Unit 5: Argument

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“A Quilt Of A Country”

By Newsweek Staff 9/26/01

America is an improbably idea. A mongrel nation built of ever-changing disparate parts, it is held together by a

notion, the notion that all men are created equal, though everyone knows that most men consider themselves better

than someone. "Of all the nations in the world, the United States was built in nobody's image," the historian Daniel

Boorstin wrote. That's because it was built of bits and pieces that seem discordant, like the crazy quilts that have

been one of its great folk-art forms, velvet and calico and checks and brocades. Out of many, one. That is the ideal.

The reality is often quite different, a great national striving consisting frequently of failure. Many of the oft-told

stories of the most pluralistic nation on earth are stories not of tolerance, but of bigotry. Slavery and sweatshops, the

burning of crosses and the ostracism of the other. Children learn in social-studies class and in the news of the

lynching of blacks, the denial of rights to women, the murders of gay men. It is difficult to know how to convince

them that this amounts to "crown thy good with brotherhood," that amid all the failures is something spectacularly

successful. Perhaps they understand it at this moment, when enormous tragedy, as it so often does, demands a time

of reflection on enormous blessings.

This is a nation founded on a conundrum, what Mario Cuomo has characterized as "community added to

individualism." These two are our defining ideals; they are also in constant conflict. Historians today bemoan the

ascendancy of a kind of prideful apartheid in America, saying that the clinging to ethnicity, in background and

custom, has undermined the concept of unity. These historians must have forgotten the past, or have gilded it. The

New York of my children is no more Balkanized, probably less so, than the Philadelphia of my father, in which

Jewish boys would walk several blocks out of their way to avoid the Irish divide of Chester Avenue. (I was the

product of a mixed marriage, across barely bridgeable lines: an Italian girl, an Irish boy. How quaint it seems now,

how incendiary then.) The Brooklyn of Francie Nolan's famous tree, the Newark of which Portnoy complained, even

the uninflected WASP suburbs of Cheever's characters: they are ghettos, pure and simple. Do the Cambodians and

the Mexicans in California coexist less easily today than did the Irish and Italians of Massachusetts a century ago?

You know the answer.

What is the point of this splintered whole? What is the point of a nation in which Arab cabbies chauffeur Jewish

passengers through the streets of New York--and in which Jewish cabbies chauffeur Arab passengers, too, and yet

speak in theory of hatred, one for the other? What is the point of a nation in which one part seems to be always on

the verge of fisticuffs with another, blacks and whites, gays and straights, left and right, Pole and Chinese and Puerto

Rican and Slovenian? Other countries with such divisions have in fact divided into new nations with new names, but

not this one, impossibly interwoven even in its hostilities.

Once these disparate parts were held together by a common enemy, by the fault lines of world wars and the

electrified fence of communism. With the end of the cold war there was the creeping concern that without a focus

for hatred and distrust, a sense of national identity would evaporate, that the left side of the hyphen--African-

American, Mexican-American, Irish-American--would overwhelm the right. And slow-growing domestic traumas

like economic unrest and increasing crime seemed more likely to emphasize division than community. Today the

citizens of the United States have come together once more because of armed conflict and enemy attack. Terrorism

has led to devastation--and unity.

Yet even in 1994, the overwhelming majority of those surveyed by the National Opinion Research Center agreed

with this statement: "The U.S. is a unique country that stands for something special in the world." One of the things

that it stands for is this vexing notion that a great nation can consist entirely of refugees from other nations, that

people of different, even warring religions and cultures can live, if not side by side, than on either side of the

country's Chester Avenues. Faced with this diversity there is little point in trying to isolate anything remotely

resembling a national character, but there are two strains of behavior that, however tenuously, abet the concept of

unity.

There is that Calvinist undercurrent in the American psyche that loves the difficult, the demanding, that sees

mastering the impossible, whether it be prairie or subway, as a test of character, and so glories in the struggle of this

fractured coalescing. And there is a grudging fairness among the citizens of the United States that eventually leads

most to admit that, no matter what the English-only advocates try to suggest, the new immigrants are not so different

from our own parents or grandparents. Leonel Castillo, former director of the Immigration and Naturalization

Service and himself the grandson of Mexican immigrants, once told the writer Studs Terkel proudly, "The old

neighborhood Ma-Pa stores are still around. They are not Italian or Jewish or Eastern European any more. Ma and

Pa are now Korean, Vietnamese, Iraqi, Jordanian, Latin American. They live in the store. They work seven days a

week. Their kids are doing well in school. They're making it. Sound familiar?"

Tolerance is the word used most often when this kind of coexistence succeeds, but tolerance is a vanilla-pudding

word, standing for little more than the allowance of letting others live unremarked and unmolested. Pride seems

excessive, given the American willingness to endlessly complain about them, them being whoever is new, different,

unknown or currently under suspicion. But patriotism is partly taking pride in this unlikely ability to throw all of us

together in a country that across its length and breadth is as different as a dozen countries, and still be able to call it

by one name. When photographs of the faces of all those who died in the World Trade Center destruction are

assembled in one place, it will be possible to trace in the skin color, the shape of the eyes and the noses, the texture

of the hair, a map of the world. These are the representatives of a mongrel nation that somehow, at times like this,

has one spirit. Like many improbable ideas, when it actually works, it's a wonder.

“Hope, Despair and Memory”

by Elie Wiesel

Novel Lecture, December 11, 986

A Hasidic legend tells us that the great Rabbi Baal-Shem-Tov, Master of the Good Name, also known as the Besht,

undertook an urgent and perilous mission: to hasten the coming of the Messiah. The Jewish people, all humanity

were suffering too much, beset by too many evils. They had to be saved, and swiftly. For having tried to meddle

with history, the Besht was punished; banished along with his faithful servant to a distant island. In despair, the

servant implored his master to exercise his mysterious powers in order to bring them both home. "Impossible", the

Besht replied. "My powers have been taken from me". "Then, please, say a prayer, recite a litany, work a miracle".

