Originally Posted by dyna mo

context, not snippets.

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The message seems clear. Martin Luther King Jr. saw violence as a legitimate form of protest.

That assertion, however, couldn?t be more wrong.

King understood the cause of rioting in the mid ?60s, but he hardly approved of them.

King made his comment to Mike Wallace of CBS News in 1966 as his leadership and strategy of non-violence was being theatened by more militant activists like Stokely Carmichael.

?If every Negro in America turns their back on non-violence, I?m going to stand up as the lone voice and say this is the wrong way,? he said in a speech, then reiterated the point in the interview with Wallace.

?I think for the Negro to turn to turn to violence would be both impractical and immoral,? he said.

Wallace pressed King, noting that younger leaders had a different approach, and King acknowledged the new leaders were advocating violence, a strategy that had its followers.

?I don?t think these leaders will be able to make a real dent in the Negro community in terms of swaying 22 million Negroes to this particular point of view. And I contend this cry of ?Black Power? is at bottom a reaction to the reluctance of white power to make the kind of changes necessary to make justice the reality for the Negro.

?I think we?ve got to see that a riot is the language of the unheard and what is it that America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear the economic plight of the Negro poor which has worsened over the last few years,? he said.

?Riots are self defeating and socially destructive,? he said.