April 7, 1968 rally on the main quad
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| - | As we welcome the good of some 400 people | 0:05 |
| who expressed their support and sympathy | 0:10 | |
| and action taking at Doctor Knight's house, | 0:13 | |
| I will that assembled good, a speech delivered | 0:20 | |
| by Doctor Martin Luther King in Washington of August 1963. | 0:25 | |
| Today as we've expanded our vigil, the main quad angle, | 0:36 | |
| I'd like to take this opportunity to read selected | 0:50 | |
| portions of another of Dr King's famous works. | 0:53 | |
| A document which was written under the most unusual | 1:03 | |
| circumstances, circumstances which | 1:08 | |
| I think you should know about. | 1:16 | |
| This is a response which Dr King made to a public | 1:22 | |
| statement by eight fellow clergymen from Alabama. | 1:25 | |
| It was composed under somewhat constricting circumstances. | 1:33 | |
| Began on the margins of the newspaper on which the | 1:39 | |
| statement appeared while Dr King was in jail. | 1:42 | |
| The letter was continued on scraps of writing paper | 1:47 | |
| supplied by friendly Negro trustees and it was | 1:50 | |
| concluded on a pad which Dr King's attorney gave him | 1:55 | |
| after considerable negotiation with the jailers. | 2:00 | |
| Let me share with you these thoughts of Dr King. | 2:06 | |
| Dr King says you may well ask why I direct action, | 2:13 | |
| why sit ins, marches and so forth? | 2:19 | |
| Isn't negotiation a better path? | 2:24 | |
| You are quite right in calling for negotiation. | 2:28 | |
| Indeed this is the very purpose of direct action. | 2:31 | |
| Non violent, direct action fixed to created such | 2:36 | |
| a crisis and foster such attention that a community | 2:39 | |
| that has constantly refused to negotiate | 2:42 | |
| is forced to confront the issues. | 2:46 | |
| It seeks to dramatize the issues so that it | 2:49 | |
| can no longer be ignored. | 2:52 | |
| My siting the creating of tension as part of the work | 2:56 | |
| of the non violent resister may sound rather shocking | 2:59 | |
| but I must confess that I am not afraid of the word tension. | 3:03 | |
| I have earnestly opposed violent tension. | 3:07 | |
| But there is a type of constructive non violent tension | 3:11 | |
| which is necessary for growth. | 3:15 | |
| Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create | 3:18 | |
| a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise | 3:21 | |
| from the bondage of myth and half truths to the unfettered | 3:25 | |
| realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal. | 3:29 | |
| So must we see the need for non violent gadflies | 3:35 | |
| to create the kind of tension in society that will | 3:39 | |
| help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism | 3:42 | |
| to the majestic type of understanding and brotherhood. | 3:47 | |
| The purpose of our direct action program is to create | 3:53 | |
| a situation so that it will inevitably open the | 3:57 | |
| door for negotiation, I therefore, concur with you | 4:03 | |
| in your call for negotiation. | 4:08 | |
| Too long has our beloved south land been bogged down in | 4:11 | |
| a tragic effort to live in monologue rather than dialogue. | 4:14 | |
| One of the basic points in your statement is that the | 4:20 | |
| actions that I and my associates have taken in Birmingham | 4:22 | |
| is untimely, some have asked why didn't you give the | 4:25 | |
| new city administration time to act? | 4:29 | |
| The only answer that I can give to this query is that | 4:33 | |
| the new Birmingham association must be prodded | 4:36 | |
| about as much as the outgoing one before it realizes. | 4:39 | |
| Dr King continues somewhat later we will reach the goal | 5:00 | |
| of freedom in Birmingham and all over the nation because | 5:05 | |
| the goal of America is freedom. | 5:09 | |
| A few and scorned though we may be, our destiny | 5:12 | |
| is tied up with America's destiny. | 5:16 | |
| Before the pilgrims landed at Plymouth, we were here. | 5:20 | |
| Before the pen of Jefferson etched the majestic words | 5:24 | |