"Impossible", the Master replied, "I have forgotten everything". They both fell to weeping.

Suddenly the Master turned to his servant and asked: "Remind me of a prayer - any prayer ." "If only I could", said

the servant. "I too have forgotten everything". "Everything - absolutely everything?" "Yes, except - "Except what?"

"Except the alphabet". At that the Besht cried out joyfully: "Then what are you waiting for? Begin reciting the

alphabet and I shall repeat after you...". And together the two exiled men began to recite, at first in whispers, then

more loudly: "Aleph, beth, gimel, daleth...". And over again, each time more vigorously, more fervently; until,

ultimately, the Besht regained his powers, having regained his memory.

I love this story, for it illustrates the messianic expectation -which remains my own. And the importance of

friendship to man's ability to transcend his condition. I love it most of all because it emphasizes the mystical power

of memory. Without memory, our existence would be barren and opaque, like a prison cell into which no light

penetrates; like a tomb which rejects the living. Memory saved the Besht, and if anything can, it is memory that will

save humanity. For me, hope without memory is like memory without hope.

Just as man cannot live without dreams, he cannot live without hope. If dreams reflect the past, hope summons the

future. Does this mean that our future can be built on a rejection of the past? Surely such a choice is not necessary.

The two are not incompatible. The opposite of the past is not the future but the absence of future; the opposite of the

future is not the past but the absence of past. The loss of one is equivalent to the sacrifice of the other.

A recollection. The time: After the war. The place: Paris. A young man struggles to readjust to life. His mother, his

father, his small sister are gone. He is alone. On the verge of despair. And yet he does not give up. On the contrary,

he strives to find a place among the living. He acquires a new language. He makes a few friends who, like himself,

believe that the memory of evil will serve as a shield against evil; that the memory of death will serve as a shield

against death.

This he must believe in order to go on. For he has just returned from a universe where God, betrayed by His

creatures, covered His face in order not to see. Mankind, jewel of his creation, had succeeded in building an inverted

Tower of Babel, reaching not toward heaven but toward an anti-heaven, there to create a parallel society, a new

"creation" with its own princes and gods, laws and principles, jailers and prisoners. A world where the past no

longer counted - no longer meant anything.

Stripped of possessions, all human ties severed, the prisoners found themselves in a social and cultural void.

"Forget", they were told, "Forget where you came from; forget who you were. Only the present matters". But the

present was only a blink of the Lord's eye. The Almighty himself was a slaughterer: it was He who decided who

would live and who would die; who would be tortured, and who would be rewarded. Night after night, seemingly

endless processions vanished into the flames, lighting up the sky. Fear dominated the universe. Indeed this was

another universe; the very laws of nature had been transformed. Children looked like old men, old men whimpered

like children. Men and women from every corner of Europe were suddenly reduced to nameless and faceless

creatures desperate for the same ration of bread or soup, dreading the same end. Even their silence was the same for

it resounded with the memory of those who were gone. Life in this accursed universe was so distorted, so unnatural

that a new species had evolved. Waking among the dead, one wondered if one was still alive.

And yet real despair only seized us later. Afterwards. As we emerged from the nightmare and began to search for

meaning. All those doctors of law or medicine or theology, all those lovers of art and poetry, of Bach and Goethe,

who coldly, deliberately ordered the massacres and participated in them. What did their metamorphosis signify?

Could anything explain their loss of ethical, cultural and religious memory? How could we ever understand the

passivity of the onlookers and - yes - the silence of the Allies? And question of questions: Where was God in all

this? It seemed as impossible to conceive of Auschwitz with God as to conceive of Auschwitz without God.

Therefore, everything had to be reassessed because everything had changed. With one stroke, mankind's

achievements seemed to have been erased. Was Auschwitz a consequence or an aberration of "civilization" ? All we

know is that Auschwitz called that civilization into question as it called into question everything that had preceded

Auschwitz. Scientific abstraction, social and economic contention, nationalism, xenophobia, religious fanaticism,

racism, mass hysteria. All found their ultimate expression in Auschwitz.

The next question had to be, why go on? If memory continually brought us back to this, why build a home? Why

bring children into a world in which God and man betrayed their trust in one another?

Of course we could try to forget the past. Why not? Is it not natural for a human being to repress what causes him

pain, what causes him shame? Like the body, memory protects its wounds. When day breaks after a sleepless night,

one's ghosts must withdraw; the dead are ordered back to their graves. But for the first time in history, we could not

bury our dead. We bear their graves within ourselves.

For us, forgetting was never an option.

Remembering is a noble and necessary act. The call of memory, the call to memory, reaches us from the very dawn

of history. No commandment figures so frequently, so insistently, in the Bible. It is incumbent upon us to remember

the good we have received, and the evil we have suffered. New Year's Day, Rosh Hashana, is also called Yom

Hazikaron, the day of memory. On that day, the day of universal judgment, man appeals to God to remember: our

salvation depends on it. If God wishes to remember our suffering, all will be well; if He refuses, all will be lost.

Thus, the rejection of memory becomes a divine curse, one that would doom us to repeat past disasters, past wars.

Nothing provokes so much horror and opposition within the Jewish tradition as war. Our abhorrence of war is

reflected in the paucity of our literature of warfare. After all, God created the Torah to do away with iniquity, to do

away with war1.Warriors fare poorly in the Talmud: Judas Maccabeus is not even mentioned; Bar-Kochba is cited,

but negatively2. David, a great warrior and conqueror, is not permitted to build the Temple; it is his son Solomon, a

man of peace, who constructs God's dwelling place. Of course some wars may have been necessary or inevitable,

but none was ever regarded as holy. For us, a holy war is a contradiction in terms. War dehumanizes, war

diminishes, war debases all those who wage it. The Talmud says, "Talmidei hukhamim shemarbin shalom baolam"

(It is the wise men who will bring about peace). Perhaps, because wise men remember best.

