Transcript of an Audio Recording

Two events on June 3, 1964 featuring
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Arizona
Transcript completed August 29, 2013 by Kristen LaRue, Department of English, Arizona State University.
For questions concerning the transcript, please contact Kristen.LaRue@asu.edu or 480‐965‐7611.

00:08: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s address at Goodwin Stadium, Arizona State University, Tempe
49:00: Dr. Martin Luther King’s address at Tanner AME Church in Phoenix

[APPLAUSE]
[VOICE OF G. HOMER DURHAM]
[00:08] Our speaker tonight … has achieved a place of prominence in our national history. Born [in]
Atlanta, Georgia, in little more than 35 years of his lifetime, he has gained worldwide recognition. Not, in
my opinion, for his educational achievements only, which, believe me, are ext… are extensive and
distinguished, including an earned PhD degree and many honorary degrees, which required harder
effort; but he has received this distinction and gained this eminence in our national life, in my opinion,
for his humble, yet determined efforts to make the ideals expressed in the Sermon on the Mount more
real in the lives of our people in these times.
I am grateful for his visit to Arizona and I am pleased that arrangements could be made through the
Maricopa County Chapter of the NAACP and a distinguished committee, to have this meeting in
Goodwin Stadium tonight. For I feel that the university has contributed nothing to this meeting but that
Dr. King’s coming, and presence here, has added much to our dignity as a university.
[APPLAUSE]
His name today reminds millions of the promises contained in the Sermon on the Mount. “Blessed are
they that mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after
righteousness, for they shall be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.” And further
he stands as example of the acid test of compassionate character which responds to the challenge: “and
whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain.”
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. has gone the second mile many, many times. I am pleased and honored to
respond to the invitation [tendered?] me this night, to introduce, to you, the speaker … at this hour of
worship and thoughtful consideration, a devoted minister of the gospel, and a great national leader, Dr.
Martin Luther King Jr.
Dr. King …

[LONG APPLAUSE]
[AMBIENT VOICES]
[VOICE OF DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.]
[4:11] And to the distinguished president of this great university, Dr. Durham, Reverend Brooks, the
dedicated president of the Phoenix branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored
People [clears throat], distinguished platform guests, members and offices of this chapter of the NAACP
ladies and gentlemen.
I need not pause to say how very delighted and honored I am to have the opportunity of coming once
more to the state of Arizona and the opportunity of making my first public appearance here in the city of
Phoenix, Arizona. And I want to express my deep personal appreciation to Reverend Brooks … and to all
of the sponsors of this meeting for making this experience possible. We have been here on the west
coast now for four or five days and we have had some marvelous experiences, as we have sought to
interpret the meaning, of this great struggle for freedom and justice taking place, in the South and all
over our nation. And so we’re happy to end this tour, in your community, and I’m sure that the support
that you have given will be of inestimable value for the continuance of our humble efforts.
I’ve made so many speeches over the last few days. I think I’ve spoken about 15 times. And since I’ve
been in this area over the last four or five days, and as a result of that I’ve been battling with a virus bug
and I’ve about lost my voice. But I hope I can make it through this last speech and that my hoarseness,
uh, won’t stop me.
[7:17] I’m indeed indebted to Dr. Durham for these very kind and gracious words of introduction … and I
can assure you that I am very happy to share the platform with all the persons who have been
introduced, and I am so happy to share the platform with the man who was the principal … of the
Atlanta University Laboratory High School, the school that I had the privilege of attending, a man that I
have had tremendous respect for and admiration, ever since I have known him. I speak of Mr. W.A.
Robinson.
[APPLAUSE]
[8:17] I think one of the things that we can all say about our nation and about the world today … is that
the wind of change is blowing. And in a real sense, it is sweeping away an old order, and bringing into
being a new order. And as a result of this emerging new age, each of us confronts new challenges, and
tonight as I think about world conditions and as I think about our own nation, I would like to talk with
you about the challenges that we face in this new age.
I would like to suggest first that we are challenged more than ever before to achieve a world
perspective. You see the world in which we live, as you well know, is geographically one. Now we’re
challenged to make this world one in terms of brotherhood, one in terms of peace. Now it is true that
the geographical oneness of our age has come into being to a large extent, because of man’s scientific
ingenuity. Man through his scientific genius has been able to dwarf distance and [place time in change?].

