“The Trumpet of Conscience” (1968) by Martin Luther King, Jr came out soon after his death. It contains a foreword by his widow, Coretta Scott King, four talks he gave on Canadian radio (and thus to the world), and his last Christmas sermon at his church:
- Impasse in Race Relations
- Conscience and the Vietnam War
- Youth and Social Action
- Nonviolence and Social Change
- A Christmas Sermon on Peace
All of these are from 1967. It is a quick read, only 80 pages.
In brief: He says that the Civil Rights Movement had moved from non-violence to riot and repression, and thus a dead end! On the Vietnam War he covers much of the same ground as his Riverside Speech of April 1967, which I have already done a post on. Excellent! He also talks about the youth, both Black and White, which gave him hope for the future since many of them were trying to change society for the better – not just their protests against racial injustice, poverty and war, but even the counterculture of the hippies. There is also a wonderful defence of non-violence – that violence can only bring further violence, that the ends do not justify the means. In fact, the means mould the end. To create a just society you must begin to live it. Cutting corners undermines the very thing you are trying to do.
It may sound kind of pie-in-the-sky, but it was not like the worldly, materialistic, might-makes-right values were working out so well.
Some of my favourite quotes (with keywords bolded):
“The war in Vietnam is but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit.”
“The hippies are not only colorful, but complex; and in many respects their extreme conduct illuminates the negative effect of society’s evils on sensitive young people.”
“It is ironic that today so many educators and sociologists are seeking methods to instill middle-class values in Negro youth as the ideal in social development. It was precisely when young Negroes threw off their middle-class values that they made an historic social contribution. They abandoned those values when they put careers and wealth in a secondary role. … they challenged and inspired white youth to emulate them.”
“If just two countries, Britain and the United States, could be persuaded to end all economic interaction with the South African regime, they could bring that government to its knees in a relatively short time.”
“… to planetize our movement for social justice.”
“But we will never have peace in the world until men everywhere recognize that ends are not cut off from means, because the means represent the ideal in the making, and the end in process, and ultimately you can’t reach good ends through evil means, because the means represent the seed and the end represents the tree.”
“I’ve seen too much hate to want to hate, myself, and I’ve seen hate on the faces of too many sheriffs, too many white citizens’ councilors, and too many Klansmen of the South to want to hate, myself; and every time I see it, I say to myself, hate is too great a burden to bear.”
– Abagond, 2026.
See also:
- Martin Luther King, Jr
- 1968 media diet – I read this as part of my 1968 media diet
- Vietnam War
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Abagond 