Martin Luther King – Nobel Lecture
Nobel Lecture*, December 11, 1964




The Quest for Peace and Justice

It is impossible to begin this lecture without again expressing my deep
appreciation to the Nobel Committee of the Norwegian Parliament for
bestowing upon me and the civil rights movement in the United States
such a great honor. Occasionally in life there are those moments of
unutterable fulfillment which cannot be completely explained by those
symbols called words. Their meaning can only be articulated by the
inaudible language of the heart. Such is the moment I am presently
experiencing. I experience this high and joyous moment not for myself
alone but for those devotees of nonviolence who have moved so
courageously against the ramparts of racial injustice and who in the
process have acquired a new estimate of their own human worth.
Many of them are young and cultured. Others are middle aged and
middle class. The majority are poor and untutored. But they are all
united in the quiet conviction that it is better to suffer in dignity than to
accept segregation in humiliation. These are the real heroes of the
freedom struggle: they are the noble people for whom I accept the
Nobel Peace Prize.

This evening I would like to use this lofty and historic platform to
discuss what appears to me to be the most pressing problem
confronting mankind today. Modern man has brought this whole world
to an awe-inspiring threshold of the future. He has reached new and
astonishing peaks of scientific success. He has produced machines
that think and instruments that peer into the unfathomable ranges of
interstellar space. He has built gigantic bridges to span the seas and
gargantuan buildings to kiss the skies. His airplanes and spaceships
have dwarfed distance, placed time in chains, and carved highways
through the stratosphere. This is a dazzling picture of modern man's
scientific and technological progress.

Yet, in spite of these spectacular strides in science and technology,
and still unlimited ones to come, something basic is missing. There is
a sort of poverty of the spirit which stands in glaring contrast to our
scientific and technological abundance. The richer we have become
materially, the poorer we have become morally and spiritually. We
have learned to fly the air like birds and swim the sea like fish, but we
have not learned the simple art of living together as brothers.

Every man lives in two realms, the internal and the external. The
internal is that realm of spiritual ends expressed in art, literature,
morals, and religion. The external is that complex of devices,
techniques, mechanisms, and instrumentalities by means of which
we live. Our problem today is that we have allowed the internal to
become lost in the external. We have allowed the means by which we
live to outdistance the ends for which we live. So much of modern life
can be summarized in that arresting dictum of the poet Thoreau1:
"Improved means to an unimproved end". This is the serious
predicament, the deep and haunting problem confronting modern
man. If we are to survive today, our moral and spiritual "lag" must be
eliminated. Enlarged material powers spell enlarged peril if there is
not proportionate growth of the soul. When the "without" of man's
nature subjugates the "within", dark storm clouds begin to form in the
world.

This problem of spiritual and moral lag, which constitutes modern
man's chief dilemma, expresses itself in three larger problems which
grow out of man's ethical infantilism. Each of these problems, while
appearing to be separate and isolated, is inextricably bound to the
other. I refer to racial injustice, poverty, and war.

The first problem that I would like to mention is racial injustice. The
struggle to eliminate the evil of racial injustice constitutes one of the
major struggles of our time. The present upsurge of the Negro people
of the United States grows out of a deep and passionate
determination to make freedom and equality a reality "here" and
"now". In one sense the civil rights movement in the United States is a
special American phenomenon which must be understood in the light
of American history and dealt with in terms of the American situation.
But on another and more important level, what is happening in the
United States today is a relatively small part of a world development.