And our jet planes and compressed and diminished distances that once took weeks, days, and
sometimes even months. I think Bob Hope has adequately described this new jet age in which we live.
He said it is an age in which it is possible to take a non‐stop flight from Los Angeles, California to New
York City – a distance of about 2700 miles – and if on taking off in Los Angeles, you develop hiccups, you
will “hic” in Los Angeles and “cup” in New York City.
[11:16] You know it is possible because of the time difference to take a jet flight from Tokyo, Japan on
Sunday morning and arrive in Seattle, Washington on the preceding Saturday night. And when your
friends meet you at the airport and ask when you left Tokyo, you will have to say “I left tomorrow.”
Now this is a bit humorous but I am trying to laugh a basic fact into all of us, and it is simply this: that
through our scientific and technological genius, we have made of this world a neighborhood. And now
through our moral and ethical commitment, we must make of it a brotherhood. We must all learn to live
together as brothers or we will all perish together as fools. [APPLAUSE STARTS] This is the challenge of
our[s].
No individual can live alone, no nation can live alone. I never will forget an experience that came to me.
Just a few years ago, Mrs. King and I had the privilege of journeying to that great country known as
India. And I never will forget the experience of meeting and talking with the great leaders of India. And
meeting and talking with hundreds and thousands of people in the cities and the villages all over that
vast country. And these experiences will remain dear to me as long as the cords of memories [are
lengthened?].
But I say to you this evening, my friends, that there were those depressing moments. For how can one
avoid being depressed, when he sees with his own eyes, millions of people going to bed hungry
[hungered?] at night? How can one avoid being depressed when he sees with his own eyes, millions of
people sleeping on the sidewalks at night? They have no beds to sleep in; they have no houses to go in.
How can one avoid being depressed when he discovers that out of India’s population of more than 450
million people, almost 380 million make an annual income of less than $90 a year, and most of these
people have never seen a doctor or dentist?
As I noticed these conditions, something within me cried out: “Can we in America stand idly by and not
be concerned?” And an answer came: “Oh no. Because the destiny of the United States is tied up with
the destiny of India and every other nation.” And I started thinking about the fact that we spend in our
nation millions and millions of dollars a day to store surplus food. And I said to myself, “I know where we
can store that food free of charge. In the wrinkled stomachs of the millions of God’s children in Asia and
Africa, South America, and in our own nation who go to bed hungry tonight.
All I’m saying is simply this: that all life is interrelated. And we are caught in an inescapable network of
mutuality, tied in a single [grommet?] of destiny, and whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly
for some strange reason. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be and you
can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. [APPLAUSE STARTS] This is the
interrelated structure.

