MLK's Nobel Lecture Addressing Violence as a Way of Achieving Racial Justice

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excerpt from, 'The Quest for Peace and Justice' Martin Luther King Jr. Nobel Lecture -- December 11, 1964

“Violence as a way of achieving racial justice is both impractical and immoral. I am not unmindful of the fact that violence often brings about momentary results. Nations have frequently won their independence in battle. But in spite of temporary victories, violence never brings permanent peace. It solves no social problem: it merely creates new and more complicated ones. Violence is impractical because it is a descending spiral ending in destruction for all. It is immoral because it seeks to humiliate the opponent rather than win his understanding: it seeks to annihilate rather than convert. Violence is immoral because it thrives on hatred rather than love. It destroys community and makes brotherhood impossible. It leaves society in monologue rather than dialogue. Violence ends up defeating itself. It creates bitterness in the survivors and brutality in the destroyers.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

1. It's well known that King changed his outlook on tactics as time went on.

In 1967:

Urban riots must now be recognized as durable social phenomena. They may be deplored, but they are there and should be understood. Urban riots are a special form of violence. They are not insurrections. The rioters are not seeking to seize territory or to attain control of institutions. They are mainly intended to shock the white community. They are a distorted form of social protest. The looting which is their principal feature serves many functions. It enables the most enraged and deprived Negro to take hold of consumer goods with the ease the white man does by using his purse. Often the Negro does not even want what he takes; he wants the experience of taking. But most of all, alienated from society and knowing that this society cherishes property above people, he is shocking it by abusing property rights. There are thus elements of emotional catharsis in the violent act. This may explain why most cities in which riots have occurred have not had a repetition, even though the causative conditions remain. It is also noteworthy that the amount of physical harm done to white people other than police is infinitesimal and in Detroit whites and Negroes looted in unity.

In 1968:

It is not enough for me to stand before you tonight and condemn riots. It would be morally irresponsible for me to do that without, at the same time, condemning the contingent, intolerable conditions that exist in our society. These conditions are the things that cause individuals to feel that they have no other alternative than to engage in violent rebellions to get attention. And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the negro poor has worsened over the last twelve or fifteen years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice and humanity.

So if you're posting words from a civil rights giant in an effort to feel self-righteous about oppressed people trying to be heard, how about no.

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2. cute

...but MLK did not abandon or repudiate his non-violence stance.

Not in that latter remark, nor in his latter actions. What this represented was an acknowledgement of the conditions which sparked the unrest and violence. Re-read his remark:

"It is not enough for me to stand before you tonight and condemn riots. It would be morally irresponsible for me to do that without, at the same time, condemning the contingent, intolerable conditions that exist in our society."

So if you're feeling 'self-righteous' supposing he repudiated his earlier stance against violence, you've read more into that remark than he intended.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

3. Yeah I never said abandon or repudiate; I said change.

His message of nonviolence is used, ironically, as a weapon, most often by the white moderates he wrote about. He knew that to continue to be an effective leader after the Long Hot Summer, his message would have to change. And it did.

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4. it's a mistake to represent his stance as evolving

...especially based on this statement which BOTH repudiates violence, and recognizes the impetus behind those destructive expressions.

In fact, that (non-violent) message was directed at so-called 'white moderates' who King felt he needed to strike a chord with, spark their moral conscience as a way of gaining their political support. Despite expressing dismay with them, his political strategy did not change.

And it should also be understood that King was not a pacifist. He was known to have armed himself (and his family) against violent white supremacists, especially in his early days of activism. But 'non-violence' was mainly a political stance designed to garner wide support for the cause of black Americans at the time, and he never swayed from that position.