| of the Declaration of Independence across | 5:27 | |
| the pages of history, we were here. | 5:29 | |
| For more than two centuries, our fore bearers labored | 5:33 | |
| in this country without wages. | 5:36 | |
| They made cotton king, they built the homes of their | 5:39 | |
| masters while suffering gross injustice and shameful | 5:42 | |
| humiliation and yet out of a bottomless vitality | 5:45 | |
| that continued to thrive and develop. | 5:50 | |
| If the inexpressible cruelties of slavery could not | 5:53 | |
| stop us, the opposition we now face will surely fail. | 5:56 | |
| We will win our freedom because the sacred heritage | 6:02 | |
| of our nation and the eternal will of God | 6:06 | |
| are embodied in our echoing demands. | 6:10 | |
| - | I'd like to take this opportunity to fill you in on | 6:20 |
| what's going on in the past 40 hours, 43 hours to be | 6:25 | |
| exact, almost, we left the Alumni Lounge over there | 6:29 | |
| about 43 hours ago, I guess we were about 400, 500 strong. | 6:32 | |
| I forget how many at this time. | 6:37 | |
| We arrive at Dr Knight's and three spokesman went inside | 6:40 | |
| and starting talking with Dr Knight about a half an hour | 6:48 | |
| after we got there, we had the four requests that I'm | 6:51 | |
| sure most of you have seen somewhere or another around | 6:57 | |
| campus because we've been trying to inform you while | 7:00 | |
| we've been there and our purposes of being there. | 7:02 | |
| And I'd like to just briefly reiterate the requests | 7:04 | |
| that we were discussing with him at this time. | 7:07 | |
| First of all, he signed a statement which we've been | 7:09 | |
| circulating on campus and throughout the Georgia community | 7:12 | |
| entitled Shall Democracy Also Die at our Hands, | 7:15 | |
| a statement which I hope all of you have signed, | 7:18 | |
| have read and have signed. | 7:21 | |
| If possible, you could please contribute to this. | 7:23 | |
| It's costing $785 to rent a page in the newspaper, | 7:25 | |
| buy one, I guess, sorry, so if you can find it possible | 7:30 | |
| to make a contribution, we appreciate it very much | 7:35 | |
| at the front table here and you have not signed this | 7:37 | |
| that begins with Dr Martin Luther King has been murdered | 7:41 | |
| and goes on to make a call to each one of us to respond. | 7:44 | |
| I would really appreciate you coming up here after this | 7:50 | |
| rally is over, reading it over and signing it | 7:52 | |
| if your conscience can and I hope so. | 7:54 | |
| We're asking Dr Knight to do that. | 7:57 | |
| The second was of course the minimum wage, the $1.60 | 8:01 | |
| demand we're making that we make immediate provisions | 8:06 | |
| for as soon as possible implementing the minimum wage | 8:10 | |
| for all employees at this university. | 8:14 | |
| Third, that he resign from the Segregated Hope Valley | 8:16 | |
| Country Club and fourth, that he appoint a committee of | 8:19 | |
| students, faculty and non-academic employees to discuss | 8:24 | |
| the situation concerning collective | 8:30 | |
| bargaining at this time on campus. | 8:32 | |
| Let me tell ya now, we sat down with Dr Knight | 8:34 | |
| and he was really nice, he said good evening. | 8:36 | |
| And we started talking and he didn't know what was | 8:39 | |
| going on because he's coming to talk and the talk was | 8:43 | |
| all the sudden filled with all these students. | 8:44 | |
| And he turned to me and said well Bunny, I see | 8:47 | |
| you're organized and I was saying oh yes sir, | 8:49 | |
| we're really organized, we didn't know if we were | 8:52 | |
| organized or not, after we talked to him about an hour | 8:55 | |
| and a half, he thought that we'd talked enough. | 8:59 | |
| And now we would go, he had, by the way, said that | 9:03 | |
| he could not respond to the four requests we'd made. | 9:06 | |
| And we kinda indicated that we didn't think it'd | 9:09 | |
| be too good an idea to go downstairs at that time. | 9:11 | |
| Because by this time, everybody was singing | 9:13 | |
| and really giving us great support outside. | 9:15 | |
