[Letter from Martin Luther King, Jr., April 1968] Page: 1 of 2
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332 AUBURN AVENUE, N. E.
. ATLANTA, GA. f
April, 1968
Dear Friend:
Our national government is playing Russian roulette with riots; it
gambles with another summer of disaster. Not a single basic social
cause of riots has been corrected. Though ample resources are avail-
able they are squandered substantially on war. However, the inhuman-
ity and irresponsibility of Congress and the Administration are not a
reflection of popular attitudes -- legislation to abolish slums and end
all unemployment has been endorsed by a wide majority of the American
people in reputable polls. Yet, these positive proposals, like the
recommendations of the President's Commission will be filed away to
gather dust if the people do not generate relentless pressure on Congress.
It was obdurate government callousness to misery that first stoked
the flames of rage and frustration. With unemployment a scourge in
Negro ghettos, the government still tinkers with trivial half-hearted
measures -- refuses still to become an "employer of last resort". It
asks the business community to solve the problem as though its past
failures qualified it for future success. In the halls of Congress Negro
lives are too cheap to justify resolute measures; it is easier to specu-
late in blood and do nothing.
SC LC cannot wait; it cannot watch as the only systematic response to
riots are feverish military preparations for repression. It cannot sit
in appalled silence and then deplore the holocaust when tragedy strikes.
We cannot condone either violence or the equivalent evil of passivity.
We intend, before the summer comes, to initiate a "last chance" project
to arouse the American conscience toward constructive democratic
change.
We intend to channelize the smoldering rage of the Negro and white
poor in an effective militant movement in Washington and elsewhere.
A pilgrimage of the poor will gather in Washington from the slums and
the rural starvation regions of the nation. We will go there, we will
demand to be heard, and we will stay until America responds. If this
means forcible repression of our movement, we will confront it, for
we have done this before. If this means scorn or ridicule, we will em-
brace it, for that is what America's poor now receive. If it means
jail, we accept it willingly, for the millions of poor already are im-
prisoned by exploitation and discrimination. We will in this way fashion
a confrontation unique in drama but firm in discipline to wrest from
government fundamental measures to end the long agony of the hard
core poor. A prosperous society can afford it; a moral society cannot
(over)
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King, Martin Luther, Jr., 1929-1968. [Letter from Martin Luther King, Jr., April 1968], letter, April 1968; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1439186/m1/1/: accessed July 9, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Rosenberg Library.