We live in a day, says the philosopher Alfred North Whitehead2,"when
civilization is shifting its basic outlook: a major turning point in history
where the presuppositions on which society is structured are being
analyzed, sharply challenged, and profoundly changed." What we are
seeing now is a freedom explosion, the realization of "an idea whose
time has come", to use Victor Hugo's phrase3. The deep rumbling of
discontent that we hear today is the thunder of disinherited masses,
rising from dungeons of oppression to the bright hills of freedom, in
one majestic chorus the rising masses singing, in the words of our
freedom song, "Ain't gonna let nobody turn us around."4 All over the
world, like a fever, the freedom movement is spreading in the widest
liberation in history. The great masses of people are determined to
end the exploitation of their races and land. They are awake and
moving toward their goal like a tidal wave. You can hear them
rumbling in every village street, on the docks, in the houses, among
the students, in the churches, and at political meetings. Historic
movement was for several centuries that of the nations and societies
of Western Europe out into the rest of the world in "conquest" of
various sorts. That period, the era of colonialism, is at an end. East is
meeting West. The earth is being redistributed. Yes, we are "shifting
our basic outlooks".

These developments should not surprise any student of history.
Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The yearning for
freedom eventually manifests itself. The Bible tells the thrilling story of
how Moses stood in Pharaoh's court centuries ago and cried, "Let my
people go."5 This is a kind of opening chapter in a continuing story.
The present struggle in the United States is a later chapter in the
same unfolding story. Something within has reminded the Negro of his
birthright of freedom, and something without has reminded him that it
can be gained. Consciously or unconsciously, he has been caught up
by the Zeitgeist, and with his black brothers of Africa and his brown
and yellow brothers in Asia, South America, and the Caribbean, the
United States Negro is moving with a sense of great urgency toward
the promised land of racial justice.

Fortunately, some significant strides have been made in the struggle
to end the long night of racial injustice. We have seen the magnificent
drama of independence unfold in Asia and Africa. Just thirty years ago
there were only three independent nations in the whole of Africa. But
today thirty-five African nations have risen from colonial bondage. In
the United States we have witnessed the gradual demise of the
system of racial segregation. The Supreme Court's decision of 1954
outlawing segregation in the public schools gave a legal and
constitutional deathblow to the whole doctrine of separate but equal6.
The Court decreed that separate facilities are inherently unequal and
that to segregate a child on the basis of race is to deny that child
equal protection of the law. This decision came as a beacon light of
hope to millions of disinherited people. Then came that glowing day a
few months ago when a strong Civil Rights Bill became the law of our
land7. This bill, which was first recommended and promoted by
President Kennedy, was passed because of the overwhelming
support and perseverance of millions of Americans, Negro and white.
It came as a bright interlude in the long and sometimes turbulent
struggle for civil rights: the beginning of a second emancipation
proclamation providing a comprehensive legal basis for equality of
opportunity. Since the passage of this bill we have seen some
encouraging and surprising signs of compliance. I am happy to report
that, by and large, communities all over the southern part of the United
States are obeying the Civil Rights Law and showing remarkable good
sense in the process.

Another indication that progress is being made was found in the
recent presidential election in the United States. The American people
revealed great maturity by overwhelmingly rejecting a presidential
candidate who had become identified with extremism, racism, and
retrogression8. The voters of our nation rendered a telling blow to the
radical right9. They defeated those elements in our society which
seek to pit white against Negro and lead the nation down a dangerous
Fascist path.

Let me not leave you with a false impression. The problem is far from
solved. We still have a long, long way to go before the dream of
freedom is a reality for the Negro in the United States. To put it
figuratively in biblical language, we have left the dusty soils of Egypt
and crossed a Red Sea whose waters had for years been hardened by
a long and piercing winter of massive resistance. But before we reach
the majestic shores of the Promised Land, there is a frustrating and
bewildering wilderness ahead. We must still face prodigious hilltops
of opposition and gigantic mountains of resistance. But with patient
and firm determination we will press on until every valley of despair is
exalted to new peaks of hope, until every mountain of pride and
irrationality is made low by the leveling process of humility and
compassion; until the rough places of injustice are transformed into a
smooth plane of equality of opportunity; and until the crooked places
of prejudice are transformed by the straightening process of bright-
eyed wisdom.

What the main sections of the civil rights movement in the United
States are saying is that the demand for dignity, equality, jobs, and
citizenship will not be abandoned or diluted or postponed. If that
means resistance and conflict we shall not flinch. We shall not be
cowed. We are no longer afraid.

