Interview, Martin Luther King, January, 1965

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Interview, Martin Luther King, January, 1965 JAN 1'1~> FJ ® PLAYBOY INTERVIEW: MARTIN LUTHER KING a candid conversation with the nobel prize-winning leader of the civil rights movement On December 5, 1955, to the amused himself; and millions were outraged by So heavy, in fact, were his commit­ annoyance of the white citizens of Mont­ front-page pictures of Negro demonstra­ ments when we called him last summer gornery, Alabama, an obscure young tors being brutalize d by the billy sticks, for an interview, that two months Baptist minister named Martin Luther police dogs and fire hoses of police chief elapsed before he was able to accept Ottr King, ]1-., called a city-wide Negro boy­ Bull Connor. request for an appointment. We kept it colt of its segregated bus system. To In the months that followed, mass sit­ -only to spend a week in Atlanta wait­ thei1· constemation, however, it was al­ ins and demonstrations erupted in 800 ing vainly for him to find a moment for most 100 pe1·cent successful; it lasted for Southern cities; President Kennedy pro­ more than an apology and a hun·ied 381 days and nearly bankrupted the posed a Civil Rights Bill aimed at the handshal<e: A bit less pressed when we bus line. When King's home was enforcement of voting rights, equal em­ 1·etumed for a second visit, King was bombed dming the siege, thousands of ployment opportunities, and the deseg­ finally able to sandwich in a series of enraged Negroes wae ready to riot, regation of public facilities; and the hour and half-hour conversations with but the soft-spoken clergyman prevailed now-famous march on Washington, 200,- us among the other demands of a gruel­ on them to channel their anger into 000 strong, was eloquently addressed by ing week. The resultant interview is nonviolent protest-and became world· King on the steps of the Lincoln Memo­ the longest he has ever granted to any 1·enowned as a champion of Gandhi's rial. By the end of that "long hot sum­ publication. philosophy of passive resistance. Within mer," Ame1·ica's Negroes had won more Though he spoke with heartfelt and a year the Supreme Court had ruled jim tangible gains than in any year since often eloquent sincerity, his tone was Crow seating unlawful on JVI.on tgomery's 1865-and Mm·tin Luther King had be­ one of bwinesslike detachment. And his buses, and King found himself, at 27, on come their aclmowledged leader and mood, except for one or two flickering the front lines of a nonviolent Negro most respected spokesman. revolution against mcial injustice. He earned it the hard way: In the smiles of irony, was gravely se1·ious-nev­ Moving to Atlanta, he formed the course of his civil rights work he has er more so than the moment, during a Southern ChTistian Leadership Confer­ been jailed 14 times and stabbed once in rare evening with his family on our first ence, an alliance of chuTCh-affiliated civil the chest; his home has been bombed night in town, when his four children rights oTganizations which joined such three times; and his daily mail brings a chided him affectionately for "not being activist gToups as CORE and SNCC in a steady flow of death threats and obsceni­ home enough." After dinner, we began widening campaign of sit-in demonstra­ ties. Undeterred, he works 20 hours a the interview on this per-sonal note. tions and freedom rides throughout the day, travels 325,000 miles anrl'makes 450 South. Dissatisfied with the slow pace of speeches a year throughout the country PLAYBOY: Dr. King, are your children the protest movement, King decided to on behalf of the Negro cause. 1mmdated old enough to be aware of the issues at create a c1·isis in 1963 that would " dram­ by calls, callers and correspondence at stake in the civil rights movement, and atize the Negro plight and galvanize his S.C. L. C. office in Atlanta, he also of your role in it? the national conscience." He was abun­ finds time somehow to preach, visit the KING: Yes, they are-especially my old­ dantly successful, for his mass nonvio­ sick and help th e poor among his con­ est child, Yolanda. Two years ago, I re­ lent demonstmtion in arch-segregationist gregation at the city's Ebeneza Baptist member, I returned home after serving Bi1·mingham resulted in · the arrest of Church, of which he and his father are one of my terms in the Albany, Georgia, moTe than 3300 Negroes, including King the pastors. jail, and she asked me, "Daddy, why do "Measures must be taken