notes: "They are here, of course, but they are making little headway."

Dr. King estimates that 90 per cent of Birmingham's Negroes are committed to "tactical nonviolence"—nonviolence resorted to as a strategy in obtaining civil rights and equal opportunity. Actually about 3,000 people have received training in nonviolent workshops and accepted the "ten commandments for volunteers," among which are these: "Walk and talk in the manner of love, for God is love" and "Refrain from the violence of fist, tongue or heart."

At a mass meeting following the Saturday night bombings one speaker unwit-tingly revealed the ambivalence which must surely affect all but the most saintly adherents of the movement when he cried to a responsive audience: "We're going to love the hell out of these [white] people!"

As in other southern cities, minor but provocative acts on the part of Negro onlookers at demonstrations — rock throwing, for instance — have led the general public wrongly to assume that the non-violent movement is responsible. Though it seems possible that the movement does serve as a catalyst releasing pent-up resentments among Negroes outside its ranks, it is unfair to suggest that members of the movement have participated in violent acts. And its leaders have taken all steps within their power to re-strain any possible violence by other Negroes.

The basic question is whether the movement can continue to be the main-stay of the fight for Negro rights in the south.

The Southern Christian Leadership Conference is committed to the nonviolent approach, and Dr. King, its leader, has accepted nonviolence not just as a tactic in the current struggle but as a way of life. The Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee, which has given front line support to many demonstrations in the struggle for racial justice in the south, is committed to non-violence—as its name implies—but some observers consider it more militant and impatient than the parallel organization; apparently the younger generation of students wants more rights in less time.

In our interview on Saturday we asked Dr. King to comment on our observation that among some of his young lieutenants there exists a pride and color-consciousness that may lead them to draw away from white persons rather than try to work with them. He replied: "There is this new race pride not only among my lieutenants but among the Negro race as a whole—a great sense of dignity and even destiny, a new self-respect. Within the vast majority of Negroes, however, there is reasonable self-restraint. I do not believe this majority would exchange black supremacy for white supremacy. That would be to exchange one tyranny for another."

Asked about the conviction of some white people that for the present there is a need to "go slow" in the fight for integration, Dr. King said that the shape of the world today does not permit the luxury of such relaxation: "We see the new nations of Africa and Asia moving at jet speed toward independence and, on the other hand, we seem our-selves to be moving at horse-and-buggy speed just to get a cup of coffee at a lunch counter."

No doubt another reason Dr. King and his Southern Christian Leadership Conference cannot afford to "go slow" is the pressure from younger elements in the nonviolent movement. Still an-other may be the fact of life Dr. King has acknowledged in public references to the Black Muslim movement: that movement symbolizes the Negro's utter impatience with the white man's hypocrisy, paternalism and bigotry—impatience which could erupt in the future, as it has in the past, in full-scale displays of raw force.

This is more likely in the northern cities where the Black Muslim movement is strong than in the south. Dr. King believes the risk of serious outbreaks is intensified by the white man's unwillingness to change the status quo in response to peaceful overtures from the Negro community. It may well be that white people who criticize his strategy will have reason in the future to look back longingly on his leadership—for there is little question that the American Negro is determined to gain his rights by some method. The tide of racial justice is indeed sweeping in on the beach of history. Efforts to hold it back are likely to serve only to change its character, intensify its force.

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