Philosophy

"Before this century, virtually all revolutions have been based on hope and hate. The hope was expressed in the rising expectation of freedom and justice. What was new about Mahatma Gandhi's movement in India was that he mounted a revolution on hope and love, hope and nonviolence. This same new emphasis characterized the civil rights movement in our country dating from the Montgomery bus boycott of 1956 to the Selma movement of 1965. We maintained the hope while transforming the hate of traditional revolutions into positive nonviolent power. As long as the hope was fulfilled there was little questioning of nonviolence. But when the hopes were blasted, when people came to see that in spite of progress their conditions were still insufferable, when they looked out and saw more poverty, more school segregation, and more slums, despair began to set in.

But revolution, though born of despair, cannot long be sustained by despair. This was the ultimate contradiction of the Black Power movement. It claimed to be the most revolutionary wing of the social revolution taking place in the United States. Yet it rejected the one thing that keeps the fire of revolutions burning: the ever-present flame of hope. When hope dies, a revolution degenerates into an undiscriminating catchall for evanescent and futile gestures. The Negro cannot entrust his destiny to a philosophy nourished solely on despair, to a slogan that cannot be implemented into a program.

Over cups of coffee in my home in Atlanta and my apartment in Chicago [located within the "ghetto"], I often talked late at night and over into the small hours of the morning with proponents of Black Power who argued passionately about the validity of violence and riots. They didn't quote Gandhi or Tolstoy. Their Bible was Frantz Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth. This black psychiatrist from Martinique, who went to Algeria to work with the National Liberation Front in its fight against the French, argued in his book — a well-written book, incidentally, with many penetrating insights — that violence is a psychologically healthy and tactically sound method for the oppressed. And so, realizing that they are a part of that vast company of the "wretched of the earth," young American Negroes, who were involved in the Black Power movement, often quoted Fanon's belief that violence is the only thing that will bring about liberation.

The plain, inexorable fact was that any attempt of the American Negro to overthrow his oppressor with violence would not work. We did not need President Johnson to tell us this by reminding Negro rioters that they were outnumbered ten to one. The courageous efforts of our own insurrectionist brothers, such as Denmark Vesey and Nat Turner, should be eternal reminders to us that violent rebellion is doomed from the start. Anyone leading a violent rebellion must be willing to make an honest assessment regarding the possible casualties to a minority population confronting a well armed, wealthy majority with a fanatical right wing that would delight in exterminating thousands of black men, women, and children." - Martin Luther King Jr., The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr., Chapter Twenty-Nine, "Black Power"

"God has the light that can shine through all the darkness. We have experiences when the light of day vanishes, leaving us in some dark and desolate midnight — moments when our highest hopes are turned into shambles of despair or when we are victims of some tragic injustice and some terrible exploitation. During such moments our spirits are almost overcome by gloom and despair, and we feel that there is no light anywhere. But ever and again, we look toward the east and discover that there is another light which shines even in the darkness, and the 'spear of frustration' is transformed 'into a shaft of light.' " - Martin Luther King Jr., The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr., Chapter Thirteen, "Pilgrimage to Nonviolence"