Tag Archives: Dr. King’s lost speech September 12 1962

remembering martin luther king jr. – january 20, 2020

2 Replies

Remembering Martin Luther King Jr. – January 20, 2020

“For years now, I have heard the word ‘wait’ … this ‘wait’ has almost always meant ‘never.’ We must come to see that ‘justice too long delayed is justice denied.”

To understand Dr. King is to know the record of his work. “King: A Filmed Record … Montgomery to Memphis” was released in 1970. It carried the raw pain of his terrible loss a mere two years before along with a clear understanding of the arc and breadth of his work for civil rights and social justice — fights we engage in today with a renewed urgency for action to overcome the ills of racism, intolerance, fascism, anti-immigrant fervor, anti-semitism, the denial of LGBTQ rights, climate change denial, and on and on.  Now as then we are called upon to witness and fight against justice denied.

remembering Martin Luther King Jr. – january 15, 2018

Leave a reply

Remembering Martin Luther King Jr. – january 15, 2018

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., ZUMA Press/Newscom/File

Today would have marked Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s 89th birthday. This image of Dr. King flanked by the American flag is particularly poignant–since his sacrifice to the greater good of the United States resonates so powerfully in our polity today. We should not forget that the America of his dream continues to fight to shout out his teachings with full pride of place–no matter the obstacles.

On September 12, 1962, Dr. King gave a speech at New York City’s Park Sheraton Hotel commemorating the 100th anniversary of what was known as the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation by President Abraham Lincoln. The speech was thought to have been lost for decades until a young intern discovered an audio copy of it in the New York State Museum in Albany.  As noted by WBAI in their commentary on the speech: At the end of the speech, Dr. King quotes a preacher (former slave) who he says “didn’t quite have his grammar right but uttered words of great symbolic profundity.”

“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.”