at the· Federal "I'm getting sicli and tired of people say­ "The Nobel award Tecognizes the amaz­ level to wrb the reign of terror in the ing that this movement has been infil­ ing discipline of the Negro. Though we South. It's getting so anybody can kill a trated by Communists. There are as many have had 1·iots, the bloodshed we would Negro and get away with it, as long as Communists in this freedom movement have lin own without the discipline of non­ they go through the motions of a trial." as there are Eskimos in Florida." violence would have been frightening." Reprinted from the January 1965 issue of PLAYBOY @1 965 HM H Publishing Co., In c. you have to go to jail so much?" I told Mrs. Bradley; she's dead now. I had par­ U. S. Supreme Court had declared that her that I was involved in a struggle to ticipated there in an oratorical contest bus segregation in Montgomery was un­ make conditions better for the colored sponsored by the Negro Elks. It turned constitutional. It had literally been the people, and thus for all people. I ex­ out to be a memorable day, for I had darkest hour before the dawn. plained that because things are as they succeeded in winning the contest. My PLAYBOY: You and your followers were are, someone has to take a stand, that it subject, I recall, ironically enough, was criticized, after your arrest for participat­ is necessary for someone to go to jail, be­ "The Negro and the Constitution." Any­ ing in the boycott, for accepting bail cause many Southern officials seek to way, that night, Mrs. Bradley and I were and leaving jail. Do you feel, in retro­ maintain the barriers that have histori­ on a bus returning to Atlanta, and at a spect, that you did the right thing? cally been erected to exclude the colored small town along the way, some white KING: No; I think it was a mistake, a people. I tried to make her understand passengers boarded the bus, and the tactical error for me to have left jail, by that someone had to do this to make the white driver ordered us to get up and. accepting bail, after being indicted world better-for all children. She was give the whites our seats. We didn't along with 125 others, mainly drivers of only six at that time, but she was already move quickly enough to suit him, so he our car pool, under an old law of doubt­ aware of segregation because of an ex­ began cursing us, calling us "black sons ful constitutionality, an "antiboycott" perience that we had had. of bitches." I intended to stay right in ordinance. I should have stayed in pris­ PLAYBOY: Would you mind telling us that scat, but Mrs. Bradley finally urged on. It would have nationally drama­ about it? me up, saying we had to obey the law. tized and deepened our movement KING: Not at all. The family often used And so we stood up in the aisle for the even earlier, and it would have more to ride with me to the Atlanta airport, 90 miles to Atlanta. That night will nev­ quickly aroused and keened America's and on our way, we always passed Fun­ er leave my memory. It was the angriest conscience. town, a sort of miniature Disneyland I have ever been in my life. PLAYBOY: Do you feel you've been guilty with mechanical rides and that sort of PLAYBOY: Wasn't it another such inci­ of any comparable errors in judgment thing. Yolanda would inevitably say, "I dent on a bus, years later, that thrust since then? want to go to Funtown," and I would you into your present role as a civil KING: Yes, I do-in Albany, Georgia, always evade a direct reply. I really rights leader? in 1962. If I had that to do again, I didn't know how to explain to her why KING: Yes, it was-in Montgomery, Ala­ would guide that community's Negro she couldn't go. Then one day at home, bama, in 1955. E. D. Nixon, a Pullman leadership differently than I did. The she ran downstairs exclaiming that a TV porter long identified with the NAACP, mistake I made there was to protest commercial was urging people to come telephoned me late one night to tell me against segregation generally rather than to Funtown. Then my wife and I had to that Mrs. Rosa Parks had been arrested against a single and distinct facet of it. sit down with her between us and try to around seven-thirty that evening when a Our protest was so vague that we got explain it. I have won some applause as bus driver demanded that she give up her nothing, and the people were left very a speaker, but my tongue twisted a'nd my seat, and she refused-because her feet depressed and in despair.
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