[APPLAUSE]
[15:05] John Donne caught it years ago and placed it in graphic terms. “No man is an island / entire of
itself; every man is a piece of the continent, / a part of the main.” And he goes on toward the end to say
“Any man's death diminishes me, / Because I am involved in mankind, / And therefore never send to
know for whom the bell tolls; / It tolls for thee.”
And the recognition of this, means that we are meeting the challenge of this new age which is emerging.
Now the second challenge that I would like to mention is this: We are challenged to get rid of the notion
once and for all, that there are superior and inferior races. [A BIT OF CLAPPING] America never will be a
great nation … and the world never will be a great world, until we get rid of this false idea. This idea still
lingers around in many quarters in spite of the fact that great anthropologists like Ruth Benedict,
Margaret Meade, the late Melvin [Melville] Herskovits and others have revealed that as a result of their
long years of study they find no evidence for the notion of superior and inferior races. There may be
superior and inferior individuals academically within all races.
But in spite of this evidence of our anthropological sciences, there are still individuals who believe this.
Now you know there was a time that people tried to argue this idea on the basis of religion and the
bible. It’s tragic indeed how some people will … use or misuse religion and the bible to justify their
prejudices.
And so it was argued that the Negro was inferior by nature because of Noah’s curse upon the children of
Ham. And then the Apostle Paul’s dictum became a watch word: “servants be obedient to your master.”
[17:15] And one brother who had probably read the logic of the great philosopher Aristotle, put his
argument in another form. Aristotle was a great philosopher who lived in the heyday of Greek culture.
And he did a great deal to bring into being what we now know in philosophy as “formal logic.”
And formal logic has a big word known as “a syllogism.” A syllogism has a major premise, a minor
premise, and a conclusion, and so this brother decided to put his argument of the inferiority of the
Negro in the framework of an Aristotelian syllogism. He could say, “All men are made in the image of
God,” this was his major premise. Then came his minor premise. “God as everybody knows is not a
Negro; therefore the Negro is not a man.” This was the kind of reasoning that uh, prevailed.
But on the whole people have gotten away from these arguments. I say “on the whole” because
occasionally you still hear them. In fact, I read where one of our white brothers, down in Mississippi,
said a few days ago that God was a charter member of the white citizens’ council. [LAUGHTER] But, uh,
on the whole, people have gotten away from these arguments.
[18:28] And now, they argue on several sociological grounds: “The Negro is not culturally ready for
integration.” Then they go on to say, “if you integrate the schools and other areas of life you will pull the
white race back a generation.” And then they go on to say, “well you know, the Negro is a criminal.”

The people who set forth these arguments never go to the point of saying that if there are lagging
standards in the Negro community, they lag because of segregation and discrimination. Criminal
responses are environmental and not racial. Poverty, ignorance, social isolation, and economic
deprivation breed crime whatever the racial group may be, and it is a tortuous logic to use the tragic
results of segregation, as an argument for the continuation of it. It is necessary to go on back to the
causal thesis.
Now along with getting rid of this notion, let me mention that those of us who have been on the
oppressed end of the old order will have to go out more than ever before to get rid of the nagging sense
of inferiority that has so often surrounded our days. Because when people are told over and over again
that they are inferior, they begin to believe it. And they lose a sense of dignity and self‐respect.
Somehow we must not believe this. We must somehow know that there isn’t any truth in it.
And we must also set out to achieve excellence in our various fields of endeavor. This is one of the great
challenges facing those of us who have been on the oppressed end of the old order.
Now it’s very difficult because we have a serious dilemma. As Ralph Abernathy’s just said: We are the
victims of 344 years of slavery and segregation. And now the [forces?] of history are saying that we must
be as productive and as resourceful and as responsible as the individuals who have not known such
oppression. This is our dilemma. And so it means that we’re going to have to work hard.
[21:05] It means that if we’re in school that we must burn the midnight oil. It means that we must not
drop out of school. It means that we must work hard to achieve excellence in our various fields of
endeavor. It means that we must recognize the doors of opportunity opening now that were not open
to our mothers and our fathers, and the great challenge is to be ready to enter these doors as they
open.
Ralph Waldo Emerson said in a lecture back in 1871, that if a man can write a better book, or preach a
better sermon or make a better mouse trap than his neighbor, even if he builds his house in the woods,
the world will make a beaten a path to his door. This will become increasingly true.
And so I say, set out to do a good job. And do that job so well that nobody could do it any better.
And don’t just set out to do a good [APPLAUSE] … And don’t just set out to do a good Negro job. You
see, if you’re setting out merely to be a good Negro teacher or a good Negro doctor, good Negro lawyer,
good Negro skilled labor[er], good Negro barber, good Negro beautician, you have already flunked your
matriculation exam for entrance into the university of integration. [APPLAUSE]
[22:39] We must set out to do a good job, and try with all of our might to do that job so well that the
living, the dead or the unborn couldn’t do it any better. And so to carry it to one extreme, if it falls your
lot to be a street sweeper—sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures. Sweep streets …
[LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE] … Sweep streets like Beethoven composed music and like Shakespeare
wrote poetry. Sweep streets so well that all the host of heaven and earth will have to pause and say,
“Here lived a great street sweeper, who swept his job well.” [LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE]