| It was fantastic, Dr Knight did not know what was going on. | 9:18 | |
| And he came out eventually and spoke to the group | 9:22 | |
| and we realized that we would not be leaving because | 9:25 | |
| he was exceeding to our demands. | 9:27 | |
| At that time, he informed us that we were guests in his home | 9:31 | |
| and retired for the evening so we bedded down. | 9:34 | |
| We bedded down for that first night. | 9:40 | |
| Plush carpet's a little different than the grass, | 9:46 | |
| where I guess we'll be tonight but it was really | 9:48 | |
| amazing experience, really fantastic, a group of kids | 9:52 | |
| out there, we had about 250 to 300 people, students, | 9:55 | |
| faculty, a real community committed to our purpose, | 9:58 | |
| our concern and willing to stay right there. | 10:06 | |
| We didn't know what was gonna happen. | 10:09 | |
| We didn't know whether we'd be booted out, arrested, | 10:10 | |
| suspended, what was gonna happen but we knew that | 10:13 | |
| something had happened in this nation, something | 10:16 | |
| to which we had a moral responsibility to respond. | 10:19 | |
| And this is where we felt we had to commit ourselves. | 10:25 | |
| At this time we felt that if white America, | 10:30 | |
| if those of us that come from nice, middle class homes | 10:34 | |
| could not make the system work for us, what | 10:39 | |
| chance would our black brothers have, none. | 10:42 | |
| And so we had to show that the system would work | 10:45 | |
| because if it would work for anybody, it would work for us. | 10:48 | |
| We continue negotiating that evening. | 10:53 | |
| We spoke with Dr Knight again yesterday morning | 10:55 | |
| before he went to Chapel, we were in contact with his | 10:57 | |
| negotiations in the afternoon and then last evening, | 11:04 | |
| we received the news that over the past eight days | 11:06 | |
| his health has become taxed, he's completely exhausted | 11:11 | |
| and his doctor issued him to bed for 48 hours. | 11:15 | |
| So although we had been greatly encouraged earlier | 11:19 | |
| in the day, we thought that we had been making a great | 11:22 | |
| deal of progress, we realized that for the next 48 hours | 11:24 | |
| from that time last night, we wouldn't have a whole lot | 11:29 | |
| to deal with because we didn't have the man to deal with. | 11:34 | |
| He was put in seclusion, incommunicado with the rest of us | 11:40 | |
| and at that time, we started strategizing, trying to | 11:43 | |
| figure out how we could most respectively represent | 11:47 | |
| ourselves to the workers of this university, the university | 11:51 | |
| community, to Durham, to North Carolina, to the country | 11:58 | |
| at large, we had to let people know that this is where | 12:03 | |
| we were drawing the line and that we were gonna force a | 12:06 | |
| response to these very crucial needs here at this community. | 12:11 | |
| So here we are today, probably tonight, tomorrow, | 12:16 | |
| we'll be meeting tomorrow night, tomorrow afternoon | 12:21 | |
| hopefully if Dr Knight recovers during this rest time. | 12:23 | |
| We're scheduled to have another meeting this afternoon, | 12:30 | |
| it kinda wasn't in the schedule before we got here | 12:33 | |
| but they thought we did a pretty good job out here. | 12:36 | |
| And so they've called us to see us this afternoon too. | 12:39 | |
| But as it stands now, we're here, we're really glad | 12:43 | |
| to see all of you here, we're really glad to have this | 12:47 | |
| great turn out because it shows all of those people that | 12:51 | |
| I've been talking about, it shows the people in the | 12:54 | |
| community, the people that work here, the people down | 12:57 | |
| in Durham that we mean business and that we're out here | 13:01 | |
| and that we're gonna get somethin' done. | 13:04 | |
| We're tired of talking, everybody for freedom, | 13:06 | |
| everybody for justice but we're gonna get something. | 13:09 | |
| And we're gonna get it here and man, they ain't gonna | 13:12 | |
| move us one inch till we get, thank you very much. | 13:15 | |
| (applause) | 13:19 | |