And yet it is surely human to forget, even to want to forget. The Ancients saw it as a divine gift. Indeed if memory

helps us to survive, forgetting allows us to go on living. How could we go on with our daily lives, if we remained

constantly aware of the dangers and ghosts surrounding us? The Talmud tells us that without the ability to forget,

man would soon cease to learn. Without the ability to forget, man would live in a permanent, paralyzing fear of

death. Only God and God alone can and must remember everything.

How are we to reconcile our supreme duty towards memory with the need to forget that is essential to life? No

generation has had to confront this paradox with such urgency. The survivors wanted to communicate everything to

the living: the victim's solitude and sorrow, the tears of mothers driven to madness, the prayers of the doomed

beneath a fiery sky.

They needed to tell the child who, in hiding with his mother, asked softly, very softly: "Can I cry now?" They

needed to tell of the sick beggar who, in a sealed cattle-car, began to sing as an offering to his companions. And of

the little girl who, hugging her grandmother, whispered: "Don't be afraid, don't be sorry to die... I'm not". She was

seven, that little girl who went to her death without fear, without regret.

Each one of us felt compelled to record every story, every encounter. Each one of us felt compelled to bear witness,

Such were the wishes of the dying, the testament of the dead. Since the so-called civilized world had no use for their

lives, then let it be inhabited by their deaths.

The great historian Shimon Dubnov served as our guide and inspiration. Until the moment of his death he said over

and over again to his companions in the Riga ghetto: "Yidden, shreibt un fershreibt" (Jews, write it all down). His

words were heeded. Overnight, countless victims become chroniclers and historians in the ghettos, even in the death

camps. Even members of the Sonderkommandos, those inmates forced to burn their fellow inmates' corpses before

being burned in turn, left behind extraordinary documents. To testify became an obsession. They left us poems and

letters, diaries and fragments of novels, some known throughout the world, others still unpublished.

After the war we reassured ourselves that it would be enough to relate a single night in Treblinka, to tell of the

cruelty, the senselessness of murder, and the outrage born of indifference: it would be enough to find the right word

and the propitious moment to say it, to shake humanity out of its indifference and keep the torturer from torturing

ever again. We thought it would be enough to read the world a poem written by a child in the Theresienstadt ghetto

to ensure that no child anywhere would ever again have to endure hunger or fear. It would be enough to describe a

death-camp "Selection", to prevent the human right to dignity from ever being violated again.

We thought it would be enough to tell of the tidal wave of hatred which broke over the Jewish people for men

everywhere to decide once and for all to put an end to hatred of anyone who is "different" - whether black or white,

Jew or Arab, Christian or Moslem - anyone whose orientation differs politically, philosophically, sexually. A naive

undertaking? Of course. But not without a certain logic.

We tried. It was not easy. At first, because of the language; language failed us. We would have to invent a new

vocabulary, for our own words were inadequate, anemic.

And then too, the people around us refused to listen; and even those who listened refused to believe; and even those

who believed could not comprehend. Of course they could not. Nobody could. The experience of the camps defies

comprehension.

Have we failed? I often think we have.

If someone had told us in 1945 that in our lifetime religious wars would rage on virtually every continent, that

thousands of children would once again be dying of starvation, we would not have believed it. Or that racism and

fanaticism would flourish once again, we would not have believed it. Nor would we have believed that there would

be governments that would deprive a man like Lech Walesa of his freedom to travel merely because he dares to

dissent. And he is not alone. Governments of the Right and of the Left go much further, subjecting those who

dissent, writers, scientists, intellectuals, to torture and persecution. How to explain this defeat of memory?

How to explain any of it: the outrage of Apartheid which continues unabated. Racism itself is dreadful, but when it

pretends to be legal, and therefore just, when a man like Nelson Mandela is imprisoned, it becomes even more

repugnant. Without comparing Apartheid to Nazism and to its "final solution" - for that defies all comparison - one

cannot help but assign the two systems, in their supposed legality, to the same camp. And the outrage of terrorism:

of the hostages in Iran, the coldblooded massacre in the synagogue in Istanbul, the senseless deaths in the streets of

Paris. Terrorism must be outlawed by all civilized nations - not explained or rationalized, but fought and eradicated.

Nothing can, nothing will justify the murder of innocent people and helpless children. And the outrage of preventing

men and women like Andrei Sakharov, Vladimir and Masha Slepak, Ida Nudel, Josef Biegun, Victor Brailowski,

Zakhar Zonshein, and all the others known and unknown from leaving their country. And then there is Israel, which

after two thousand years of exile and thirty-eight years of sovereignty still does not have peace. I would like to see

this people, which is my own, able to establish the foundation for a constructive relationship with all its Arab

neighbors, as it has done with Egypt. We must exert pressure on all those in power to come to terms.

And here we come back to memory. We must remember the suffering of my people, as we must remember that of

the Ethiopians, the Cambodians, the boat people, Palestinians, the Mesquite Indians, the Argentinian

"desaparecidos" - the list seems endless.

Let us remember Job who, having lost everything - his children, his friends, his possessions, and even his argument

with God - still found the strength to begin again, to rebuild his life. Job was determined not to repudiate the

creation, however imperfect, that God had entrusted to him.

Job, our ancestor. Job, our contemporary. His ordeal concerns all humanity. Did he ever lose his faith? If so, he

rediscovered it within his rebellion. He demonstrated that faith is essential to rebellion, and that hope is possible

beyond despair. The source of his hope was memory, as it must be ours. Because I remember, I despair. Because I

remember, I have the duty to reject despair. I remember the killers, I remember the victims, even as I struggle to

invent a thousand and one reasons to hope.