“If you can’t be a pine on the top of the hill, be a scrub in the valley. But be the best little scrub on the
side of the rill; be a bush if you can’t be a tree. If you can't be a highway, just be a trail. If you can't be
the sun, be a star; For it isn't by size that you win or you fail‐‐Be the best of whatever you are!” [LOUD
APPLAUSE]
Now the next challenge that I’d like to mention tonight is this: We’re challenged to develop an action
program all over our nation, to get rid of the last vestiges of segregation and discrimination. This
problem will not work itself out. It’s a problem of racial injustices to be solved in our nation. It means
that we’ve got to develop action programs in order to solve it.
Now in order to do this we need to do several things. First, we’ve got to get rid of the myth of time.
You’ve heard this myth. The individuals who believe in it say, to the Negro and his allies in the white
community: “Wait. Slow up for a while. You ought to cool off. Only time can solve the problem.” And so
they say, “You ought to be nice and patient and just continue to pray and in a hundred or two hundred
years the problem will work itself out” [A BIT OF LAUGHTER]. Now I’m not criticizing prayer—don’t get
me wrong. Prayer has been one of the great resources in my own life. And so often when I’ve had to
stand amid the chilly winds of adversity, in the midst of … the surging murmur of life’s restless sea, I’ve
been able to pray and it meant so much. And in so many other instances, prayer has been so
meaningful. So I’m not criticizing prayer, but I am saying: That God never intended for prayer to be a
substitute for work and intelligence. [AMBIENT VOICES] We must come to see [APPLAUSE] …
Somewhere we must come to see that time is neutral. It can be used either constructively or
destructively. And I am convinced as I stand before you tonight, that the forces of ill will in our nation
have used time much more effectively than the forces of good will. I am convinced tonight that the
Wallaces and the extreme rightists of our nation have used time much more effectively than the
individuals who are committed to the positive ends and goals of our nation. And it may well be that we
will have to [repentant?] this generation, not merely for the vitriolic words and the violent actions of the
bad people who would bomb a church in Birmingham, Alabama, but for the appalling silence and
indifference of the good people who sit around and say, “Wait on time.” [APPLAUSE]
[26:28] Somewhere along the way we must see that human progress never rolls in on the wheels of
inevitability. It comes through the tireless efforts and the persistent work of dedicated individuals who
are willing to be coworkers with God. And without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the
primitive forces of social stagnation. And so we must recognize urgency of the moment. Now is the time
to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to get rid of segregation and discrimination in
our nation. Now is the time to make democracy a reality [APPLAUSE STARTS], Now is the time to solve
this problem. [APPLAUSE]
Now the other myth that we hear a great deal about, is that, uh, you really can’t solve this problem that
we face through legislation. We hear it a great deal now because of the civil rights debate in the senate
of our nation, and because of the civil rights activities all over the nation in various communities. We
hear this from southern senators and sometimes we hear it from western and northern senators and
others. They argue that you can’t legislate morals, you can’t do it through legislation, you must change