| I forgot somethin'. | 13:34 | |
| The demands that we were making as you'll notice, | 13:39 | |
| they're all crouched in terms to which Dr Knight | 13:42 | |
| himself could personally respond. | 13:47 | |
| We realize that we could not go in and say Dr Knight | 13:50 | |
| we want the $1.60 minimum wage today because | 13:53 | |
| obviously that is not within the realm of his power | 13:56 | |
| nor his responsibility and as we thought about the | 13:59 | |
| implications of the things we were talking about, | 14:04 | |
| we realized that as in most things, a great deal of | 14:07 | |
| power and a great deal of influence at this university | 14:11 | |
| lie with the board of trustees and so therefore, | 14:14 | |
| earlier this afternoon, we put together a small note | 14:19 | |
| which we are sending to them merely to, from this body, | 14:25 | |
| from this community that we have created here, | 14:29 | |
| to send forth to them a short note letting them know | 14:33 | |
| straight from us what we're doing and why we're doing it. | 14:38 | |
| And I'd just like to read that to you here. | 14:41 | |
| This is to the trustees, we, as concerned students | 14:43 | |
| and faculty believe that our university must exert | 14:47 | |
| leadership for racial justice in the Duke and Durham | 14:51 | |
| communities, in memory of Dr Martin Luther King, | 14:55 | |
| we have submitted four requests to President Knight. | 15:00 | |
| We are fully committed to these principals and believe | 15:04 | |
| that action must be taken at this time of national crisis. | 15:08 | |
| Over 250 of us, I'd say I don't know how many right now, | 15:12 | |
| but over 250 of us are maintaining a silent vigil | 15:16 | |
| on the main Quad angle until our requests are answered. | 15:21 | |
| We ask for your support, thank you for yours. | 15:25 | |
| (applause) | 15:30 | |
| - | I think I speak for everybody here. | 15:37 |
| - | Speakers not on. | 15:40 |
| (chatter) | ||
| - | I think I can speak. | 15:44 |
| I think I can speak for everybody here when I can say | 15:48 | |
| yesterday, the most encouraging thing for us was | 15:52 | |
| to see 400 people marching out in sympathy for our movement. | 15:55 | |
| I think today. | 16:00 | |
| (applause) | ||
| And we're only estimating but we've been counting. | 16:07 | |
| We counted originally over 700. | 16:10 | |
| I think we're now over 800 people here today. | 16:12 | |
| This is probably the largest rally that Duke can remember, | 16:15 | |
| one of the largest in the south and we appreciate | 16:18 | |
| it because it means a lot to the people that are here. | 16:21 | |
| I think the people that came out yesterday encouraged | 16:24 | |
| us to stay last night and I personally hope that you being | 16:27 | |
| here will encourage the rest of us to stay tonight. | 16:31 | |
| I don't know how everybody else feels but what about it? | 16:34 | |
| Are the people that have stayed with, | 16:37 | |
| are we gonna stay here through the night? | 16:39 | |
| (cheering) | 16:41 | |
| (applause) | ||
| If we're gonna stay here through the night, | 16:46 | |
| then we're gonna call on the people who are here | 16:48 | |
| in sympathy who are unable for various reasons, | 16:51 | |
| commitments or other, we're gonna ask you to help | 16:54 | |
| mobilize support, we're asking them to be able to help us | 16:57 | |
| in terms of sandwiches and food for this group. | 17:02 | |
| We're gonna need dinner, we're gonna need breakfast | 17:06 | |
| tomorrow, we're gonna need lunch tomorrow. | 17:08 | |
| We might need dinner tomorrow but we're gonna need your | 17:11 | |
| help, on east campus, on west campus to meet under this | 17:13 | |
| tree over here, to organize in your dorms for food to | 17:17 | |
| bring to this group, we're also asking that those of you | 17:22 | |
| who'd like to spend the night here with us or at least | 17:26 | |
| spend the afternoon with us or tomorrow morning to meet | 17:29 | |
| up here after the rally is over. | 17:32 | |
| Now let me explain a few things about what is happening | 17:36 | |
| today and tomorrow, we have received a call. | 17:39 | |