There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to

protest. The Talmud tells us that by saving a single human being, man can save the world. We may be powerless to

open all the jails and free all the prisoners, but by declaring our solidarity with one prisoner, we indict all jailers.

None of us is in a position to eliminate war, but it is our obligation to denounce it and expose it in all its

hideousness. War leaves no victors, only victims. I began with the story of the Besht. And, like the Besht, mankind

needs to remember more than ever. Mankind needs peace more than ever, for our entire planet, threatened by

nuclear war, is in danger of total destruction. A destruction only man can provoke, only man can prevent. Mankind

must remember that peace is not God's gift to his creatures, it is our gift to each other.

1. The Torah is the Hebrew name for the first five books of the Scriptures, in which God hands down the tablets of

the Law to Moses on Mt. Sinai. In contradistinction to the Law of Moses, the Written Law, the Talmud is the vast

compilation of the Oral Law, including rabbinical commentaries and elaborations.

2. Judas Maccabeus led the struggle against Antiochus IV of Syria. He defeated a Syrian expedition and

reconsecrated the Temple in Jerusalem (c. 165 B.C.). Simon Bar-Kochba (or Kokba) was the leader of the Hebrew

revolt against the Romans, 132-135 A.D.

"Letter from a Birmingham Jail [King, Jr.]"

16 April 1963

My Dear Fellow Clergymen:

While confined here in the Birmingham city jail, I came across your recent statement calling my present activities

"unwise and untimely." Seldom do I pause to answer criticism of my work and ideas. If I sought to answer all the

criticisms that cross my desk, my secretaries would have little time for anything other than such correspondence in

the course of the day, and I would have no time for constructive work. But since I feel that you are men of genuine

good will and that your criticisms are sincerely set forth, I want to try to answer your statement in what I hope will

be patient and reasonable terms.

I think I should indicate why I am here in Birmingham, since you have been influenced by the view which argues

against "outsiders coming in." I have the honor of serving as president of the Southern Christian Leadership

Conference, an organization operating in every southern state, with headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia. We have some

eighty five affiliated organizations across the South, and one of them is the Alabama Christian Movement for

Human Rights. Frequently we share staff, educational and financial resources with our affiliates. Several months ago

the affiliate here in Birmingham asked us to be on call to engage in a nonviolent direct action program if such were

deemed necessary. We readily consented, and when the hour came we lived up to our promise. So I, along with

several members of my staff, am here because I was invited here. I am here because I have organizational ties here.

But more basically, I am in Birmingham because injustice is here. Just as the prophets of the eighth century B.C. left

their villages and carried their "thus saith the Lord" far beyond the boundaries of their home towns, and just as the

Apostle Paul left his village of Tarsus and carried the gospel of Jesus Christ to the far corners of the Greco Roman

world, so am I compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my own home town. Like Paul, I must constantly

respond to the Macedonian call for aid.

Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and

not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are

caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly,

affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial "outside agitator" idea. Anyone

who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds.

You deplore the demonstrations taking place in Birmingham. But your statement, I am sorry to say, fails to express a

similar concern for the conditions that brought about the demonstrations. I am sure that none of you would want to

rest content with the superficial kind of social analysis that deals merely with effects and does not grapple with

underlying causes. It is unfortunate that demonstrations are taking place in Birmingham, but it is even more

unfortunate that the city's white power structure left the Negro community with no alternative.

In any nonviolent campaign there are four basic steps: collection of the facts to determine whether injustices exist;

negotiation; self purification; and direct action. We have gone through all these steps in Birmingham. There can be

no gainsaying the fact that racial injustice engulfs this community. Birmingham is probably the most thoroughly

segregated city in the United States. Its ugly record of brutality is widely known. Negroes have experienced grossly

unjust treatment in the courts. There have been more unsolved bombings of Negro homes and churches in

Birmingham than in any other city in the nation. These are the hard, brutal facts of the case. On the basis of these

conditions, Negro leaders sought to negotiate with the city fathers. But the latter consistently refused to engage in

good faith negotiation.

Then, last September, came the opportunity to talk with leaders of Birmingham's economic community. In the

course of the negotiations, certain promises were made by the merchants--for example, to remove the stores'

humiliating racial signs. On the basis of these promises, the Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth and the leaders of the

Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights agreed to a moratorium on all demonstrations. As the weeks and

months went by, we realized that we were the victims of a broken promise. A few signs, briefly removed, returned;

the others remained. As in so many past experiences, our hopes had been blasted, and the shadow of deep

disappointment settled upon us. We had no alternative except to prepare for direct action, whereby we would present

our very bodies as a means of laying our case before the conscience of the local and the national community.

Mindful of the difficulties involved, we decided to undertake a process of self purification. We began a series of

workshops on nonviolence, and we repeatedly asked ourselves: "Are you able to accept blows without retaliating?"

"Are you able to endure the ordeal of jail?" We decided to schedule our direct action program for the Easter season,

realizing that except for Christmas, this is the main shopping period of the year. Knowing that a strong economic-

withdrawal program would be the by product of direct action, we felt that this would be the best time to bring

pressure to bear on the merchants for the needed change.

Then it occurred to us that Birmingham's mayoral election was coming up in March, and we speedily decided to

postpone action until after election day. When we discovered that the Commissioner of Public Safety, Eugene "Bull"

Connor, had piled up enough votes to be in the run off, we decided again to postpone action until the day after the

run off so that the demonstrations could not be used to cloud the issues. Like many others, we waited to see Mr.

Connor defeated, and to this end we endured postponement after postponement. Having aided in this community

need, we felt that our direct action program could be delayed no longer.

