Further Resources

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. at 40th and Lancaster Ave

August 3, 1965

These are the problems that we face all over our nation. I just want to suggest two or three things that you must do, and that we as Negroes must do all over America to solve these problems.

Number one, I want to suggest to you today that before you can solve a problem, you've got to get your mind right. See now, a lot of Negroes who have lived with segregation and discrimination so long that they've become conditioned to it. And so often we've lost our self- respect, and our sense of dignity because we have been exploited, because we have been oppressed so long. You know, there are a lot of Negroes who, if we got everything in the South and in Philadelphia integrated tomorrow morning, twenty years from now they'd still be going to the back, because their minds are enslaved.

[Cheers, Applause]

But I come here today to say to you that we must not follow this philosophy. I used to hear a man in Atlanta singing a little song some years ago, and it went something like this: Bend down—

[Crowd Cheers]

Now the second thing I want to say if we're going to get rid of this [audio skips] — had to look up one day and—black men and white men must learn to live together in this nation as brothers and sisters!

[Cheers, Applause]

And we have a method that can bring about that togetherness. And I want to say finally to you that if we're going to solve this problem, we've got to realize the urgency of the moment. Don't wait until next year! We've got to realize that the moment is before us now. I know that people will tell us to cool off. The only problem there is that we've cooled off too many years now, and there's the danger that we will end up in the deep freeze.

[Audio skips]

I say to those who tell us to cool off: we can't cool off because of our self-respect, because we love America too much. They tell us to adopt a policy of gradualism, and we've often adopted that policy, only to discover gradualism is little more than a do-nothing-ism, and an escapism which ends up in stand-still-ism.

We must say to the nation at this moment, "Now is the time to make real the problems of democracy." Now is the time! Transform the dark yesterdays of man's inhumanity to man, and to the bright tomorrows of justice and freedom. Now is the time to get rid of segregation and discrimination! Now is the time to straighten up Girard College! Now is the time to grant freedom to the Negro all over the United States of America! Now is the time to make America a greater nation!

[Cheers, Applause]

So I say to you: don't wait until next week to get in this struggle in Philadelphia! Don't wait until tomorrow morning to get in this struggle in Philadelphia! Don't wait until an hour from now to get in this struggle to make this city and our nation a greater city and a greater nation! Get in this struggle at this moment!

Recognizing a tiny little minute, just sixty seconds in it—a tiny little minute, just sixty seconds in it, but eternity is—

[Crowd cheers, Applauds]