The word that symbolizes the spirit and the outward form of our
encounter is nonviolence, and it is doubtless that factor which made it
seem appropriate to award a peace prize to one identified with
struggle. Broadly speaking, nonviolence in the civil rights struggle has
meant not relying on arms and weapons of struggle. It has meant
noncooperation with customs and laws which are institutional
aspects of a regime of discrimination and enslavement. It has meant
direct participation of masses in protest, rather than reliance on
indirect methods which frequently do not involve masses in action at
all.

Nonviolence has also meant that my people in the agonizing struggles
of recent years have taken suffering upon themselves instead of
inflicting it on others. It has meant, as I said, that we are no longer
afraid and cowed. But in some substantial degree it has meant that
we do not want to instill fear in others or into the society of which we
are a part. The movement does not seek to liberate Negroes at the
expense of the humiliation and enslavement of whites. It seeks no
victory over anyone. It seeks to liberate American society and to share
in the self-liberation of all the people.

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.

In a real sense nonviolence seeks to redeem the spiritual and moral
lag that I spoke of earlier as the chief dilemma of modern man. It
seeks to secure moral ends through moral means. Nonviolence is a
powerful and just weapon. Indeed, it is a weapon unique in history,
which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it.

I believe in this method because I think it is the only way to reestablish
a broken community. It is the method which seeks to implement the
just law by appealing to the conscience of the great decent majority
who through blindness, fear, pride, and irrationality have allowed their
consciences to sleep.

The nonviolent resisters can summarize their message in the
following simple terms: we will take direct action against injustice
despite the failure of governmental and other official agencies to act
first. We will not obey unjust laws or submit to unjust practices. We
will do this peacefully, openly, cheerfully because our aim is to
persuade. We adopt the means of nonviolence because our end is a
community at peace with itself. We will try to persuade with our
words, but if our words fail, we will try to persuade with our acts. We
will always be willing to talk and seek fair compromise, but we are
ready to suffer when necessary and even risk our lives to become
witnesses to truth as we see it.

This approach to the problem of racial injustice is not at all without
successful precedent. It was used in a magnificent way by Mohandas
K. Gandhi to challenge the might of the British Empire and free his
people from the political domination and economic exploitation
inflicted upon them for centuries. He struggled only with the weapons
of truth, soul force, non-injury, and courage10.

In the past ten years unarmed gallant men and women of the United
States have given living testimony to the moral power and efficacy of
nonviolence. By the thousands, faceless, anonymous, relentless
young people, black and white, have temporarily left the ivory towers
of learning for the barricades of bias. Their courageous and
disciplined activities have come as a refreshing oasis in a desert
sweltering with the heat of injustice. They have taken our whole nation
back to those great wells of democracy which were dug deep by the
founding fathers in the formulation of the Constitution and the
Declaration of Independence. One day all of America will be proud of
their achievements11.

I am only too well aware of the human weaknesses and failures which
exist, the doubts about the efficacy of nonviolence, and the open
advocacy of violence by some. But I am still convinced that
nonviolence is both the most practically sound and morally excellent
way to grapple with the age-old problem of racial injustice.