You may well ask: "Why direct action? Why sit ins, marches and so forth? Isn't negotiation a better path?" You are

quite right in calling for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks

to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced

to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. My citing the creation of

tension as part of the work of the nonviolent resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not

afraid of the word "tension." I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent

tension which is necessary for growth. Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so

that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and

objective appraisal, so must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will

help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and

brotherhood. The purpose of our direct action program is to create a situation so crisis packed that it will inevitably

open the door to negotiation. I therefore concur with you in your call for negotiation. Too long has our beloved

Southland been bogged down in a tragic effort to live in monologue rather than dialogue.

One of the basic points in your statement is that the action that I and my associates have taken in Birmingham is

untimely. Some have asked: "Why didn't you give the new city administration time to act?" The only answer that I

can give to this query is that the new Birmingham administration must be prodded about as much as the outgoing

one, before it will act. We are sadly mistaken if we feel that the election of Albert Boutwell as mayor will bring the

millennium to Birmingham. While Mr. Boutwell is a much more gentle person than Mr. Connor, they are both

segregationists, dedicated to maintenance of the status quo. I have hope that Mr. Boutwell will be reasonable enough

to see the futility of massive resistance to desegregation. But he will not see this without pressure from devotees of

civil rights. My friends, I must say to you that we have not made a single gain in civil rights without determined

legal and nonviolent pressure. Lamentably, it is an historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up their

privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but, as

Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups tend to be more immoral than individuals.

We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded

by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct action campaign that was "well timed" in the view of

those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word "Wait!" It

rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This "Wait" has almost always meant "Never." We must

come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that "justice too long delayed is justice denied."

We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa

are moving with jetlike speed toward gaining political independence, but we still creep at horse and buggy pace

toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts

of segregation to say, "Wait." But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and

drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your

black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an

airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your

speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six year old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement

park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is

closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see

her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you

have to concoct an answer for a five year old son who is asking: "Daddy, why do white people treat colored people

so mean?"; when you take a cross county drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable

corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by

nagging signs reading "white" and "colored"; when your first name becomes "nigger," your middle name becomes

"boy" (however old you are) and your last name becomes "John," and your wife and mother are never given the

respected title "Mrs."; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living

constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer

resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of "nobodiness"--then you will understand why we

find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to

be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience.

You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This is certainly a legitimate concern. Since

we so diligently urge people to obey the Supreme Court's decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public

schools, at first glance it may seem rather paradoxical for us consciously to break laws. One may well ask: "How

can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?" The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of

laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral

responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree

with St. Augustine that "an unjust law is no law at all."

Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is

a man made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony

with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in

eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality

is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality. It

gives the segregator a false sense of superiority and the segregated a false sense of inferiority. Segregation, to use

the terminology of the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber, substitutes an "I it" relationship for an "I thou" relationship

and ends up relegating persons to the status of things. Hence segregation is not only politically, economically and

sociologically unsound, it is morally wrong and sinful. Paul Tillich has said that sin is separation. Is not segregation

an existential expression of man's tragic separation, his awful estrangement, his terrible sinfulness? Thus it is that I

can urge men to obey the 1954 decision of the Supreme Court, for it is morally right; and I can urge them to disobey

segregation ordinances, for they are morally wrong.

Let us consider a more concrete example of just and unjust laws. An unjust law is a code that a numerical or power

majority group compels a minority group to obey but does not make binding on itself. This is difference made legal.

By the same token, a just law is a code that a majority compels a minority to follow and that it is willing to follow

itself. This is sameness made legal. Let me give another explanation. A law is unjust if it is inflicted on a minority

that, as a result of being denied the right to vote, had no part in enacting or devising the law. Who can say that the

legislature of Alabama which set up that state's segregation laws was democratically elected? Throughout Alabama

all sorts of devious methods are used to prevent Negroes from becoming registered voters, and there are some

counties in which, even though Negroes constitute a majority of the population, not a single Negro is registered. Can

any law enacted under such circumstances be considered democratically structured?

Sometimes a law is just on its face and unjust in its application. For instance, I have been arrested on a charge of

parading without a permit. Now, there is nothing wrong in having an ordinance which requires a permit for a parade.

But such an ordinance becomes unjust when it is used to maintain segregation and to deny citizens the First-

Amendment privilege of peaceful assembly and protest.

I hope you are able to see the distinction I am trying to point out. In no sense do I advocate evading or defying the

law, as would the rabid segregationist. That would lead to anarchy. One who breaks an unjust law must do so

openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty. I submit that an individual who breaks a law that

conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the

conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law.

Of course, there is nothing new about this kind of civil disobedience. It was evidenced sublimely in the refusal of

Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego to obey the laws of Nebuchadnezzar, on the ground that a higher moral law was

at stake. It was practiced superbly by the early Christians, who were willing to face hungry lions and the

excruciating pain of chopping blocks rather than submit to certain unjust laws of the Roman Empire. To a degree,

academic freedom is a reality today because Socrates practiced civil disobedience. In our own nation, the Boston

Tea Party represented a massive act of civil disobedience.

We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was "legal" and everything the Hungarian

freedom fighters did in Hungary was "illegal." It was "illegal" to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler's Germany. Even

so, I am sure that, had I lived in Germany at the time, I would have aided and comforted my Jewish brothers. If

today I lived in a Communist country where certain principles dear to the Christian faith are suppressed, I would

openly advocate disobeying that country's antireligious laws.

I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the

past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable

conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler

or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a

negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly

says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who

paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of

time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from

people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm

acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice

and that when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social

progress. I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that the present tension in the South is a necessary

phase of the transition from an obnoxious negative peace, in which the Negro passively accepted his unjust plight, to

a substantive and positive peace, in which all men will respect the dignity and worth of human personality. Actually,

we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden

tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can

never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and

light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the

air of national opinion before it can be cured.