| We are meeting with three members of the top of the | 17:44 | |
| administration this afternoon. | 17:47 | |
| We do not expect, though, that any statement will | 17:49 | |
| be reached or agreed to until tomorrow, tomorrow | 17:52 | |
| at four o'clock and I can explain to you how much it | 17:55 | |
| meant to me when I was negotiating with Dr Knight | 17:59 | |
| in the library that first night to have people outside | 18:02 | |
| saying we shall not be moved, we will overcome. | 18:06 | |
| And Dr Knight heard this sentiment and he was visibly shaken | 18:12 | |
| by it and we realize now that maybe we shook him a little | 18:15 | |
| too much and that's why we have moved because | 18:19 | |
| we do fear for his health and we are concerned. | 18:22 | |
| Our concern is with a good man who is tied by university, | 18:26 | |
| by institution, so what we want tomorrow, we're asking | 18:31 | |
| tomorrow at four o'clock, for those of you who are here | 18:36 | |
| today, for those of you, for those of your friends who | 18:40 | |
| have never helped us before to be here on this Quad | 18:43 | |
| tomorrow at four o'clock when negotiations begin. | 18:47 | |
| (applause) | 18:51 | |
| I've been asked to make it clear that this is open, | 19:00 | |
| that anybody who does want to stay is welcome to. | 19:03 | |
| We do expect you to stay with us though. | 19:06 | |
| This is the thing, the group of various people here | 19:11 | |
| have made a commitment to stay and we plan to as | 19:14 | |
| far as I can tell unless we reach some magnificent | 19:17 | |
| settlement this afternoon, we're gonna stay | 19:20 | |
| until we get what we ask for. | 19:22 | |
| Our demands are not unreasonable and we're | 19:24 | |
| not being unreasonable in this sense. | 19:27 | |
| This is a peaceful demonstration of the position | 19:29 | |
| of Martin Luther King, we are asking for certain demands | 19:31 | |
| and we feel these demands will and can be met by | 19:36 | |
| this administration, I would ask also that regardless | 19:39 | |
| of whether or not we are successful tomorrow | 19:47 | |
| and particularly if we are not, we are calling for | 19:51 | |
| student strike on Tuesday, the day of Dr Martin Luther | 19:54 | |
| King's funeral, the administration has indicated they | 19:58 | |
| might call off classes, that's part of the things | 20:01 | |
| we're negotiating for, they will call off classes | 20:03 | |
| at least for the time of the funeral. | 20:07 | |
| We are asking you to boycott all classes on Tuesday. | 20:09 | |
| Boycott all classes and all classes on Tuesday | 20:14 | |
| and all other facilities here on campus on Tuesday. | 20:21 | |
| Some of us tonight and I think, I don't know how large a | 20:25 | |
| group but a few of us tonight are beginning a fast | 20:28 | |
| in coordination with what I understand is a UCM project, | 20:35 | |
| a fast night, we are gonna be in fasting. | 20:39 | |
| We ask those of you who are interested in doing this, | 20:42 | |
| who are unable to participate in this particular movement | 20:45 | |
| but will fast in your dorm attend that meeting tonight. | 20:48 | |
| I don't know the details, somebody else will have | 20:51 | |
| to present 'em to you but I think, as far as I can tell | 20:53 | |
| from the expressions, we're gonna stay. | 20:57 | |
| We're gonna need your support and I think we can win it | 20:59 | |
| and win it we will. | 21:02 | |
| (applause) | ||
| - | One administrative announcement, okay, okay. | 21:14 |
| Some professors have already notified us that they're | 21:19 | |
| calling classes off Monday and we're not sure, | 21:24 | |
| at least we don't plan to strike classes Monday. | 21:27 | |
| I don't really know what the situation is here. | 21:30 | |
| And as far those of you who want to stay with us, | 21:33 | |
| please before you sit down, stop at these tables, | 21:37 | |
| pick up a mimeograph copy of our ground rules | 21:39 | |
| because we're trying to keep this thing orderly. | 21:42 | |
| And just find out what has been going on. | 21:44 | |
| I know that even know it seems a little sketchy to you. | 21:48 | |