A second evil which plagues the modern world is that of poverty. Like
a monstrous octopus, it projects its nagging, prehensile tentacles in
lands and villages all over the world. Almost two-thirds of the peoples
of the world go to bed hungry at night. They are undernourished, ill-
housed, and shabbily clad. Many of them have no houses or beds to
sleep in. Their only beds are the sidewalks of the cities and the dusty
roads of the villages. Most of these poverty-stricken children of God
have never seen a physician or a dentist. This problem of poverty is
not only seen in the class division between the highly developed
industrial nations and the so-called underdeveloped nations; it is seen
in the great economic gaps within the rich nations themselves. Take
my own country for example. We have developed the greatest system
of production that history has ever known. We have become the
richest nation in the world. Our national gross product this year will
reach the astounding figure of almost 650 billion dollars. Yet, at least
one-fifth of our fellow citizens - some ten million families, comprising
about forty million individuals - are bound to a miserable culture of
poverty. In a sense the poverty of the poor in America is more
frustrating than the poverty of Africa and Asia. The misery of the poor
in Africa and Asia is shared misery, a fact of life for the vast majority;
they are all poor together as a result of years of exploitation and
underdevelopment. In sad contrast, the poor in America know that
they live in the richest nation in the world, and that even though they
are perishing on a lonely island of poverty they are surrounded by a
vast ocean of material prosperity. Glistening towers of glass and steel
easily seen from their slum dwellings spring up almost overnight. Jet
liners speed over their ghettoes at 600 miles an hour; satellites streak
through outer space and reveal details of the moon. President
Johnson, in his State of the Union Message12, emphasized this
contradiction when he heralded the United States' "highest standard
of living in the world", and deplored that it was accompanied by
"dislocation; loss of jobs, and the specter of poverty in the midst of
plenty".

So it is obvious that if man is to redeem his spiritual and moral "lag",
he must go all out to bridge the social and economic gulf between the
"haves" and the "have nots" of the world. Poverty is one of the most
urgent items on the agenda of modern life.

There is nothing new about poverty. What is new, however, is that we
have the resources to get rid of it. More than a century and a half ago
people began to be disturbed about the twin problems of population
and production. A thoughtful Englishman named Malthus wrote a
book13 that set forth some rather frightening conclusions. He
predicted that the human family was gradually moving toward global
starvation because the world was producing people faster than it was
producing food and material to support them. Later scientists,
however, disproved the conclusion of Malthus, and revealed that he
had vastly underestimated the resources of the world and the
resourcefulness of man.

Not too many years ago, Dr. Kirtley Mather, a Harvard geologist, wrote
a book entitled Enough and to Spare14. He set forth the basic theme
that famine is wholly unnecessary in the modern world. Today,
therefore, the question on the agenda must read: Why should there be
hunger and privation in any land, in any city, at any table when man
has the resources and the scientific know-how to provide all mankind
with the basic necessities of life? Even deserts can be irrigated and
top soil can be replaced. We cannot complain of a lack of land, for
there are twenty-five million square miles of tillable land, of which we
are using less than seven million. We have amazing knowledge of
vitamins, nutrition, the chemistry of food, and the versatility of atoms.
There is no deficit in human resources; the deficit is in human will. The
well-off and the secure have too often become indifferent and
oblivious to the poverty and deprivation in their midst. The poor in our
countries have been shut out of our minds, and driven from the
mainstream of our societies, because we have allowed them to
become invisible. Just as nonviolence exposed the ugliness of racial
injustice, so must the infection and sickness of poverty be exposed
and healed - not only its symptoms but its basic causes. This, too, will
be a fierce struggle, but we must not be afraid to pursue the remedy
no matter how formidable the task.

The time has come for an all-out world war against poverty. The rich
nations must use their vast resources of wealth to develop the
underdeveloped, school the unschooled, and feed the unfed.
Ultimately a great nation is a compassionate nation. No individual or
nation can be great if it does not have a concern for "the least of
these". Deeply etched in the fiber of our religious tradition is the
conviction that men are made in the image of God and that they are
souls of infinite metaphysical value, the heirs of a legacy of dignity and
worth. If we feel this as a profound moral fact, we cannot be content
to see men hungry, to see men victimized with starvation and ill health
when we have the means to help them. The wealthy nations must go
all out to bridge the gulf between the rich minority and the poor
majority.