the heart, and you can’t change the heart through legislation. Now I would agree that whoever says this
is uttering a half‐truth. I would be the first to say, that if this problem is to be solved ultimately, every
white person of this nation must recognize that the Negro is his brother. If this problem is to be solved
ultimately, I realize that white people and Negro people must come together, not merely because the
law says it, but because it’s natural and right. I realize that if this problem is to be solved ultimately, we
must be obedient not only to that which can be enforced by the law, but men must rise to the majestic
heights of being obedient to their own enforceable. I realize that, but after seeing that I must go on to
the other side. It may be true that you can’t legislate integration, but you can legislate desegregation. It
may be true that morality can’t be legislated but behavior can be regulated. It may be true that the law
cannot change the heart, but it can restrain the heartless. It may be true [APPLAUSE] …
It may be true that the law can’t make a man love me, but it can restrain him from lynching me and I
think that’s pretty important also [LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE].
And so while it may be true that the law cannot change the hearts of men it does change the habits of
men, and when you change the habits of men, pretty soon the hearts will be changed and attitudes will
be changed. [APPLAUSE]
[…] [BREAK IN RECORDING]
[29:50] [MUFFLED] … there is a need for strong civil rights legislation now. And the federal scale and on
the local scale in states all over the nation. That is a debate taking place right now, in the senate, and it
is more than a legitimate debate. It is bogged down now into an actual filibuster and this is tragic for the
nation. It is tragic for the cause of justice, and for democracy. This bill must pass and it must pass soon, if
our nation is to maintain its health. I think one of the most urgent issues facing America now is to get
this Civil Rights Bill through.
It was on a sweltering afternoon last June that a young, vigorous, intelligent, dedicated president stood
before the nation and said, in eloquent terms: “The issue that we face in civil rights is not merely a
political issue, it is at bottom a moral issue.” He went on to say, “It is as old as the scriptures, and as
modern as the Constitution. It is a question of whether we would treat our Negro brothers as we
ourselves would like to be treated.”
And on the heels of that great speech, he went and offered to Congress the most comprehensive civil
rights package ever presented by any president of our great nation. But since that sweltering afternoon
last June, our nation has known a dog day and a dreary night. For that same president was cut down by
an assassin’s bullet on Elm Street in Dallas, Texas. And I think the greatest tribute of respect that the
United States of America can pay to the late John Fitzgerald Kennedy is to see that this Civil Rights Bill is
passed [APPLAUSE BEGINS] without being watered down.
[LOUD APPLAUSE]
If it does not pass, and pass soon, it may well be that the already ugly soot of racial injustice on the body
politic will suddenly turn malignant, and our nation will be inflicted with an incurable cancer that will

totally destroy our moral and political health. It is also necessary to have civil rights legislation in every
state. It’s necessary in order to deal with the problems that we face in so many areas, in every state in
this country.
We need legislation to deal with the problem of housing discrimination. At many points this is the root
of the problem; because as long as you have segregated housing, you’re going to have de facto
segregation in the schools, in recreational facilities, in the churches and everything else. And so it is
necessary to get rid of housing discrimination. And we need fair housing bills. Every state and every
community should have a public accommodations bill. It is tragic indeed … [APPLAUSE]
[33:32] It’s tragic indeed that one hundred years after Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation
Proclamation there are still places of public accommodations, all over this land, where the Negro cannot
go and where he confronts terrible humiliation merely because of the color of his skin. And this needs to
end and it needs to end now. And it is necessary to have public accommodation bills in order to get it
ended. [APPLAUSE]
Something must also be done about the terrible problem that Negroes and other minority groups—and I
stress this because Negroes are not the only ones who confront oppression in this country; the
American Indian, the Mexican, the Puerto Rican and others confront the problems—and something
must be done to grapple with the poverty that so many of the people of our nation face, for here they
find themselves so often smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society.
And something must be done about this. There must be a vigorous program to get rid of employment
discrimination. There must be a vigorous retraining program, to train those members of minority groups
who have been limited to unskilled and semi‐skilled labor because of discrimination. And now
automation is taking these jobs away—some 40,000 of them a week. There must be a vigorous program
to grapple with all of these problems.
And so along with all of this, we can see a strong action program in the legislative realm that will at least
get at this problem. Now the Negro himself has a responsibility to stand up with determination against
the unjust system of segregation and discrimination and say, “This is the meaning of the demonstrations
that have taken place all over the nation, all over the south, and in many, many communities. It is an
attempt to expose the indignities and the injustices which we still face as a result of the continued
existence of segregation and discrimination.”
[35:58] The one thing I always say, is, [STRANGE, SLOW BACKGROUND VOICE] that as we stand up
against the unjust system[s], and as we engage in direct action, that action should be non‐violent direct
action. And so this has been the basis of our movement and the undergirding philosophy of our struggle:
non‐violent resistance.
And I think this method has power. It has a way of disarming the opponent. It exposes his moral
defenses, it weakens his morale, and at the same time, it works on his conscience. He just doesn’t know
how to handle it. I’ve seen that so often as we’ve struggled across the South. If he doesn’t put you in
jail—wonderful. Nobody with any sense loves to go to jail. If he puts you in jail, you go in that jail and
transform it, from a dungeon of shame to a haven of freedom and human dignity. Even if he tries to kill

