Federal Bureau of Investigation. "Transcript of Conversation with Martin Luther King, Jr."
July 29, 1967.
Date Issued: July 29, 1967
Date Declassified: [1983?]
Length: 5 pages
NOT Sanitized
FULL TEXT
Time Initial IC
OG Activity Recorded
7:04 PM OG Orange 8669- 48
Levison To KING; (He is in Cleveland at a Hotel Room [500] King says that he is there on the
Voter Registration drive and that they cancelled the Toledo trip. (They talk about Kings
father having an operation). He says that he has the hold load of the church on him now
that his dad had the operation and that he is talking about how old he is.
LEVISON; i wanted to clear this letter with you if you still want it to go to the Times.
KING: yes, but have you gotten much reaction on the Statement that I reportedly, signed
with Roy and Whitney.
SL: No not much people don't reguard it as much as anything but just saying the expected.
You are saying much the same as the NY Times is saying. When you are pictured with ROY
with Times and again called the Moderate it creates a fuzzy picture. And At a Time when
No one is paying attention to Floyd [McKissick] and Certanly Stokley Charmicle it seems
that the press is playing it that way.
KING: I think so, because on the panel ROY was very shallow and I got on Congress and told
about this need for a a modern day WPA and my last point was of the mutuality of our
destiny It is not right to talk about a separate Black state. But ROY started about
problems in Africa and all over but he didn't deal with the South and the Fact that
the Negro couldn't live there ad the fact that Mississippi has driven Negros out and
starved them. But ROY didn't see this.
SL: Roy is apologizing for the Negro.
KING: ROY is hopeless I can see that now and yet he is always played as the .....
The press will see to that. But in Boston He spoke militant He has no Integrity or
Philosophy and he is just a hopeless case.
SL: That is why you are on top of ROY all the time. What ROY will get is a steady job
and they need a ROY and Im glad there is a you. One thing that occured to me The SCLC
convention is somewhat out of date as to what has happened and I think there is time
to put together a panel to discuss the Riots and that will give the convention a lot
of publicity.
KING I think you are right Andy was saying that.
SL: I was thinking about some Senators or someone like a Galbraith to discuss a
National Full employment agency. It would be the tie that a program was being discussed
and have importance as being discussed by a Legislature. Someone like Clark of Pa or
Cooper of Kentuckey or anyone who is a legislator to participate on a panel with you.
KING I have found that since The Presidential Commission I have found a mood in
the Negro community that this Panel will do nothing that there are not enough Negros
on it and No Negro Militants and that there should have been a Negro Militant on it.
SL: well why not someone like KENNETH CLARK who is considered an expert on the GETTO.
KING: Ken would be good and certainly GABRAITH would be that about Mayor Lindsley.
I Don't know if he would come. IVAN ALLEN was with us yesterday and he was much more
Militant and I told him he was good he came by my office he just wanted to talk
and he was searching for an answer. He is one of the best Mayors I have met he is
very receptive to solid advise I gave
SL: I don't care what Lindsley or a Clark say It is what you would say /
KING: I mention IVA because he tends to feel that there are only five mayors who
have sense, Hilself LEE of New Haven Lindsley, Cavanaugh, and McKelden of Maryland
He says that all raise questions of Viet Naum and the Fact that the Federal Government
are not dealing of the problems of the cities. He talks about Yorti and Daley and
the others as being stupid.
SL: Isn't it interesting that the Mayors he respects are those who have a sound
policy on Viet Naum. That is a point that you should bring out again that the Federal
government is so involved there that they have not done the right thing in the cities.
KING: I noticed that Fulbright sad that and I felt Bad that I had not brought that out.
SL: yes and It would distinguish you from Whitney You and The Roys of the nation
KING: In the meeting in Chicago the (Operation Breadbasket) we found questions on
what is our roll in Riots and we had a special session with the preachers there and
they wanted to get their roll in riots and they were revoliting against the Idea of
Law and Order and they were talking about Law and Justice We Did not get time to
go to the session Andy and I.