In the final analysis, the rich must not ignore the poor because both
rich and poor are tied in a single garment of destiny. All life is
interrelated, and all men are interdependent. The agony of the poor
diminishes the rich, and the salvation of the poor enlarges the rich.
We are inevitably our brothers' keeper because of the interrelated
structure of reality. John Donne interpreted this truth in graphic terms
when he affirmed15:

No man is an Iland, intire of its selfe: every
man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the
maine: if a Clod bee washed away by the Sea,
Europe is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie
were, as well as if a Mannor of thy friends
or of thine owne were: any mans death
diminishes me, because I am involved in
Mankinde: and therefore never send to know
for whom the bell tolls: it tolls for thee.

A third great evil confronting our world is that of war. Recent events
have vividly reminded us that nations are not reducing but rather
increasing their arsenals of weapons of mass destruction. The best
brains in the highly developed nations of the world are devoted to
military technology. The proliferation of nuclear weapons has not been
halted, in spite of the Limited Test Ban Treaty16. On the contrary, the
detonation of an atomic device by the first nonwhite, non- Western,
and so-called underdeveloped power, namely the Chinese People's
Republic17, opens new vistas of exposure of vast multitudes, the
whole of humanity, to insidious terrorization by the ever-present threat
of annihilation. The fact that most of the time human beings put the
truth about the nature and risks of the nuclear war out of their minds
because it is too painful and therefore not "acceptable", does not alter
the nature and risks of such war. The device of "rejection" may
temporarily cover up anxiety, but it does not bestow peace of mind
and emotional security.

So man's proneness to engage in war is still a fact. But wisdom born
of experience should tell us that war is obsolete. There may have
been a time when war served as a negative good by preventing the
spread and growth of an evil force, but the destructive power of
modern weapons eliminated even the possibility that war may serve
as a negative good. If we assume that life is worth living and that man
has a right to survive, then we must find an alternative to war. In a day
when vehicles hurtle through outer space and guided ballistic
missiles carve highways of death through the stratosphere, no nation
can claim victory in war. A so-called limited war will leave little more
than a calamitous legacy of human suffering, political turmoil, and
spiritual disillusionment. A world war - God forbid! - will leave only
smoldering ashes as a mute testimony of a human race whose folly
led inexorably to ultimate death. So if modern man continues to flirt
unhesitatingly with war, he will transform his earthly habitat into an
inferno such as even the mind of Dante could not imagine.

Therefore, I venture to suggest to all of you and all who hear and may
eventually read these words, that the philosophy and strategy of
nonviolence become immediately a subject for study and for serious
experimentation in every field of human conflict, by no means
excluding the relations between nations. It is, after all, nation-states
which make war, which have produced the weapons which threaten
the survival of mankind, and which are both genocidal and suicidal in
character.

Here also we have ancient habits to deal with, vast structures of
power, indescribably complicated problems to solve. But unless we
abdicate our humanity altogether and succumb to fear and impotence
in the presence of the weapons we have ourselves created, it is as
imperative and urgent to put an end to war and violence between
nations as it is to put an end to racial injustice. Equality with whites
will hardly solve the problems of either whites or Negroes if it means
equality in a society under the spell of terror and a world doomed to
extinction.

I do not wish to minimize the complexity of the problems that need to
be faced in achieving disarmament and peace. But I think it is a fact
that we shall not have the will, the courage, and the insight to deal with
such matters unless in this field we are prepared to undergo a mental
and spiritual reevaluation - a change of focus which will enable us to
see that the things which seem most real and powerful are indeed
now unreal and have come under the sentence of death. We need to
make a supreme effort to generate the readiness, indeed the
eagerness, to enter into the new world which is now possible, "the
city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God"18.

We will not build a peaceful world by following a negative path. It is not
enough to say "We must not wage war." It is necessary to love peace
and sacrifice for it. We must concentrate not merely on the negative
expulsion of war, but on the positive affirmation of peace. There is a
fascinating little story that is preserved for us in Greek literature about
Ulysses and the Sirens. The Sirens had the ability to sing so sweetly
that sailors could not resist steering toward their island. Many ships
were lured upon the rocks, and men forgot home, duty, and honor as
they flung themselves into the sea to be embraced by arms that drew
them down to death. Ulysses, determined not to be lured by the
Sirens, first decided to tie himself tightly to the mast of his boat, and
his crew stuffed their ears with wax. But finally he and his crew
learned a better way to save themselves: they took on board the
beautiful singer Orpheus whose melodies were sweeter than the
music of the Sirens. When Orpheus sang, who bothered to listen to
the Sirens?