you, you develop the inner conviction that there are some things so dear, some things so precious, some
things so eternally true that they are worth dying for. And if a man has not discovered something that he
will die for, he isn’t fit to live. [APPLAUSE]
[37:18] This is what [unintelligible] [APPLAUSE CONTINUES]
So by standing up with this method—non‐violently—I believe that we will be able to move on toward
that brighter day, that better day, when justice and freedom will be a reality for all of God’s children.
And may I say to you tonight my friends, that this problem that we face is not merely a sectional
problem, no section of our country can boast of clean hands in the area of brotherhood.
And it is one thing for a white person of good will outside of the North to rise up with righteous
indignation when a bus is burned with freedom riders in Anniston, Alabama, or when a church is
bombed in Birmingham, Alabama, killing four, inoffending, innocent, beautiful Negro girls, but it is just
as necessary for a white person of good will outside of the South to rise up with righteous indignation
when a Negro cannot live in your neighborhood, or when a Negro cannot get a job in your particular
firm, or when a Negro cannot join your professional or academic society, your fraternity or sorority. If
this problem is to be solved, there must be a sort of divine discontent.
You know there are technical words within every academic discipline that soon become stereotypes and
cliché[s]. Modern psychology has a word that is probably used more than any other word in psychology:
it is [a/the] word “maladjusted.” Certainly we all want to live well‐adjusted lives in order to avoid
neurotic and schizophrenic personalities.
But I must say to you tonight: That there are some things in our social order and in our world, of which I
am proud to be maladjusted, and which I call upon all men of good will to be maladjusted, until the good
society’s realized. I must honestly confess that I never intend to become adjusted to segregation and
discrimination. I never intend to adjust myself to religious bigotry. I never intend to become adjusted to
the madness and militarism, and the self‐defeating effects of physical violence.
For in a day when Sputniks and explorers are dashing through outer‐space, and guided ballistic missiles
are carving highways of death through the stratosphere, no nation can win a war. It is no longer a choice
between violence and non‐violence. It is a choice of either non‐violence or non‐existence. The
alternative … [APPLAUSE] …
The alternative to disarmament, the alternative to a greater suspension of nuclear tests, the alternative
to strengthening the United Nations, and thereby disarming the whole world, may well be a civilization
plunged into the abyss of annihilation. And so there may well be need in our world for a new
organization: The International Association for the Advancement of Creative Maladjustment. Men and
women [LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE] …
[40:54] … Those who would be as maladjusted as the prophet Amos, who in the midst of the injustices
of his day, would cry out in words that echo across the centuries: “Let justice roll down like waters and
righteousness like a mighty stream.” As maladjusted as Abraham Lincoln, who had the vision to see that

this nation could not survive half slave and half free. As maladjusted as Thomas Jefferson, who in the
midst of an age amazingly adjusted to slavery, could scratch across the pages of history, words lifted to
cosmic proportions: “We hold these truths to be self‐evident, that all men are created equal, that they
are endowed by their Creator with certain [in]alienable Rights” and “that among these are Life, Liberty
and the pursuit of Happiness.” As maladjusted as our Lord and Master, who could say to the men and
women of his day: “Love your enemies. Bless them that curse you. Pray for them that [de]spitefully use
you” and could go on to say “He who lives by the sword will perish by the sword.”
And through such maladjustment, we will be able to emerge from the bleak and desolate midnight, of
man’s inhumanity to man, into the bright and glittering daybreak of freedom and justice. This is our
challenge and this is our opportunity.
And may I say to you my friends, as I come to my conclusion: That I still have faith in America. And I still
believe that we have the resources in this nation to solve this problem. And I still believe that there is a
better day ahead. “Weeping may tarry for a night,” said the [Psalmist]. “But joy cometh in the morning.”
And I believe that.
And so, as we struggle in the South, we have a theme song. It is a magnificent song. It is a song that you
hear and that we will sing in a few minutes: “We shall overcome”:
We shall overcome.
Deep in my heart I do believe,
We shall overcome.
So often we have had to join hands and sing that song in difficult moments. So often we have had to
stand up and face howling and violent police dogs and sing it. So often we have had to face the powerful
waters of surging firehoses and yet we could sing “We Shall Overcome.” So often we stood in crowded
jail cells and yet we could join together singing “We Shall Overcome.”
Before the victory for brotherhood is won, some more may get scarred up a bit. But we shall overcome.
Before the victory is won, some more will be called bad names. Some more will be called bad names,
some will be called communists and reds, simply because they believe in the brotherhood of man. But
we shall overcome. Before the victory’s won, some more will be thrown into jail, but we shall overcome.
Before the victory’s won, some more like Medgar Evers may have to face physical death. But if physical
death is the price that some must pay to free their children from a permanent psychological death, then
nothing can be more redemptive. [APPLAUSE STARTS] We shall overcome …
[APPLAUSE]
[44:29] And I say we shall overcome because arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward
justice. We shall overcome because Carlyle is right; "no lie can live forever." We shall overcome because
William Cullen Bryant is right; "truth crushed to earth will rise again." We shall overcome because James
Russell Lowell is right:

