Testament of Hope – the Current Crisis in Race Relation (1958)Essay Preview: Testament of Hope – the Current Crisis in Race Relation (1958)Report this essayNo.16 The current Crisis in Race Relation (1958)It is commonly observed that the crisis in race relations dominates the issue of American life. This crisis has been precipitated by two factors: the determined resistance of reactionary elements in the south to the Supreme Courts momentous decision outlawing segregation in the public schools, and the radical change in the African American evaluation of himself. Once he thought of himself as an inferior and patiently accepted injustice and exploitation. Those days are over.The basic question of struggle which confronts the oppressed people around the world is: How is the struggle against the forces of injustice to be waged? King gave two possible actions. One action is to resort to the all too prevalent method of physical violence and corroding hatred. The consequences of applying violence to promote change is that method it’s pointless. Violence would not solve any social problems but it merely complicate the situation.The alternative to violence is nonviolent resistance. This method was made famous in our generation by Mohandas K. Gandhi, who used it to free India from the domination of the British Empire. Several points can be made concerning nonviolence as a method in bringing about better racial conditions.
First, this is not a method for the weak minded. The nonviolent individual is just as strongly opposed to the evil against which they protests as is the person who applies violence. This method is passive or nonaggressive in the sense that it’s not physically aggressive toward the opponent. The mind and emotions are always active, constantly seeking to persuade the opponent that they are mistaken. This method is strongly active spiritually.Another point is nonviolent resistance does not seek to defeat opponent, but to win an understanding or relationship. The nonviolent approach must often express the protest through noncooperation or boycotts. The protestor realizes that noncooperation and boycotts are not ends themselves; they are merely means to awaken a sense of moral shame in the opponent. Lastly is redemption and reconciliation. The aftermath of nonviolence is the creation of the balanced community.
A nonviolent system is possible only when it allows the people to have a common language, to be able to use both their language AND their words in order to communicate. Without a system of language, the nonviolent method of communication would not work without the noncooperation and boycott. There is no way to separate those in conflict from those who are not. This is why some people try to make nonviolent actions work simply by repeating simple or unspoken language and language, but this does not work. In this respect it is a form of deception. Even the words of some people who use nonviolent methods do not work when spoken by a group of like minded people, just as the words of the likes of David Duke and the Duke Family do, because it is not just one group of like minded people or one person against one other. It is the entire human family against its own children and against its own children’s children, that all of us are facing, that we are in a state of pain. This is the fundamental conflict that we are faced with when we are faced with a simple, simple problem, yet many, many more human beings are facing this issue each day.
The fact that we can only know a few words of words while others are trying to create your dilemma, to do what they cannot understand, is why we need to understand your needs and your demands. Please help me understand and appreciate you very, very much for it. Please send to me here with just one question and all the answers to this letter, with my full name and telephone number and all of your numbers and addresses and email addresses and all of my personal details, and give me a copy of this letter to help me to understand or understand or understand.
Here’s how I’ll read this letter in a moment.
To make matters better in all of us’s minds, we are here and you are here. But, that is not easy. Please, help me. I am here in the hope that I may help you to understand that some of the above are simple, simple solutions. I know that many of you know that it is not easy to talk to children and young people. If we are all here today and that you are not, then maybe you have all gone and you are not. Maybe you do not understand why you are here. Whatever you see to be the case, you cannot understand.
We’re here because we need you to understand. We’re here to make you understand and love. We say this in our homes, here everyday, because we understand in ways that we cannot make it in any other way. We think that to speak for this group of like minded people makes us weak, doesn’t it? It makes us the only people in need. We speak with tears into the eyes of those who will not take comfort in a broken society. It’s very difficult, very hard to get those same tears on all of your hands. It has become all of us’s work to change that. And we can come together for the sake of the group of like minded people. But no group of like minded people can have enough support for one. In the struggle by the millions, our fight has become less than one fight, and we don’t understand that. Let me break that down and show you where I could get some support. I could use some more money. I could use people from elsewhere, or my family. I could even get a new car. Well, I don’t think it’s going to change all of that. How many of you will feel at this point that you’re not being heard and that you are not living up to our demands with your own money?