So we must fix our vision not merely on the negative expulsion of war,
but upon the positive affirmation of peace. We must see that peace
represents a sweeter music, a cosmic melody that is far superior to
the discords of war. Somehow we must transform the dynamics of
the world power struggle from the negative nuclear arms race which
no one can win to a positive contest to harness man's creative genius
for the purpose of making peace and prosperity a reality for all of the
nations of the world. In short, we must shift the arms race into a
"peace race". If we have the will and determination to mount such a
peace offensive, we will unlock hitherto tightly sealed doors of hope
and transform our imminent cosmic elegy into a psalm of creative
fulfillment.

All that I have said boils down to the point of affirming that mankind's
survival is dependent upon man's ability to solve the problems of
racial injustice, poverty, and war; the solution of these problems is in
turn dependent upon man squaring his moral progress with his
scientific progress, and learning the practical art of living in harmony.
Some years ago a famous novelist died. Among his papers was found
a list of suggested story plots for future stories, the most prominently
underscored being this one: "A widely separated family inherits a
house in which they have to live together." This is the great new
problem of mankind. We have inherited a big house, a great "world
house" in which we have to live together - black and white, Easterners
and Westerners, Gentiles and Jews, Catholics and Protestants,
Moslem and Hindu, a family unduly separated in ideas, culture, and
interests who, because we can never again live without each other,
must learn, somehow, in this one big world, to live with each other.

This means that more and more our loyalties must become
ecumenical rather than sectional. We must now give an overriding
loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in our
individual societies.

This call for a worldwide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern
beyond one's tribe, race, class, and nation is in reality a call for an all-
embracing and unconditional love for all men. This oft misunderstood
and misinterpreted concept so readily dismissed by the Nietzsches of
the world as a weak and cowardly force, has now become an
absolute necessity for the survival of man. When I speak of love I am
not speaking of some sentimental and weak response which is little
more than emotional bosh. I am speaking of that force which all of the
great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life.
Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to
ultimate reality. This Hindu-Moslem-Christian-Jewish-Buddhist belief
about ultimate reality is beautifully summed up in the First Epistle of
Saint John19:

Let us love one another: for love is of God; and everyone
that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.
He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.
If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and His
love is perfected in us.

Let us hope that this spirit will become the order of the day. As Arnold
Toynbee20 says: "Love is the ultimate force that makes for the saving
choice of life and good against the damning choice of death and evil.
Therefore the first hope in our inventory must be the hope that love is
going to have the last word." We can no longer afford to worship the
God of hate or bow before the altar of retaliation. The oceans of
history are made turbulent by the ever-rising tides of hate. History is
cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued
this self-defeating path of hate. Love is the key to the solution of the
problems of the world.

Let me close by saying that I have the personal faith that mankind will
somehow rise up to the occasion and give new directions to an age
drifting rapidly to its doom. In spite of the tensions and uncertainties of
this period something profoundly meaningful is taking place. Old
systems of exploitation and oppression are passing away, and out of
the womb of a frail world new systems of justice and equality are
being born. Doors of opportunity are gradually being opened to those
at the bottom of society. The shirtless and barefoot people of the land
are developing a new sense of "some-bodiness" and carving a tunnel
of hope through the dark mountain of despair. "The people who sat in
darkness have seen a great light."21 Here and there an individual or
group dares to love, and rises to the majestic heights of moral
maturity. So in a real sense this is a great time to be alive. Therefore, I
am not yet discouraged about the future. Granted that the easygoing
optimism of yesterday is impossible. Granted that those who pioneer
in the struggle for peace and freedom will still face uncomfortable jail
terms, painful threats of death; they will still be battered by the storms
of persecution, leading them to the nagging feeling that they can no
longer bear such a heavy burden, and the temptation of wanting to
retreat to a more quiet and serene life. Granted that we face a world
crisis which leaves us standing so often amid the surging murmur of
life's restless sea. But every crisis has both its dangers and its
opportunities. It can spell either salvation or doom. In a dark confused
world the kingdom of God may yet reign in the hearts of men.