Truth forever on the scaffold,
Wrong forever on the throne.
Yet that scaffold sways the future,
And behind the then [them] unknown
Standeth God within the shadow,
Keeping watch above his own.
We shall overcome because the bible is right: “You shall reap what you sow.” [APPLAUSE STARTS] With
this faith …
[APPLAUSE]
With this faith, we will be able to adjourn the councils of despair and bring new light into the dark
chambers of pessimism. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation
into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to speed up the day when
“every valley shall be exalted. And every mountain and hill shall be made low. The rough places shall be
made plain and the crooked places shall be made straight. And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed
and all flesh shall see it together.” With this faith, we will be able to speed up the day when all of God’s
children—black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able [to] join
hands all over this nation, and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last, free at last.
Thank God almighty, we’re free at last.”
[LONG APPLAUSE]
[NEW VOICE, NOT KING]
[46:38] Reverend Philbrook [sp?], will you make your way up to help us to lead this song please? We
shall overcome. We shall overcome.
[SINGING]
We shall overcome [ANOTHER VOICE UNDERNEATH: Thank you so much]
We shall overcome
[SHOUTS] Let us join hands!
We shall overcome, someday
Oh deep in my heart
I will believe
We shall overcome someday
[SPEAKING] We’ll walk hand‐in‐hand
[SINGING] We’ll walk hand‐in‐hand
We’ll walk hand‐in‐hand
We’ll walk hand‐in‐hand, someday
Oh, deep in heart
I do believe
We shall overcome someday

[SPEAKING] The truth will set us free
[SINGING] Truth will set us free
Truth will set us free
Truth will set us free someday
Oh, deep in my heart
I do believe
We shall overcome someday
[48:43] [SPEAKING] The Lord will see us through
[SINGING] Lord will see us through
Lord will see us through
Lord will see us though [FADES OUT]

[BREAK IN RECORDING] [NEW OCCASION/EVENT]
[NEW VOICE—“REVEREND BROOKS”?]
[49:00] … [unintelligible] sometimes, um, one wonders, how, in such a short span of time, one young
man could accomplish so much. But he is a part of this revolution. In fact, he is the voice which has given
… clarity, to the aims and objectives of this revolution. And you and I are joined in this revolution … as
the nature thereof is articulated by men such … not men such as, because he has no peer. By a man like
Dr. Martin Luther King, who will speak to you for approximately 5 minutes. And we invite you to hear
him tonight. Dr. King. …
[APPLAUSE]
[KING’S VOICE]
[50:50] Thank you very kindly my friends, I’m certainly deeply grateful to and indebted to Reverend
Brooks for these kind and gracious words of introduction. And I’m deeply grateful to each of you for
your presence here this afternoon.
It’s good to be here and it’s certainly good to see you. I’m happy to see several members of the core
chapter here this afternoon. I have the privilege of being on the advisory board—national advisory
board—of that great organization, that have done so much to arouse the conscience of our nation
through non‐violent, direct action and bringing the issue out in the open so that communities would be
forced to deal with its problems of racial injustice.
I can assure you that it is a privilege to be in the city of Phoenix and the state of Arizona. I have longed to
come here for a long, long time and I have received numerous invitations, and always some scheduling
problem made it impossible. And I am so happy that we could arrange our schedules to be here on this
occasion and at this time.
I regret that because of a nagging virus bug, I will have to be brief in what I have to say, but maybe that’s
good, because briefness is always a magnificent accomplishment for a Baptist preacher [LAUGHTER].