In your statement you assert that our actions, even though peaceful, must be condemned because they precipitate

violence. But is this a logical assertion? Isn't this like condemning a robbed man because his possession of money

precipitated the evil act of robbery? Isn't this like condemning Socrates because his unswerving commitment to truth

and his philosophical inquiries precipitated the act by the misguided populace in which they made him drink

hemlock? Isn't this like condemning Jesus because his unique God consciousness and never ceasing devotion to

God's will precipitated the evil act of crucifixion? We must come to see that, as the federal courts have consistently

affirmed, it is wrong to urge an individual to cease his efforts to gain his basic constitutional rights because the quest

may precipitate violence. Society must protect the robbed and punish the robber. I had also hoped that the white

moderate would reject the myth concerning time in relation to the struggle for freedom. I have just received a letter

from a white brother in Texas. He writes: "All Christians know that the colored people will receive equal rights

eventually, but it is possible that you are in too great a religious hurry. It has taken Christianity almost two thousand

years to accomplish what it has. The teachings of Christ take time to come to earth." Such an attitude stems from a

tragic misconception of time, from the strangely irrational notion that there is something in the very flow of time

that will inevitably cure all ills. Actually, time itself is neutral; it can be used either destructively or constructively.

More and more I feel that the people of ill will have used time much more effectively than have the people of good

will. We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for

the appalling silence of the good people. Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through

the tireless efforts of men willing to be co workers with God, and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally

of the forces of social stagnation. We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do

right. Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy and transform our pending national elegy into a

creative psalm of brotherhood. Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to the

solid rock of human dignity.

You speak of our activity in Birmingham as extreme. At first I was rather disappointed that fellow clergymen would

see my nonviolent efforts as those of an extremist. I began thinking about the fact that I stand in the middle of two

opposing forces in the Negro community. One is a force of complacency, made up in part of Negroes who, as a

result of long years of oppression, are so drained of self respect and a sense of "somebodiness" that they have

adjusted to segregation; and in part of a few middle-class Negroes who, because of a degree of academic and

economic security and because in some ways they profit by segregation, have become insensitive to the problems of

the masses. The other force is one of bitterness and hatred, and it comes perilously close to advocating violence. It is

expressed in the various black nationalist groups that are springing up across the nation, the largest and best known

being Elijah Muhammad's Muslim movement. Nourished by the Negro's frustration over the continued existence of

racial discrimination, this movement is made up of people who have lost faith in America, who have absolutely

repudiated Christianity, and who have concluded that the white man is an incorrigible "devil."

I have tried to stand between these two forces, saying that we need emulate neither the "do nothingism" of the

complacent nor the hatred and despair of the black nationalist. For there is the more excellent way of love and

nonviolent protest. I am grateful to God that, through the influence of the Negro church, the way of nonviolence

became an integral part of our struggle. If this philosophy had not emerged, by now many streets of the South

would, I am convinced, be flowing with blood. And I am further convinced that if our white brothers dismiss as

"rabble rousers" and "outside agitators" those of us who employ nonviolent direct action, and if they refuse to

support our nonviolent efforts, millions of Negroes will, out of frustration and despair, seek solace and security in

black nationalist ideologies--a development that would inevitably lead to a frightening racial nightmare.

Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The yearning for freedom eventually manifests itself, and that is

what has happened to the American Negro. Something within has reminded him of his birthright of freedom, and

something without has reminded him that it can be gained. Consciously or unconsciously, he has been caught up by

the Zeitgeist, and with his black brothers of Africa and his brown and yellow brothers of Asia, South America and

the Caribbean, the United States Negro is moving with a sense of great urgency toward the promised land of racial

justice. If one recognizes this vital urge that has engulfed the Negro community, one should readily understand why

public demonstrations are taking place. The Negro has many pent up resentments and latent frustrations, and he

must release them. So let him march; let him make prayer pilgrimages to the city hall; let him go on freedom rides -

and try to understand why he must do so. If his repressed emotions are not released in nonviolent ways, they will

seek expression through violence; this is not a threat but a fact of history. So I have not said to my people: "Get rid

of your discontent." Rather, I have tried to say that this normal and healthy discontent can be channeled into the

creative outlet of nonviolent direct action. And now this approach is being termed extremist. But though I was

initially disappointed at being categorized as an extremist, as I continued to think about the matter I gradually gained

a measure of satisfaction from the label. Was not Jesus an extremist for love: "Love your enemies, bless them that

curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you." Was

not Amos an extremist for justice: "Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever flowing stream."

Was not Paul an extremist for the Christian gospel: "I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus." Was not Martin

Luther an extremist: "Here I stand; I cannot do otherwise, so help me God." And John Bunyan: "I will stay in jail to

the end of my days before I make a butchery of my conscience." And Abraham Lincoln: "This nation cannot survive

half slave and half free." And Thomas Jefferson: "We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created

equal . . ." So the question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. Will we be

extremists for hate or for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice or for the extension of justice?

In that dramatic scene on Calvary's hill three men were crucified. We must never forget that all three were crucified

for the same crime--the crime of extremism. Two were extremists for immorality, and thus fell below their

environment. The other, Jesus Christ, was an extremist for love, truth and goodness, and thereby rose above his

environment. Perhaps the South, the nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.

I had hoped that the white moderate would see this need. Perhaps I was too optimistic; perhaps I expected too much.

