Address delivered in Acceptance of Nobel Peace
Prize
10 December 1964
Oslo, Norway
Your Majesty, Your Royal Highness, Mr. President, excellencies,
ladies and gentlemen: I accept the Nobel Prize for Peace at a moment
when twenty-two million Negroes of the United States are engaged
in a creative battle to end the long night of racial injustice.
I accept this award on behalf of a civil rights movement which is
moving with determination and a majestic scorn for risk and danger
to establish a reign of freedom and a rule of justice.
I am mindful that only yesterday in Birmingham, Alabama, our children,
crying out for brotherhood, were answered with fire hoses, snarling
dogs, and even death. I am mindful that only yesterday in Philadelphia,
Mississippi, young people seeking to secure the right to vote were
brutalized and murdered. I am mindful that debilitating and grinding
poverty afflicts my people and chains them to the lowest rung of
the economic ladder.
Therefore, I must ask why this prize is awarded to a movement which
is beleaguered and committed to unrelenting struggle, and to a movement
which has not yet won the very peace and brotherhood which is the
essence of the Nobel Prize. After contemplation, I conclude that
this award, which I receive on behalf of that movement, is a profound
recognition that nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political
and moral questions of our time: the need for man to overcome oppression
and violence without resorting to violence and oppression.
Civilization and violence are antithetical concepts. Negroes of
the United States, following the people of India, have demonstrated
that nonviolence is not sterile passivity, but a powerful moral
force which makes for social transformation. Sooner or later, all
the peoples of the world will have to discover a way to live together
in peace, and thereby transform this pending cosmic elegy into a
creative psalm of brotherhood. If this is to be achieved, man must
evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression,
and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.
The torturous road which has led from Montgomery, Alabama, to Oslo
bears witness to this truth, and this is a road over which millions
of Negroes are traveling to find a new sense of dignity. This same
road has opened for all Americans a new era of progress and hope.
It has led to a new civil rights bill, and it will, I am convinced,
be widened and lengthened into a superhighway of justice as Negro
and white men in increasing numbers create alliances to overcome
their common problems.
I accept this award today with an abiding faith in America and
an audacious faith in the future of mankind. I refuse to accept
despair as the final response to the ambiguities of history.
I refuse to accept the idea that the "is-ness" of man's present
nature makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the eternal
"ought-ness" that forever confronts him.
I refuse to accept the idea that man is mere flotsam and jetsam
in the river of life, unable to influence the unfolding events which
surround him.
I refuse to accept the view that mankind is
so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that
the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a
reality.
I refuse to accept the cynical notion that nation after nation
must spiral down a militaristic stairway into the hell of nuclear
annihilation.
I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the
final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated,
is stronger than evil triumphant.
I believe that even amid today's mortar bursts and whining bullets,
there is still hope for a brighter tomorrow.
I believe that wounded justice, lying prostrate on the blood-flowing
streets of our nations, can be lifted from this dust of shame to
reign supreme among the children of men.
I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have
three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their
minds, and dignity, equality, and freedom for their spirits.
I believe that what self-centered men have torn down, men other-centered
can build up.
I still believe that one day mankind will bow before the altars
of God and be crowned triumphant over war and bloodshed and nonviolent
redemptive goodwill proclaimed the rule of the land. And the lion
and the lamb shall lie down together, and every man shall sit under
his own vine and fig tree, and none shall be afraid.
I still believe that we shall overcome.
This faith can give us courage to face the uncertainties of the
future. It will give our tired feet new strength as we continue
our forward stride toward the city of freedom. When our days become
dreary with low-hovering clouds and our nights become darker than
a thousand midnights, we will know that we are living in the creative
turmoil of a genuine civilization struggling to be born.
Today I come to Oslo as a trustee, inspired and with renewed dedication
to humanity. I accept this prize on behalf of all men who love peace
and brotherhood. I say I come as a trustee, for in the depths of
my heart I am aware that this prize is much more than an honor to
me personally. Every time I take a flight I am always mindful of
the many people who make a successful journey possible, the known
pilots and the unknown ground crew. You honor the dedicated pilots
of our struggle, who have sat at the controls as the freedom movement
soared into orbit. You honor, once again, Chief Lutuli of South
Africa, whose struggles with and for his people are still met with
the most brutal expression of man's inhumanity to man. You honor
the ground crew, without whose labor and sacrifice the jet flights
to freedom could never have left the earth. Most of these people
will never make the headlines, and their names will never appear
in Who's Who. Yet, when years have rolled past and when the
blazing light of truth is focused on this marvelous age in which
we live, men and women will know and children will be taught that
we have a finer land, a better people, a more noble civilization
because these humble children of God were willing to suffer for
righteousness' sake.
I think Alfred Nobel would know what I mean when I say I accept
this award in the spirit of a curator of some precious heirloom
which he holds in trust for its true owners: all those to whom truth
is beauty, and beauty, truth, and in whose eyes the beauty of genuine
brotherhood and peace is more precious than diamonds or silver or
gold. Thank you. [applause]
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