“Some commentators point out that with present birth rates it will not be long before Negroes are a majority in many of the major cities of the nation. As a consequence, they can be expected to take political control, and many people are apprehensive at this prospect. Negroes do not seek political control by this means. They seek only what they are entitled to and do not wish for domination purchased at the cost of human misery. Negroes were once bred by slave owners to be sold as merchandise. They do not welcome any solution which involves population breeding as a weapon. They are instinctively sympathetic to all who offer methods that will improve their lives and offer them fair opportunity to develop and advance as all other people in our society.”

— Martin Luther King, Jr.

1960s, Family Planning - A Special and Urgent Concern (1966)

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Martin Luther King, Jr. 658

American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Ci… 1929–1968

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“the 'Negro problem'-that condition which is peculiar to Negroes, and common to them-is rather found in the attitude of the White race toward the Negro; an attitude of majority which seeks to shut out a minority from the enjoyment of the whole social and economic life.”

Richard R. Wright Jr. (1878–1967)

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“The only possible way of decreasing Negro population is by means of controlling fertility.”

Gunnar Myrdal book An American Dilemma

Source: An American Dilemma (1944), p. 170

“…the white man is being systematically indoctrinated into believing that he is guilty of enslaving and abusing the Negro. Granted that some Negroes were mistreated as slaves, the fact still remains that nowhere in all history or in the world today has the Negro been better off. The life expectancy of the Negro increased when he was transported to America. He was not taken from freedom into slavery, but from a vicious slavery to degenerate chiefs to a generally benevolent slavery in the United States. There is not the slightest evidence that any American Negro had ever lived in a "free society" in Africa; even the idea did not exist in Africa. The move from Africa to America was a vast increase of freedom for the Negro, materially and spiritually as well as personally. The Negroes were sold from a harsh slavery into a milder one. Slavery was basic to the African way of life, to the point that slaves were the actual money of the African economy. Elsewhere, gold and silver served as money; in Africa, it was slaves…”

Rousas John Rushdoony (1916–2001) American theologian

Source: Writings, Politics of Guilt and Pity (1978), pp. 3-4

“Negroes are not the only poor in the nation. There are nearly twice as many white poor as Negro, and therefore the struggle against poverty is not involved solely with color or racial discrimination but with elementary economic justice….”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1960s, Address to Local 815, Teamsters and the Allied Trades Council (1967)

“The surrender of the former political relations of the negro”

James Longstreet (1821–1904) Confederate Army general

Letter to the New Orleans Times (19 March 1867)
Context: The surrender of the Confederate armies in 1865 involved: 1. The surrender of the claim to the right of secession. 2. The surrender of the former political relations of the negro. 3. The surrender of the Southern Confederacy. These issues expired on the fields last occupied by the Confederate armies. There they should have been buried. The soldier prefers to have the sod that receives him when he falls cover his remains. The political questions of the war should have been buried upon the fields that marked their end.

“All too many white Americans are horrified not with conditions of Negro life but with the product of these conditions-the Negro himself.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1960s, The Role of the Behavioral Scientist in the Civil Rights Movement (1967)

“I rejoice heartily at the prospect of the negro vote.”

John Russell, 1st Earl Russell (1792–1878) leading Whig and Liberal politician who served as Prime Minister on two occasions

Source: Letter to British Ambassador to the United States Sir Frederick Bruce, 17 June 1863, quote in Paul Scherer, Lord John Russell, A Biography (1999), p287

“Those who do Negro-sculpture in this country are wrong. We are in France; in the country of Ronsard, La Fontaine, and Racine. What connection is there between this country and these men, and Negro sculpture? An artist can only create in accordance with the character of his people and his time.”

Aristide Maillol (1861–1944) sculptor from France

Source: Conversations with Judith Cladel (1939–1944), p. 407

“There are about 8,000,000 negroes in the United States, and, my friends, I not only have not the power to put the negro out of the labor movement, but I would not, even if I did have the power. Why should I do such a thing? I would have nothing to gain, but the movement would have much to lose. Under our policies and principles we seek to build up the labor movement, instead of injuring it, and we want all the negroes we can possibly get who will join hands with organized labor.”

Samuel Gompers (1850–1924) American Labor Leader[AFL]

Gompers, Samuel. The Samuel Gompers Papers. Stuart Bruce Kaufman, Peter J. Albert, Grace Palladino, and Marla J Hughes, eds. Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois Press, 2000, p. 137.

“One hundred years ago, the slave was freed. One hundred years later, the Negro remains in bondage to the color of his skin. The Negro today asks justice. We do not answer him”

Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) American politician, 36th president of the United States (in office from 1963 to 1969)

we do not answer those who lie beneath this soil — when we reply to the Negro by asking, "Patience."
1960s, Memorial Day speech (1963)

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Martin Luther King, Jr. 658

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