| Right now I'm kinda tired and kinda Gundgey | 21:52 | |
| but I think that the one thing I've noticed about this | 21:55 | |
| is the way that the black people out there have talked | 22:00 | |
| to me, the way they felt about it. | 22:02 | |
| Now the reason that they won't speak to you is they | 22:05 | |
| said this is a white man's say, this is our job. | 22:07 | |
| And they have expressed to the people who were out | 22:12 | |
| at Dr Knight's house that this is the first time | 22:15 | |
| they have felt optimistic in working with white people | 22:17 | |
| because we now have a chance to show some concerted | 22:20 | |
| non violent action, non violent action, putting | 22:23 | |
| yourself on the line, putting yourself in a position | 22:26 | |
| where you can get hurt if you don't move, if you don't do | 22:28 | |
| something, putting yourself in a position where you | 22:30 | |
| can force other people through your pressure to do things. | 22:33 | |
| They said that they felt that we were finally showing | 22:37 | |
| them that we were as white liberal moderate students | 22:40 | |
| in a white institution, interested in changing something | 22:43 | |
| that they haven't been able to change. | 22:47 | |
| I think this is a great thing. | 22:50 | |
| And I think that the importance of what is happened | 22:52 | |
| here cannot be overestimated because the black | 22:54 | |
| people in this area are watching. | 22:57 | |
| Brenda Armstrong is President of the Afro American | 22:59 | |
| Society at Duke got on WBBS last night and made an | 23:01 | |
| announcement which has since been carried to national radio | 23:05 | |
| and she said that the colored people in this area have | 23:07 | |
| been watching Duke, the black people, excuse me. | 23:12 | |
| The black people in this area have been watching Duke | 23:15 | |
| for a long time because they say if there's gonna be | 23:18 | |
| any change, it's gonna have to start here and they're | 23:20 | |
| right because it sure as hell isn't gonna start | 23:22 | |
| at the American Tobacco Company. | 23:24 | |
| (applause) | 23:26 | |
| Now we as students, we as students, we come to this | 23:27 | |
| place, well, some of us come to goof off, some come | 23:32 | |
| for intellectual exercise, some come to get a truth skin, | 23:36 | |
| what? | 23:38 | |
| (chatter) | ||
| But I think that in telling our concern here together, | 23:42 | |
| we're giving them an indication that we're really | 23:47 | |
| willing to finally do something, act, not talk about it | 23:49 | |
| anymore and we can't really say we appreciate you | 23:52 | |
| coming out because we're all we. | 23:56 | |
| And I just hope we can stick together | 23:58 | |
| and see this thing through, thank you very much. | 24:00 | |
| (applause) | 24:02 | |
| - | A little while ago, Jack asked me to read | 24:08 |
| something to you in connection with Dr King | 24:16 | |
| on this sorry occasion when we are honoring his memory | 24:19 | |
| and the most appropriate thing I could think of since | 24:24 | |
| somebody was already reading something from Dr King | 24:27 | |
| was to read from Thoreau who was one of King's, | 24:30 | |
| one of the people that King respected most | 24:37 | |
| and one of the places the direct forebears for his | 24:39 | |
| ideas about passive resistance and non violence. | 24:42 | |
| This is from Civil Disobedience from Thoreau. | 24:47 | |
| And it's a short selection which discusses how | 24:50 | |
| Thoreau thinks social change can be affected. | 24:53 | |
| I think it's the idea that King picked up for himself | 24:58 | |
| and for his movement and for all of us and I think | 25:01 | |
| Thoreau's statement if we think | 25:04 | |
| about King is a eulogy for King. | 25:06 | |
| Unjust laws exist, shall we be content to obey them | 25:10 | |
| or shall we endeavor to amend them and to bay them | 25:14 | |
| until we have succeeded or shall we transgress them at once? | 25:18 | |
| Men generally, under such a government as this | 25:22 | |
| think that they ought to wait until they have | 25:25 | |