I suppose I should have realized that few members of the oppressor race can understand the deep groans and

passionate yearnings of the oppressed race, and still fewer have the vision to see that injustice must be rooted out by

strong, persistent and determined action. I am thankful, however, that some of our white brothers in the South have

grasped the meaning of this social revolution and committed themselves to it. They are still all too few in quantity,

but they are big in quality. Some -such as Ralph McGill, Lillian Smith, Harry Golden, James McBride Dabbs, Ann

Braden and Sarah Patton Boyle--have written about our struggle in eloquent and prophetic terms. Others have

marched with us down nameless streets of the South. They have languished in filthy, roach infested jails, suffering

the abuse and brutality of policemen who view them as "dirty nigger-lovers." Unlike so many of their moderate

brothers and sisters, they have recognized the urgency of the moment and sensed the need for powerful "action"

antidotes to combat the disease of segregation. Let me take note of my other major disappointment. I have been so

greatly disappointed with the white church and its leadership. Of course, there are some notable exceptions. I am not

unmindful of the fact that each of you has taken some significant stands on this issue. I commend you, Reverend

Stallings, for your Christian stand on this past Sunday, in welcoming Negroes to your worship service on a

nonsegregated basis. I commend the Catholic leaders of this state for integrating Spring Hill College several years

ago.

But despite these notable exceptions, I must honestly reiterate that I have been disappointed with the church. I do not

say this as one of those negative critics who can always find something wrong with the church. I say this as a

minister of the gospel, who loves the church; who was nurtured in its bosom; who has been sustained by its spiritual

blessings and who will remain true to it as long as the cord of life shall lengthen.

When I was suddenly catapulted into the leadership of the bus protest in Montgomery, Alabama, a few years ago, I

felt we would be supported by the white church. I felt that the white ministers, priests and rabbis of the South would

be among our strongest allies. Instead, some have been outright opponents, refusing to understand the freedom

movement and misrepresenting its leaders; all too many others have been more cautious than courageous and have

remained silent behind the anesthetizing security of stained glass windows.

In spite of my shattered dreams, I came to Birmingham with the hope that the white religious leadership of this

community would see the justice of our cause and, with deep moral concern, would serve as the channel through

which our just grievances could reach the power structure. I had hoped that each of you would understand. But again

I have been disappointed.

I have heard numerous southern religious leaders admonish their worshipers to comply with a desegregation

decision because it is the law, but I have longed to hear white ministers declare: "Follow this decree because

integration is morally right and because the Negro is your brother." In the midst of blatant injustices inflicted upon

the Negro, I have watched white churchmen stand on the sideline and mouth pious irrelevancies and sanctimonious

trivialities. In the midst of a mighty struggle to rid our nation of racial and economic injustice, I have heard many

ministers say: "Those are social issues, with which the gospel has no real concern." And I have watched many

churches commit themselves to a completely other worldly religion which makes a strange, un-Biblical distinction

between body and soul, between the sacred and the secular.

I have traveled the length and breadth of Alabama, Mississippi and all the other southern states. On sweltering

summer days and crisp autumn mornings I have looked at the South's beautiful churches with their lofty spires

pointing heavenward. I have beheld the impressive outlines of her massive religious education buildings. Over and

over I have found myself asking: "What kind of people worship here? Who is their God? Where were their voices

when the lips of Governor Barnett dripped with words of interposition and nullification? Where were they when

Governor Wallace gave a clarion call for defiance and hatred? Where were their voices of support when bruised and

weary Negro men and women decided to rise from the dark dungeons of complacency to the bright hills of creative

protest?"

Yes, these questions are still in my mind. In deep disappointment I have wept over the laxity of the church. But be

assured that my tears have been tears of love. There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love.

Yes, I love the church. How could I do otherwise? I am in the rather unique position of being the son, the grandson

and the great grandson of preachers. Yes, I see the church as the body of Christ. But, oh! How we have blemished

and scarred that body through social neglect and through fear of being nonconformists.

There was a time when the church was very powerful--in the time when the early Christians rejoiced at being

deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that

recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society.

Whenever the early Christians entered a town, the people in power became disturbed and immediately sought to

convict the Christians for being "disturbers of the peace" and "outside agitators."' But the Christians pressed on, in

the conviction that they were "a colony of heaven," called to obey God rather than man. Small in number, they were

big in commitment. They were too God-intoxicated to be "astronomically intimidated." By their effort and example

they brought an end to such ancient evils as infanticide and gladiatorial contests. Things are different now. So often

the contemporary church is a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. So often it is an archdefender of the

status quo. Far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is

consoled by the church's silent--and often even vocal--sanction of things as they are.

But the judgment of God is upon the church as never before. If today's church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit

of the early church, it will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social

club with no meaning for the twentieth century. Every day I meet young people whose disappointment with the

church has turned into outright disgust.

Perhaps I have once again been too optimistic. Is organized religion too inextricably bound to the status quo to save

our nation and the world? Perhaps I must turn my faith to the inner spiritual church, the church within the church, as

the true ekklesia and the hope of the world. But again I am thankful to God that some noble souls from the ranks of

organized religion have broken loose from the paralyzing chains of conformity and joined us as active partners in

the struggle for freedom. They have left their secure congregations and walked the streets of Albany, Georgia, with

us. They have gone down the highways of the South on tortuous rides for freedom. Yes, they have gone to jail with

us. Some have been dismissed from their churches, have lost the support of their bishops and fellow ministers. But

they have acted in the faith that right defeated is stronger than evil triumphant. Their witness has been the spiritual

salt that has preserved the true meaning of the gospel in these troubled times. They have carved a tunnel of hope

through the dark mountain of disappointment. I hope the church as a whole will meet the challenge of this decisive

hour. But even if the church does not come to the aid of justice, I have no despair about the future. I have no fear

about the outcome of our struggle in Birmingham, even if our motives are at present misunderstood. We will reach

the goal of freedom in Birmingham and all over the nation, because the goal of America is freedom. Abused and

scorned though we may be, our destiny is tied up with America's destiny. Before the pilgrims landed at Plymouth,

we were here. Before the pen of Jefferson etched the majestic words of the Declaration of Independence across the

pages of history, we were here. For more than two centuries our forebears labored in this country without wages;

they made cotton king; they built the homes of their masters while suffering gross injustice and shameful

humiliation -and yet out of a bottomless vitality they continued to thrive and develop. If the inexpressible cruelties

of slavery could not stop us, the opposition we now face will surely fail. We will win our freedom because the

sacred heritage of our nation and the eternal will of God are embodied in our echoing demands. Before closing I feel

impelled to mention one other point in your statement that has troubled me profoundly. You warmly commended the

