Editor’s Note: The following first appeared on “Footnotes,” Dr. Jemar Tisby’s Substack.
December 10 marks the anniversary of the day in 1964 when Martin Luther King, Jr. accepted the Nobel Peace Prize for his work leading the civil rights movement. At 35 years old, he was the youngest recipient in the history of the award. He donated the entirety of the prize money, more than $50,000 to the work of civil rights.
He flew to Oslo with his wife, Coretta Scott King and a few others to accept the award and deliver a speech.
I wasn’t going to write a whole article about this, but in perusing his speech, his words gripped me.
The hope.
The integrity.
The determination.
How could a man who lived under the daily threat of death have such an attitude, even when receiving an international peace award?
MLK’s words upon his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance provide inspiration and guidance as we face a chaotic and oppressive regime coming into political power in the United States.
They sound notes of strength and resilience even when the current context belies such feelings.
Even 70 years later, we need these words today.
The Struggle for Peace
In 1964, activists had just seen a major victory in their struggle for justice. In July of 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act into law.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 presented one of the most comprehensive efforts in U.S. history to secure equal rights for all people.
The act prevented discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin.
But, as Frederick Douglass said, “Without struggle there is no progress.”
Look what it took to secure the political will to make the Civil Rights Act a law.
In April of 1963, King and other activists, such as Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, waged the Birmingham Campaign. That was the confrontation with Eugene “Bull” Connor that led to the use of police dogs and firehoses against protestors, many of whom were children and youth.
That is also the campaign that resulted in MLK’s arrest and the occasion for him writing his famed “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”
Then, in June 1963, NAACP field secretary Medgar Evers was assassinated in front of his home in Jackson, Mississippi. His wife, Myrlie and their children were inside the home when the gunman shot and killed Evers.
That event prompted President John F. Kennedy to give his most direct speech in support of civil rights and equality for Black people, and explicitly called for a Civil Rights Act.
In August of 1963, more than 200,000 people participated in the massive March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. There, King delivered his most famous speech, “I Have a Dream.”
Partially in response to the shifting political tides, a group of white supremacist terrorists planted dynamite at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, killing four young girls and injuring many more.
Then, a few months later, an assassin shot and killed JFK while he rode in a motorcade in Dallas, Texas.
All those events and many more led to the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964 and thrust a young Martin Luther King, Jr. into one of the most prominent peace leaders in the world.
Nonviolence Is the Answer
When King took to the podium, he knew that accepting a prize did not mean peace had been achieved.
“I am mindful that only yesterday in Birmingham, Alabama, our children, crying out for brotherhood, were answered with fire hoses, snarling dogs and even death,” he began.
Yet King and many stalwart activists like him did not wait for their circumstances to change to choose hope. Nor would they allow those circumstances to steal their faith in a better future.
Firehoses and attacking canines did not deter MLK from his chosen path of nonviolence.
“This award…is a profound recognition that nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral question of our time—the need for man to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to oppression and violence.”
This is a word for today as activists face police brutality, racial violence, and the increasing threat of domestic terrorism.
I’ve looked at conflicts around the world, and in every single case, when both sides resorted to violence, even if their cause was righteous, the result was even more bloodshed.
It will be enticing to resort to violence, other activists will even encourage it, but like King, we remain committed to the way of peace.
Audacious Faith
Here’s the part that got me, and the reason why I’m sharing this speech with you.
King said,
I accept this award today with an abiding faith in America and an audacious faith in the future of mankind. I refuse to accept despair as the final response to the ambiguities of history. I refuse to accept the idea that the “isness” of man’s present nature makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the eternal “oughtness” that forever confronts him. I refuse to accept the idea that man is mere flotsam and jetsam in the river of life, unable to influence the unfolding events which surround him. I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality.
King expressed an “audacious faith in the future of mankind.”
Coming from anyone else, we would label him a fool. But King said these words fully cognizant of the evil and violence that people can inflict on one another. He was a victim of that violence himself.
Yet he maintained a stalwart confidence that we as a people could and would do better.
King went on to say,
I refuse to accept the cynical notion that nation after nation must spiral down a militaristic stairway into the hell of thermonuclear destruction. I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right temporarily defeated is stronger than evil triumphant. I believe that even amid today’s mortar bursts and whining bullets, there is still hope for a brighter tomorrow. I believe that wounded justice, lying prostrate on the blood-flowing streets of our nations, can be lifted from this dust of shame to reign supreme among the children of men.
I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality and freedom for their spirits. I believe that what self-centered men have torn down men other-centered can build up. I still believe that one day mankind will bow before the altars of God and be crowned triumphant over war and bloodshed, and nonviolent redemptive good will proclaim the rule of the land. “And the lion and the lamb shall lie down together and every man shall sit under his own vine and fig tree and none shall be afraid.”
I still believe that we shall overcome!
“Right temporarily defeated is stronger than evil triumphant.”
I need those words today.
With the devastating outcome of the 2024 presidential election and our dismal prospects for the future, I need to be reminded that right is still right, even when evil is ascendant.
I also love the simplicity of King’s vision.
“I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality and freedom for their spirits,” King said.
That’s it, isn’t it?
That’s what we want from our leaders, from our politicians, from our country.
It’s so straightforward—food, education, culture, dignity—and it is so achievable.
But we aren’t there yet.
In fact, some people are pushing us backward. In many ways we are still engaged in the same struggle for peace and justice in which MLK stood embroiled.
Creative Turmoil
But we also need King’s words from the close of the speech.
When our days become dreary with low-hovering clouds and our nights become darker than a thousand midnights, we will know that we are living in the creative turmoil of a genuine civilization struggling to be born.
Now is a time of creative turmoil.
We are in the depths of the battle. We are dirty, sweaty, and weary in our struggle for justice. But these are the growing pains that will one day evolve into a brighter future.
Just as the gardener moves dirt, pulls weeds, and shoos away vermin before their garden bears fruit, we must tend to the tender shoots of justice before they mature.
I would not dare say these words if a man like Martin Luther King, Jr. had not also said them.
I would not subject you to these words of resolve if I did not truly believe that our struggles will one day bear fruit.
And if we are fools to continue to hope, then we are in good historical company.