LEVISON: Well, I think yourself, Ken Clark and another white person would make a
good panel. Let me read you the letter., for the Times:
"The New York Times, in addition to a number of creative editorials, did a service in
publishing the full statement of four negro organizational leaders, urging an end to the
riots. However, in any joint statement it is never possible to fully express the views
of each participant, nor can it reflect individual emphasis. I would like to add a few
points I believe are relevant to the discussion. In the effort to make a strong appeal to
the negro community to act with responsibility, an impression is possible that the principal
culpability resides with negroes. It is incontestable that the principal actors are negroes,
but if the provications to which they are subject are obscured the ends of justice and
clarity will not be served. Many tragic crimes have occurred, but in describing looting,
assaults and arson alone the crimes of economic and social policy which negroes do not make,
are unjustly omitted. The rioters have behaved irrationally, but are they any more irrational
than those who expect in justice eternally to be endured? To do too little to relieve the
agony of negro life is as inflammatory as in citing to riot. To put an Asian war of
dubious national interest far above domestic needs in the order of priorities and to pit
it against reforms that were delayed a century is worse than a blind policy. It is a
provocative policy. To treat the outburst as a single expression of a whole people is
over-simplification and tends to fasten guilt of a few on the many. In actual fact the
riots are not phenomena but an intricate linking of disparate tendencies. Many negroes
used the occasion in a distorted charicature of protest to attack property but refrained
from attacking persons. Millions of negroes separated themselves from it totally. A
tiny minority, unorganized, numbering a few hundred at the most, used the circumstances
to initiate and launch a policy of terrorism. It can only aggravate race relations to
the miniscule stream of terrorism as the principal feature of the whole event. There is blood
on the hands of some negroes who should, and will pay the price society exacts. What
of the blood on the hands of Congress, that sneered at a modest bill to control the
rats that daily bite and scar negro babies in the ghettoes that emasculated a Model
Cities program that killed rent subsidies, that with Administration cooperation is more
than having anti-poverty programs long overdue, and as grossly inadequate as they are
desperately needed. What shall be said of the White Society that coldly stiffened its
resistance to reforms despite these solemn prophetic words of the conservative McComb
Commission expressed some two years ago following Watts. Quote, the existing breech,
if allowed to persist, could in time split our society irretrievably. So serious and
so explosive is the situation that unless it is checked the August riots may seem,
by comparison, to be only a curtain-raiser for what could blow up one day in the future.
Close Quote. Unheeded for two years the day in the future arrived. Should not all the
culprits be put in the dock together, White and Negro? Negroes have awakened to their
rights and dignity and to the unutterable wretchedness of their lives simultaneously.
It will take more statesmanship, more humanity and more sacrifice by the white society
to solve this problem than is presently manifest, but without it tranquility and social
harmony will continue to elude us, because the day is past that the violence of the
white majority can serve to quell the stirring of a people, a people deprived and
rubuked in the most shameful repression America has perpetrated with impunity for
350 years. In the 18th century, Thomas Jefferson said, "I tremble for my nation when
I reflect that God is Just". He would have little reason to diminish his concern in the
second half of the 20th century. That's it.
KING: I don't think that a word of that letter should be changed. That is a great letter
a great statement.
SL: GOOD then I will have it delivered down there and with a chance to get it in
there on Monday.
KING: I think we should get [hold] of HARRY as the Editor of the page. I think that it
The Letter) would help me man sections have been hurt I talked to Floyd Mecissico he
thought I was going with ROY and KEN Told him right here in the office that I did not
sign the statement and I think it will leak out hat I did Not indorse the statement. I
think this letter will help to show people.
SL: Yes because all the pressure will be in the direction of getting you to be like ROY
and [W]hiteny. How about getting you on some TV programs.
KING: yes I think that would be good. O.K. Send me a copy to Atlanta and You will talk
with HARRY about getting it in MONDAY. And if you will talk to JOAN about getting some
add into the times because they are doing it for NATHAN WRIGHT and His book.
SL: Well the publisher once you book comes out thinks your Book is yesterday Book and
they are not thinking about it anymore. I think that when another book comes up we
should think about a smaller publisher.
KING: I think that would be a good idea. I was at a dinner last night where there
were 1500 people and My Book was mentioned in the introduction.
SL: After the convention is over would it be possible to put CAROL on the Book.
KING: I think so
SL: I am convinced that thousands of books can be sold if the[y] follow you around.
So when you get others to read it you get others to buy it. It should be available
where you are.
KING: I think that you are right and we may need another person to do that. O.K. I
will talk with you Monday or Tuesday to see how this thing turns out.
SL: O won't be here then but I will be in touch with you I will be back just before
the convention and then I will be coming down to the convention.
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