| equated the majority to alter them. | 25:27 | |
| They think that if they should resist, the remedy | 25:31 | |
| would be worse than the evil but it is the | 25:34 | |
| fault of the government itself that the remedy is | 25:36 | |
| worse than the evil, it makes it worse. | 25:39 | |
| Why is it not more apt to anticipate and provide | 25:43 | |
| for a forum, why does it not cherish it's wise minority? | 25:45 | |
| Why does it cry and resist before it is heard? | 25:51 | |
| Why does it not encourage it's citizens to be on alert, | 25:54 | |
| to point out it's fault and do better than it would have | 25:57 | |
| them, if the injustice is part of the necessary friction | 26:00 | |
| of the machine of government, let it go, let it go. | 26:06 | |
| For tense, it will wear out. | 26:10 | |
| Certainly the machine will wear out. | 26:13 | |
| If the injustice has a spring or a pulley or a rope | 26:16 | |
| or a crank exclusively for itself, then perhaps | 26:20 | |
| you may consider whether the remedy will not be worse | 26:23 | |
| than the evil but if it of such a nature that it | 26:26 | |
| requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, | 26:31 | |
| then I say break the law, let your light be a counter | 26:36 | |
| friction to stop the machine, what I have to do is | 26:40 | |
| to see at any rate that I do not lend | 26:44 | |
| myself to the wrong which I condemn. | 26:47 | |
| Adopting the ways which the state has provided | 26:55 | |
| for remedying the evil, I know not of such ways. | 26:58 | |
| They take too much time and a man's life will be gone. | 27:02 | |
| I know this well, that if 1,000, if 100, if 10 | 27:10 | |
| men who I could name, if 10 honest men only, | 27:19 | |
| I if one honest man, in this state of Massachusetts | 27:22 | |
| seeking to hope blaze were actually to withdraw | 27:28 | |
| from this co-partnership and be locked up in the county | 27:32 | |
| jail therefore, it would be the | 27:35 | |
| abolition of slavery in America. | 27:38 | |
| (applause) | 27:40 | |
| - | We have a graduate student from foreign land | 27:49 |
| that'd like to talk with us for a few minutes. | 27:51 | |
| - | Ladies and gentlemen, good evening. | 28:02 |
| (mumbling) | 28:07 | |
| I want you to take my word as a serious student | 28:13 | |
| stems from my love to this country | 28:19 | |
| and to the people of this country. | 28:25 | |
| We must add the incidents of such incidents | 28:33 | |
| and a strong nation, a wealth nation like the United States. | 28:40 | |
| The Segway, the developing nation of the area we live in, | 28:53 | |
| they all the time look to the nation as what it's standing | 28:59 | |
| for, not to what it's standing against. | 29:12 | |
| We at the time look to United States as standing for freedom | 29:22 | |
| and for justice but you don't know how our foreign students, | 29:31 | |
| a foreign nation and underdeveloped nations striving | 29:40 | |
| against the different vantages of all type of adversities, | 29:47 | |
| how we get disappointed when we see injustices rendered | 29:57 | |
| against a big portion of these people just because | 30:03 | |
| they are black or because they are blue or purple. | 30:08 | |
| I was involved in the bath of freedom when I was 16 months. | 30:17 | |
| I was telling my sisters about the whole story | 30:25 | |
| who were sitting here at that time. | 30:28 | |
| I was 16 year old and three months when I | 30:32 | |
| witnessed the first human massacre in Nigeria | 30:37 | |
| of the French like to bring in civilized men. | 30:42 | |
| I saw children shot from here. | 30:50 | |
| When I examined this incident I found a philosophy behind | 30:56 | |
| that, man told me we shot them | 31:00 | |
| because we don't want them to suffer. | 31:02 | |
| At the age of 19, I was involved in the greatest | 31:10 | |
| and the most dangerous areas, Kelajuan area | 31:15 | |
| when 23 French Brigade tried to suppress our | 31:20 | |
| need for freedom, for independence. | 31:29 | |
| We look up to the country, we look up to America, | 31:33 | |
| a wealthy nation, a strong nation. | 31:42 | |
