At the time of his death, the fire in Dr. King’s belly was only beginning to rise. As you listen to this last segment, pay attention to the tenor in his voice and substance of his talk. Dr. King challenged individuals to do what was right over what was comfortable. For this, he gave his life.
“May I say in conclusion that there is a need now, more than ever before, for men and women in our nation to be creatively maladjusted. Mr. Davis said, and I say to you that I choose to be among the maladjusted, as my good friend Bill Coughlin said there are those who have criticized me and many of you for taking a stand against the war in Vietnam and for seeking to say to the nation that the issues of civil rights cannot be separated from the issues of peace. I want to say to you tonight that I intend to keep these issues mixed because they are mixed.
“Somewhere, we must see that justice is indivisible, injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere and I have fought too long and to hard against segregated public accommodations to end up at this point in my life, segregating my moral concerns.
“So let us stand in this convention knowing that on some positions; cowardice asks the questions, is it safe; expediency asks the question, is it politic; vanity asks the question, is it popular, but conscious asks the question, is it right. And on some positions, it is necessary for the moral individual to take a stand that is neither safe, nor politic nor popular; but he must do it because it is right.
“And we say to our nation tonight, we say to our government, we even say to our FBI, we will not be harassed, we will not make a butchery of our conscious, we will not be intimidated and we will be heard.”
Why Dr. King was killed, part 1
Why Dr. King was killed, part 2
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