Martin Luther King - Power for Poor People

Dr. King on power for poor people from Poverty Initiative on Vimeo.

Armed Resistance in the Civil Rights Movement: Charles E. Cobb and Danielle L. McGuire on Forgotten History

The American Prospect

On his first visit to Martin Luther King Jr.’s house in Montgomery, Alabama, the journalist William Worthy began to sink into an armchair. He snapped up again when nonviolent activist Bayard Rustin yelled, “Bill, wait, wait! Couple of guns on that chair!” Worthy looked behind him and saw two loaded pistols nestled on the cushion. “Just for self-defense,” King said.

In his new book, This Nonviolent Stuff’ll Get You Killed: How Guns Made the Civil Rights Movement Possible, Charles E. Cobb, a former field secretary for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and a visiting professor of Africana Studies at Brown University, explores what he sees as one of the movement’s forgotten contradictions: Guns made it possible. According to Cobb, civil-rights leaders recognized that armed resistance was sometimes necessary to preserve their peaceful mission. Guns kept people like King alive.

Cornel West: Obama’s Response to Trayvon Martin Case Belies Failure to Challenge "New Jim Crow"

The Radicalization of Martin Luther King

A Call to Conscience The Landmark Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr.

5 December 1955

MIA Mass Meeting at Holt Street Baptist Church

 

7 April 1957

"The Birth of a New Nation," Sermon at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church

 

17 May 1957

"Give Us the Ballot," Address at the Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom

 

23 June 1963

Speech at the Great March on Detroit

 

28 August 1963

"I Have a Dream," Address at March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom

 

Letter from a Birmingham Jail

by the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr, History is a Weapon

April 16, 1963

MY DEAR FELLOW CLERGYMEN:

While confined here in the Birmingham city jail, I came across your recent statement calling my present activities "unwise and untimely." Seldom do I pause to answer criticism of my work and ideas. If I sought to answer all the criticisms that cross my desk, my secretaries would have little time for anything other than such correspondence in the course of the day, and I would have no time for constructive work. But since I feel that you are men of genuine good will and that your criticisms are sincerely set forth, I want to try to answer your statements in what I hope will be patient and reasonable terms.

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. - April 4, 1967: Beyond Vietnam: A Time To Break Silence