| We want it to be a great nation and it's not easy to | 31:46 | |
| be a great nation, greatness isn't measured by guns, | 31:49 | |
| by planes, but by what you're standing for. | 31:55 | |
| The will of this is very important. | 32:05 | |
| Your role is very significant, the days to come. | 32:09 | |
| You have joined a great system of flexibility. | 32:16 | |
| You can do anything you want. | 32:24 | |
| All you have to need just to want. | 32:28 | |
| To give you an example, in the developing nation, | 32:31 | |
| in order to render a very minimum change | 32:37 | |
| that applies to human justice or freedom, | 32:45 | |
| we must, against machine guns, bullets, through | 32:49 | |
| every inch of there, yes, we can't protest | 32:56 | |
| or anything to bring about any just in our private | 33:02 | |
| and we must silence and we end, you hear about this. | 33:10 | |
| You don't need to do this, all you need is to | 33:18 | |
| stand and to demand, I see the colored people. | 33:25 | |
| I am not your student, I am in my country | 33:37 | |
| in the way that I serve with exception of the western | 33:41 | |
| world, I am color blind and that's what I think | 33:44 | |
| you want in the White House, color blind from the Congress. | 33:52 | |
| They must know the colored people that freedom, | 34:01 | |
| justice doesn't come quickly. | 34:07 | |
| King taught many things to come if they have, | 34:17 | |
| if they want to have their place under the sun, | 34:22 | |
| the shining sun, the people's sun and without your help, | 34:29 | |
| essentially, without your standing formally, | 34:35 | |
| without the organization, accurately, they never can. | 34:40 | |
| They have to pay a higher price. | 34:45 | |
| It might reach them today, like these people, | 34:51 | |
| students in the western world, I found nine | 34:59 | |
| out of 10 suspected as who the American attitude | 35:08 | |
| and you find such word, my God, how come they | 35:23 | |
| give us freedoms and not protect their own? | 35:27 | |
| How can they give us security they cannot protect their own? | 35:30 | |
| (applause) | 35:39 | |
| America is a beautiful land, green, beautiful place. | 35:46 | |
| But I want you, the young men, to watch | 35:52 | |
| that it doesn't go under and you have got | 35:54 | |
| to be very cool, very nice but very firm. | 36:03 | |
| You have got to reread your history. | 36:12 | |
| You have got to reread the history of the world. | 36:16 | |
| American young men and I want you again to know | 36:24 | |
| that I love you all, particularly here, that | 36:27 | |
| the rise in the generation, the rise of the | 36:37 | |
| generation of America in the outside world | 36:40 | |
| as they are, at least if they want to be polite | 36:45 | |
| and informative, well, you are an informant because | 36:49 | |
| you don't need to learn it so you don't know about it. | 36:55 | |
| That's the reason, you need to learn. | 37:00 | |
| I've realized to learn here. | 37:03 | |
| You are an informant or misinformant because of | 37:07 | |
| the type of the nature of communication you have. | 37:14 | |
| I'm not a specialization, vertical specialization, | 37:21 | |
| through economics, know the formula of income determination | 37:27 | |
| and the decisions of the mathematics, mathematician, | 37:35 | |
| I must say that the people who support themselves in | 37:41 | |
| and who want to understand what's going on | 37:52 | |
| are very well informed, I want to say people lack | 37:55 | |
| the argument but I don't know that information | 37:58 | |
| that can carry to their people. | 38:02 | |
| The rising generation in the developing country, | 38:08 | |
| politely speaking, to be underdeveloped country, | 38:12 | |
| looking, not to the President Johnson. | 38:15 | |
| We're looking to you, the rising nation of this country | 38:18 | |
| to understand deeply and to stand proudly | 38:22 | |
| and to help us and to help you country so by standing | 38:28 | |
| for justice and freedom in a real sense, thank you. | 38:38 | |
| (applause) | 38:42 |
Item Info
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