PHOTO | JAMES PEELER

Civil rights activist Martin Luther King signs autographs after a speech at Park Center (now Grady Cole Center) in 1966.  At an address at Johnson C. Smith University on Sept. 21, 1966, King warned an audience at Johnson C. Smith University about violent extremists as well as “the silence and indifference of the good people” against marginalized people.

Three years after delivering the “I Have a Dream” speech, Martin Luther King warned a Charlotte audience of perils posed by “the other America.”

In a Sept. 21, 1966, address at Johnson C. Smith University, King took the podium at Brayboy Gym and laid bare North Carolina’s racial hostility, calling out violent white extremists as well as “good people” who preferred personal comfort over justice for marginalized groups.

“I’m not only worried about the violence of the bad people,” King said. “I’m gravely disturbed about the silence and indifference of the good people. We must not forget this other America is perpetuated by some nice, gentle white mother who believes more in order than they do in justice and through paternalistic impulses feel that they have the authority to set the timetable for the Negro’s freedom and can always say ‘wait until a more convenient season.’

“This other America is perpetuated by some white politicians who are more concerned about perpetuating a bad political machine than about emerging with bold, imaginative programs grappling with the problems that we face in all of our big cities today. This other America is also perpetuated by some Negro politicians who are more concerned about their self-aggrandizement than they are about committing their lives to the problems of the people that they serve.”

King – and America – were different by the time of his speech before 3,000 people at JCSU’s Brayboy Gym. King, who earned the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize for his work to bring down segregation in the South, brought civil rights activism to the North and publicly opposed to the widening war in Vietnam. Both put him at odds with a large swath of the country as the movement he led faced stiff resistance, especially by white northerners who saw civil rights as a southern issue.

During an Aug. 5, 1966, march for fair housing in a Chicago neighborhood, white protesters threw stones at King. National surveys revealed declining support for civil rights as well as King’s leadership. A Gallup poll found that nearly two-thirds of Americans held an unfavorable opinion of him, a 26 point increase compared to 1963.

“I’m not a consensus taker,” he said at Brayboy Gym. “I don’t decide what's wrong by taking a Gallup Poll.”

Without taking down the vestiges of racism, King, who also spoke at JCSU in 1967 to celebrate the school’s centennial, predicted a protracted struggle for equality. Although his popularity plummeted – even among Blacks as the movement earned victories in voting rights and public access – King was steadfast in advocacy and accountability.

“I’m sure somebody’s asking tonight who keeps this other America alive in perpetuity, keep it going,” he said at JCSU. “I'm sure somebody will say the Ku Klux Klan and that’s certainly true. I don't know any state in the union that’s more familiar with the Ku Klux Klan than the state of North Carolina,” drawing uproarious laughter.

“I always think of this when I come to North Carolina. I was here about three weeks ago speaking in Raleigh and we had a marvelous meeting but every time I come to North Carolina I'm greeted by the Klan. I used to go down to Mississippi sometimes and the Klan doesn’t turn out, but in North Carolina there’s a lot of work to be done here as you well know.”

Then, as now, there were parallels between the struggle for equality King championed and the reality Black and brown face at home and abroad. The threats, he warned, were not only the forces that perpetrate violence – King was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968 – but people who won’t take the moral imitative to get involved.  

“Certainly, the Klan has to take some of the responsibility for perpetuating this on America, but then there’s another kind of Klan – without the hood it carries a kind of halo of respectability, but it’s the same in the John Birch Society,” he said. “Certainly, these are the obvious culprits, these are the glaring enemies of democracy, but I would leave you the victims of an illusion wrapped in superficiality if I stopped only there.”

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