Approximately eleven months before he was assassinated on April 4, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. granted an exclusive interview to NBC News’ Sander Vanocur on May 8, 1967, at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia, where he served as pastor.
During this over 25-minute video, Dr. King shared his unfiltered thoughts on the state of Black America, a little less than four years after he delivered his iconic “Normalcy, Never Again” speech (famously referred to as the “I Have a Dream” speech) on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on August 28, 1963.
As Dr. King is interviewed by Vanocur, Dr. King said something striking in response to his question.
Vanocur: When you stood on the Lincoln Memorial, that day in August, ‘63, you said ‘I Had a Dream.’ Did that dream envision that you could see a war in Asia, preventing the federal government from doing for the Negroes, preventing the society from doing for the Negroes what needed to be done?
Dr. King: That dream that I had that day has in many points turned into a nightmare.
Now I’m not one to lose hope. I keep on hoping. I still have faith in the future. But I’ve had to analyze many things over the last few years, and I would say over the last few months.
I’ve gone through a lot of soul-searching and agonizing moments. And I’ve come to see that we have many more difficulties ahead and some of the old optimism was a little superficial and now it must be tempered with a solid realism.
And I think the realistic fact is that we still have a long, long way to go and that we are involved in a war on Asian soil, which if not checked and stopped, can poison the very soul of our nation.
As the interview was ending, Vanocur asked a follow up question, to which Dr. King kept it real and pointed out the real internal problems in the country concerning the state of Black America.
Vanocur: Dr. King, even if there had not been a war in Asia, would you still not have had this nightmare insofar as the Negro movement for equality then touched on two things the white community holds sacred—their children and their property?
Dr. King: It’s much more difficult to really arouse a conscience during a time of war. I noticed the other day, some weeks ago, a Negro was shot down in Chicago, and it was a clear case of police brutality. That was on page 30 of the paper, but on page 1 at the top was 780 Viet-Cong killed. That is something about a war like this that makes people insensitive. It dulls the conscience. It strengthens the forces of reaction. And it brings into being bitterness and hatred and violence, and it strengthens the military industrial complex of our country, and it’s made our job much more difficult because I think we can go along with some programs if we didn’t have this war on our hands. That would cause people to adjust to new developments, just as they did in the South. They said they’d never ride the bus with us, blood would flow in the streets, they wouldn’t go to school, and all of these things, but when people came to see that they had to do it because the law insisted, they finally adjusted. And, I think white people all over this country will adjust once the nation makes it clear that in schools, in housing, we’ve got to learn to live together as brothers.
I think the biggest problem now is we got our gains over the last 12 years at bargain rates, so to speak. It didn’t cost the nation anything. In fact, it helped the economic side of the nation to integrate lunch counters and public accommodations. It didn’t cost the nation anything to get the right to vote established. Now, we’re confronting issues that cannot be solved without costing the nation billions of dollars. Now I think this is where we’re getting our greatest resistance.
They may put it on many other things, but we can’t get rid of slums and poverty without it costing the nation something.
Dr. King shifted his initial viewpoint of the “dream” he spoke about in 1963, versus the current reality of where he saw things after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965.
There appeared to be a visible awakening in Dr. King—a major pivot towards acknowledging the realistic need for African Americans to obtain racial, social, and economic equality.
As we celebrate the life and legacy of Dr. King, let us never forget his words and his transformational challenge given to all American citizens to address the inequities and systematic issues that continue to plague the African American community in this country.
Let’s take a look at how things have changed—or not—since Dr. King delivered these remarks during this profound interview over 56 years ago, and compare Dr. King’s views on select issues that he consistently sought to address, and where we are today on those issues.
KING ON EDUCATION
On March 14, 1964, Dr. King was honored by the United Federation of Teachers and given the John Dewey Award. During his acceptance speech, Dr. King spoke about the importance of education to African Americans in this country and its tie to equality. Dr. King stated:
“It was not fortuitous that education became embroiled in this conflict.
Education is one of the vital tools the Negro needs in order to advance. And yet it has been denied him by devises of segregation and manipulations with quality.”
Dr. King went on to say:
“The richest nation on Earth has never allocated enough resources to build sufficient schools, to compensate adequately its teachers, and to surround them with the prestige our work justifies.
We squander funds on highways, on the frenetic pursuit of recreation, on the overabundance of overkill armament, but we pauperize education.”
As we look at Dr. King and the state of Black America in the 1960s, with a push for integrated schools and resources, things have not really gotten any better for Black people current day.
According to the United Negro College Fund’s K-12 Disparity Facts and Statistics page on their website, college degrees are considered a primary vehicle for reducing poverty and closing the wealth gaps between African Americans and whites, however statistics reveal that there are significant disparities that exist that hinder Black people more than whites.
Let’s look at some of the key findings from their research.
- African American students are less likely than white students to have access to college-ready courses. Statistics showed that only 57 percent of Black students have access to a full range of math and science courses necessary for college readiness, compared to 81 percent of Asian American students and 71 percent of white students.
- Even when Black students do have access to honors or advanced placement courses, they are vastly underrepresented in these courses. Black and Latino students represent 38 percent of students in schools that offer AP courses, but only 29 percent of students enrolled in at least one AP course.
- Black and Latino students have less access to gifted and talented education programs than white students.
- African American students are often located in schools with less qualified teachers, teachers with lower salaries and novice teachers.
- Research has shown evidence of systematic bias in teacher expectations for African American students and non-Black teachers were found to have lower expectations of Black students than Black teachers.
- African American students are less likely to be college-ready. In fact, statistics showed that 61 percent of ACT-tested Black students graduating from high school met none of the four ACT college readiness benchmarks, nearly twice the 31 percent rate for all students.
- Black students spend less time in the classroom due to discipline, which further hinders their access to a quality education.
- Black students are nearly two times as likely to be suspended without educational services as white students. Black students are also 3.8 times as likely to receive one or more out-of-school suspensions as white students. In addition, Black children represent 19 percent of the nation’s pre-school population, yet 47 percent of those receiving more than one out-of-school suspension. In comparison, white students represent 41 percent of pre-school enrollment but only 28 percent of those receiving more than one out-of-school suspension. Even more troubling, Black students are 2.3 times as likely to receive a referral to law enforcement or be subject to a school-related arrest as white students.
- Black and Latino students are often concentrated in schools with fewer resources. Schools with 90 percent or more Black and Latino students spend $733 less per student per year than schools with 90 percent or more white students.
- According to the Office for Civil Rights, 1.6 million students attend a school with a sworn law enforcement officer (SLEO), but don’t even have a school counselor.
- Statistics showed that the average reading score for white students on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) 4th and 8th grade exam was 26 points higher than Black students. Similar gaps are apparent in math. The 12th grade assessment also showed alarming disparities as well, with only seven percent of Black students performing at or above proficient on the math exam, compared to 32 percent white students.
With these alarming statistics, coupled with legislation (critical race theory, vouchers, public school takeovers, etc.) that are sweeping across the country, especially in Texas, it is clear African Americans still have a long way to go to wake up from this educational nightmare.
Dr. King would undoubtedly be on the frontlines addressing education if he were alive today.
