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    "title": "King, Martin Luther",
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        "Burke Marshall Personal Papers",
        "Assistant Attorney General Files"
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    "ocrText": "-7-\nthey profit by segregation, have unconsciously become insensitive to the problems\nof the masses. The other force is one of bitterness and hatred and becomes\nperilously close to advocating violence. It is expressed in the various black\nnationalist groups that are springing up over the nation, the largest. and best\nknown being Elijah Muhammad's Muslim movement. This movement is nourished\nby the contemporary frustration over the continued existence of racial discrimina-\ntion. It is made up of people who have lost faith in America, who have ab solutely\nrepudiated Christianity, and who have concluded that the white man is an incurable\n\"devil.' I have tried to stand between these two forces saying that we need not\nfollow the \"do-nothingism\" of the complacent or the hatred and despair of the\nblack nationalist. There is a more excellent way of love and non-violent protest.\nI'm grateful to God that, through the Negro church, the dimension of non-violence\nentered our struggle. If this philosophy had not emerged I am convinced that by\nnow many streets of the South would be flowing with floods of blood. And I am\nfurther convinced that if our white brothers dismiss as \"rabble rousers\" and \"out-\nside agitators\" those of us who are working through the channels of non-violent\ndirect action and refuse to support our non-violent efforts, millions of Negroes,\nout of frustration and despair, will seek solace and security in black nationalist\nideologies, a development that will lead inevitably to a frightening racial night-\nmare.\nOppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The urge for freedom will\neventually come. This is what has happened to the American Negro. Something\nwithin has reminded him of his birthright of freedom; something without has re-\nminded him that he can gain it. Consciously and unconsciously, he has been\nswept in by what the Germans call the Zeitgeist, and with his black brothers\nof Africa, and his brown and yellow brothers of Asia, South America and the Ca-\nribbean, he is moving with a sense of cosmic urgency toward the promised land\nof racial justice. Recognizing this vital urge that has engulfed the Negro com-\nmunity, one should readily understand public demonstrations. The Negro has\nmany pent-up resentments and latert frustrations. He has to get them out. So\nlet him march sometime; let him have his prayer pilgrimages to the city hall;\nunderstand why he must have sit-ins and freedom rides. If his repressed emo-\ntions do not come out in these non-violent ways, they will come out in ominous\nexpressions of violence. This is not a threat; it is a fact of history. So I have\nnot said to my people \"Get rid of your discontent. But I have tried to say that\nthis normal and healthy discontent can be channelized through the creative outlet\nof non-violent direct action. Now this approach is being dismissed as extremist.\nI must admit that I was initially disappointed in being categorized.\nBut, as I continued to think about the matter, I gradually gained a bit of satisfac-\ntion from being considered an extremist. Was not Jesus an extremist in love -\n- \"Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, pray for them that despitefully\nuse you. 11 Was not Amos an extremist for justice - \"Let justice roll down like\nwaters and righteousness like a mighty stream. Was not Paul an extremist for\nthe gospel of Jesus Christ - \"I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus. 11\nWas not Martin Luther an extremist - \"I will stay in jail to the end of my days be.\nfore I make a mockery of my conscience. 11 Was not Abraham Lincoln an extremist\n- \"This nation cannot survive half slave and half free.\" Was not Thomas Jeffer-\nson an extremist - \"We hold these truths to be self evident that all men are created\nequal. So the question is not whether we will be extremist, but what kind of ex-\ntremist will we be. Will we be extremists for hate or will we be extremists of\nlove? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice, or will we be ex-\ntremists for the cause of justice? In that dramatic scene on Calvary's hill, three\nmen were crucified. We must not forget that all three were crucified for-the same\ncrime of extremism. Two were extremist for immorality, and thusly fell below\ntheir enviornment. The other, Jesus Christ, was an extremist for love, truth,"
}