And I need to talk uh … give a short talk every now and then.
But I need not tell you this afternoon, that we face a crisis in our nation in the area of race relations. This
crisis has been precipitated to a large extent by the determined resistance of certain reactionary forces
to the onward thrust … toward an integrated society. At times this resistance has risen to ominous
proportions. We have seen legislative halls of our nation ring loud with such words as “interposition”
and “nullification.”
But this problem is not only limited to the southern part of our country. We see its glaring expression …
in every area of our nation. And no section of this country can boast of clean hands in the area of
brotherhood. We face the fact that racial injustice is a national problem. And I am convinced that one of
the most urgent issues facing our nation at this time, is to work passionately and unrelenting to solve
this problem. And this problem is at bottom a moral problem.
[54:37] The late President Kennedy said, on a sweltering June afternoon last summer, that “the issue
which we face in civil rights is not merely a political issue, it is at bottom a moral issue.” And he went on
to say, “it is as old as the scriptures and as modern as the Constitution. It is a question of whether we
will treat our Negro brothers as we ourselves would like to be treated.”
So in a real sense, this problem is a moral problem. In a real sense, [if] this problem is to be solved,
people of good will all over the nation must come to see that racial injustice is wrong and they must not
rest until it is removed from every area of our society. And this is why we are working … in the
movement in the south … and this is why individuals are working all over the nation. And be here
assured that we are working not merely to free 20 million Negroes, but we are working to save the soul
of America, and to free not only Negroes but also the white man—for the festering sword of segregation
debilitates a white man as well as a Negro, and we must come to see that if we solve the problem, we
will free our whole nation.
I solicit your continued support as we move on to make the American dream a reality, and as we move
on to solve this problem. We have made some strides. We have made some progress, but we still have a
long, long way to go before the problem is solved. We have a long, long way to go in the South. We have
a long, long way to go in communities outside of the South.
But let us go on with the faith that the problem can be solved. Let us go on with the faith that as we
work in this area, we are doing the will of God. Let us go on with the faith that somehow [the?] better
day will emerge.
[57:14] And so I can conclude by quoting the words of an old Negro slave preacher, who didn’t quite
have his articulation and his grammar and his diction right, but who uttered words of symbolic
profundity. And they were uttered in the form of a prayer:
Lord, we ain’t what we oughta be
We ain’t what we want to be
We ain’t what we gonna be
But thank God

We ain’t what we was.
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
[NEW VOICE, NOT KING—“REVEREND BROOKS”?]
[58:00] I might say that, Dr. King, I had that story in my remarks book tonight, to be said a just … a little
differently.
Those of you who desire to take pictures, will you kindly go outside to face the church as Dr. King comes
out, so that all of you might have opportunity to take pictures, uh, without, uh, any undue delay, for he
… We had expected him to resting by now so that he could be, uh can be, more profound tonight. And
we have been working him since he arrived, and it is time now that he should retire to get that
necessary rest he needs.
And we are indeed grateful to Reverend L.K. Williams and members and officers of the Tanner Chapel
AME Church for permitting us to use the sanctuary today. We are grateful to Reverend Louis Eaton for
having sent out the notices to members of the council of churches, and to all of you for having come
today.
It is our sincere hope that you will join us tonight at 7 o’clock at Goodwin Stadium, not the new one, but
the old one, at Arizona State University, to hear a choir sing from 7 until 8. And at 8 o’clock, you will
have opportunity, again, to hear the man who “had a dream”—Dr. Martin Luther King.
Reverend Hall, thank you very much.
[AMBIENT VOICES]
[01:00:13] [NEW VOICE. PRAYER.]
[SOUNDS OF GREETING/FAREWELLS]
[01:00:40] [END OF RECORDING]