Ladies and Gentlemen: I'm only going to talk
to you just for a minute or so this evening,
because I have some very sad news for all
of you -- Could you lower those signs, please? --
I have some very sad news for all of you, and,
I think, sad news for all of our fellow citizens,
and people who love peace all over the world;
and that is that Martin Luther King was shot
and was killed tonight in Memphis, Tennessee.
Martin Luther King dedicated his life to love
and to justice between fellow human beings.
He died in the cause of that effort. In this
difficult day, in this difficult time for the
United States, it's perhaps well to ask what
kind of a nation we are and what direction
we want to move in. For those of you who
are black -- considering the evidence evidently
is that there were white people who were
responsible -- you can be filled with bitterness,
and with hatred, and a desire for revenge.
We can move in that direction as a country, in
greater polarization -- black people amongst
blacks, and white amongst whites, filled with
hatred toward one another. Or we can make
an effort, as Martin Luther King did, to understand,
and to comprehend, and replace that violence, that
stain of bloodshed that has spread across our land,
with an effort to understand, compassion and love.
For those of you who are black and are tempted to
be filled with hatred and mistrust of the injustice of
such an act, against all white people, I would only
say that I can also feel in my own heart the same
kind of feeling. I had a member of my family killed,
but he was killed by a white man.
But we have to make an effort in the United States,
we have to make an effort to understand, to get
beyond, or go beyond these rather difficult times.
My favorite poem, my favorite poet was Aeschylus.
And he once wrote:
"Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget
falls drop by drop upon the heart,
until, in our own despair,
against our will,comes wisdom
through the awful grace of God."
What we need in the United States is not division;
what we need in the United States is not hatred;
what we need in the United States is not violence
and lawlessness, but is love and wisdom, and
compassion toward one another, and a feeling
of justice toward those who still suffer within
our country, whether they be white or whether they be black.
So I ask you tonight to return home, to say a
prayer for the family of Martin Luther King --
yeah, it's true -- but more importantly to say a
prayer for our own country, which all of us love
-- a prayer for understanding and that compassion
of which I spoke.
We can do well in this country. We will have difficult
times. We've had difficult times in the past. And we
will have difficult times in the future. It is not the
end of violence; it is not the end of lawlessness;
and it's not the end of disorder.
But the vast majority of white people and the
vast majority of black people in this country
want to live together, want to improve the
quality of our life, and want justice for all human
beings that abide in our land.
Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks
wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness
of man and make gentle the life of this world. Let
us dedicate ourselves to that, and say a prayer for
our country and for our people.
Thank you very much.
