Dr. King presented a talk to the leaders and members at the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), and that talk was titled “The Crisis in America’s Cities: An Analysis of Social Disorder and a Plan of Action Against Poverty, Discrimination and Racism in Urban America.” This address was made August 15, 1967 in Atlanta, Georgia—four years after the famous “I Have a Dream” speech on the Washington Mall. Let us study his words, and reflect. “A million words will be written and spoken to dissect the ghetto outbreaks, but for a perceptive and vivid expression of culpability I would like to submit two sentences written a century ago”—at that time—“by Victor Hugo…”; and he quoted Mr. Hugo in these words: “‘If the soul is left in darkness, sins will be committed. The guilty one is not he who commits the sin, but he who causes the darkness.’”Dr. King goes on to say: “The policy makers of the white society have caused the darkness; they created discrimination; they created slums; they perpetuate unemployment, ignorance and poverty. It is incontestable and deplorable that Negroes have committed crimes; but they are derivative crimes. They are born of the greater crimes of the white society. When we ask Negroes to abide by the law, let us also declare that the white man does not abide by law in the ghettos. Day in and day out he violates welfare laws to deprive the poor of their meager allotments; he flagrantly violates building codes and regulations; his police make a mockery of law; he violates laws on equal employment and education and the provisions for civil services. The slums are the handiwork of a vicious system of the white society; Negroes live in them but do not make them any more than a prisoner makes a prison. Let us say boldly that if the total slum violations of law by the white man over the years were calculated and were compared with the law breaking of a few days of riots, the hardened criminal would be the white man.”
Posted on: Thu, 05 Sep 2013 05:22:16 +0000