"When people are mired in oppression, they realize deliverance when they have accumulated the power to enforce change... The powerful never lose opportunities--they remain available to them . The powerless, on the other hand, never experience opportunity--it is always arriving at a later time....
"We must frankly acknowledge that in past years our creativity and imagination were not employed in learning how to develop power. We found a method in nonviolent protest that worked, and we employed it enthusiastically. We did not have leisure to probe for a deeper understanding of its laws and lines of development. Although our actions were bold and crowned with successes, they were substantially improvised and spontaneous . They attained the goals set for them, but carried the blemishes of our inexperience .
"For a moment, therefore, we must subordinate programs to studying the levers of power Negroes must grasp to influence the course of events. In our society, power sources are sometimes obscure and indistinct. Yet they can always finally be traced to those forces we describe as ideological, economic, and political."
P..160-163, "Where we are going," WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE: CHAOS OR COMMUNITY by Martin Luther King, Jr. (1967)
Sunday, November 27, 2016
WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?
"When people are mired in oppression, they realize deliverance when they have accumulated the power to enforce change... The powerful never lose opportunities--they remain available to them . The powerless, on the other hand, never experience opportunity--it is always arriving at a later time....
"We must frankly acknowledge that in past years our creativity and imagination were not employed in learning how to develop power. We found a method in nonviolent protest that worked, and we employed it enthusiastically. We did not have leisure to probe for a deeper understanding of its laws and lines of development. Although our actions were bold and crowned with successes, they were substantially improvised and spontaneous . They attained the goals set for them, but carried the blemishes of our inexperience .
"For a moment, therefore, we must subordinate programs to studying the levers of power Negroes must grasp to influence the course of events. In our society, power sources are sometimes obscure and indistinct. Yet they can always finally be traced to those forces we describe as ideological, economic, and political."
P..160-163, "Where we are going," WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE: CHAOS OR COMMUNITY by Martin Luther King, Jr. (1967)