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* Dr. King delivered this lecture in the Auditorium of the University of
Oslo. This text is taken from Les Prix Nobel en 1964. The text in the
New York Times is excerpted. His speech of acceptance delivered the
day before in the same place is reported fully both in Les Prix Nobel en
1964 and the New York Times.

1. Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), American poet and essayist.

2. Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947). British philosopher and
mathematician, professor at the University of London and Harvard
University.

3. "There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world and
that is an idea whose time has come." Translations differ; probable
origin is Victor Hugo, Histoire d'un crime, "Conclusion-La Chute",
chap. 10.

4. "Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around" is the title of an old
Baptist spiritual.

5. Exodus 5:1; 8:1; 9:1; 10:3.

6. "Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka", 347 U.S. 483, contains
the decision of May 17, 1954, requiring desegregation of the public
schools by the states. "Bolling vs. Sharpe", 347 U.S. 497, contains the
decision of same date requiring desegregation of public schools by
the federal government; i.e. in Washington, D.C. "Brown vs. Board of
Education of Topeka", Nos. 1-5. 349 U.S. 249, contains the opinion of
May 31, 1955, on appeals from the decisions in the two cases cited
above, ordering admission to "public schools on a racially
nondiscriminatory basis with all deliberate speed".

7. Public Law 88-352, signed by President Johnson on July 2, 1964.

8. Both Les Prix Nobel and the New York Times read "retrogress".

9. Lyndon B. Johnson defeated Barry Goldwater by a popular vote of
43, 128, 956 to 27,177,873.

10. For a note on Gandhi, seep. 329, fn. 1.

11. For accounts of the civil rights activities by both whites and blacks
in the decade from 1954 to 1964, see Alan F. Westin, Freedom Now:
The Civil Rights Struggle in America (New York: Basic Books, 1964),
especially Part IV, "The Techniques of the Civil Rights Struggle";
Howard Zinn, SNCC: The New Abolitionists (Boston: Beacon Press,
1964); Eugene V. Rostow, "The Freedom Riders and the Future", The
Reporter (June 22, 1961); James Peck, Cracking the Color Line:
Nonviolent Direct Action Methods of Eliminating Racial Discrimination
(New York: CORE, 1960).

12. January 8, 1964.

13. Thomas Robert Malthus (1766-1834), An Essay on the Principle of
Population (1798).

14. Kirtley F. Mather, Enough and to Spare: Mother Earth Can Nourish
Every Man in Freedom (New York: Harper, 1944).

15. John Donne (1572?-1631), English poet, in the final lines of
"Devotions" (1624).

16. Officially called "Treaty Banning Nuclear Weapons Tests in
Atmosphere, in Outer Space, and Underwater", and signed by Russia,
England, and United States on July 25, 1963.

17. On October 16, 1964.

18. Hebrews II: 10.

19. I John 4:7-8, 12.

20. Arnold Joseph Toynbee (1889- ), British historian whose
monumental work is the 10-volume A Study of Story (1934-1954).

21. This quotation may be based on a phrase from Luke 1:79, "To give
light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death"; or one
from Psalms 107:10, "Such as sit in darkness and in the shadow of
death"; or one from Mark Twain's To the Person Sitting in Darkness
(1901), "The people who sit in darkness have noticed it...".

From Nobel Lectures, Peace 1951-1970, Editor Frederick W.
Haberman, Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 1972

Martin Luther King's Nobel lecture is from http://www.nobelprize.org

Aspiring Writers Winter Edition