Birmingham police force for keeping "order" and "preventing violence." I doubt that you would have so warmly

commended the police force if you had seen its dogs sinking their teeth into unarmed, nonviolent Negroes. I doubt

that you would so quickly commend the policemen if you were to observe their ugly and inhumane treatment of

Negroes here in the city jail; if you were to watch them push and curse old Negro women and young Negro girls; if

you were to see them slap and kick old Negro men and young boys; if you were to observe them, as they did on two

occasions, refuse to give us food because we wanted to sing our grace together. I cannot join you in your praise of

the Birmingham police department.

It is true that the police have exercised a degree of discipline in handling the demonstrators. In this sense they have

conducted themselves rather "nonviolently" in public. But for what purpose? To preserve the evil system of

segregation. Over the past few years I have consistently preached that nonviolence demands that the means we use

must be as pure as the ends we seek. I have tried to make clear that it is wrong to use immoral means to attain moral

ends. But now I must affirm that it is just as wrong, or perhaps even more so, to use moral means to preserve

immoral ends. Perhaps Mr. Connor and his policemen have been rather nonviolent in public, as was Chief Pritchett

in Albany, Georgia, but they have used the moral means of nonviolence to maintain the immoral end of racial

injustice. As T. S. Eliot has said: "The last temptation is the greatest treason: To do the right deed for the wrong

reason."

I wish you had commended the Negro sit inners and demonstrators of Birmingham for their sublime courage, their

willingness to suffer and their amazing discipline in the midst of great provocation. One day the South will

recognize its real heroes. They will be the James Merediths, with the noble sense of purpose that enables them to

face jeering and hostile mobs, and with the agonizing loneliness that characterizes the life of the pioneer. They will

be old, oppressed, battered Negro women, symbolized in a seventy two year old woman in Montgomery, Alabama,

who rose up with a sense of dignity and with her people decided not to ride segregated buses, and who responded

with ungrammatical profundity to one who inquired about her weariness: "My feets is tired, but my soul is at rest."

They will be the young high school and college students, the young ministers of the gospel and a host of their elders,

courageously and nonviolently sitting in at lunch counters and willingly going to jail for conscience' sake. One day

the South will know that when these disinherited children of God sat down at lunch counters, they were in reality

standing up for what is best in the American dream and for the most sacred values in our Judaeo Christian heritage,

thereby bringing our nation back to those great wells of democracy which were dug deep by the founding fathers in

their formulation of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.

Never before have I written so long a letter. I'm afraid it is much too long to take your precious time. I can assure

you that it would have been much shorter if I had been writing from a comfortable desk, but what else can one do

when he is alone in a narrow jail cell, other than write long letters, think long thoughts and pray long prayers?

If I have said anything in this letter that overstates the truth and indicates an unreasonable impatience, I beg you to

forgive me. If I have said anything that understates the truth and indicates my having a patience that allows me to

settle for anything less than brotherhood, I beg God to forgive me.

I hope this letter finds you strong in the faith. I also hope that circumstances will soon make it possible for me to

meet each of you, not as an integrationist or a civil-rights leader but as a fellow clergyman and a Christian brother.

Let us all hope that the dark clouds of racial prejudice will soon pass away and the deep fog of misunderstanding

will be lifted from our fear drenched communities, and in some not too distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love

and brotherhood will shine over our great nation with all their scintillating beauty.

Yours for the cause of Peace and Brotherhood, Martin Luther King, Jr.

Published in:

Address at Moscow State University (May 31, 1988) Ronald Reagan

President Reagan: Thank you, Rector Logunov, and I want to thank all of you very much for a very warm

welcome. It's a great pleasure to be here at Moscow State University, and I want to thank you all for turning out. I

know you must be very busy this week, studying and taking your final examinations. So, let me just say zhelayu

yam uspekha [I wish you success]. Nancy couldn't make it today because she's visiting Leningrad, which she tells

me is a very beautiful city, but she, too, says hello and wishes you all good luck.

Let me say it's also a great pleasure to once again have this opportunity to speak directly to the people of the Soviet

Union. Before I left Washington, I received many heartfelt letters and telegrams asking me to carry here a simple

message, perhaps, but also some of the most important business of this summit: It is a message of peace and good

will and hope for a growing friendship and closeness between our two peoples.

As you know, I've come to Moscow to meet with one of your most distinguished graduates. In this, our fourth

summit, General Secretary Gorbachev and I have spent many hours together, and I feel that we're getting to know

each other well. Our discussions, of course, have been focused primarily on many of the important issues of the day,

issues I want to touch on with you in a few moments. But first I want to take a little time to talk to you much as I

would to any group of university students in the United States. I want to talk not just of the realities of today but of

the possibilities of tomorrow.

Standing here before a mural of your revolution, I want to talk about a very different revolution that is taking place

right now, quietly sweeping the globe without bloodshed or conflict. Its effects are peaceful, but they will

fundamentally alter our world, shatter old assumptions, and reshape our lives. It's easy to underestimate because it's

not accompanied by banners or fanfare. It's been called the technological or information revolution, and as its

emblem, one might take the tiny silicon chip, no bigger than a fingerprint. One of these chips has more computing

power than a roomful of old-style computers.

As part of an exchange program, we now have an exhibition touring your country that shows how information

technology is transforming our lives—replacing manual labor with robots, forecasting weather for farmers, or

mapping the genetic code of DNA for medical researchers. These microcomputers today aid the design of

everything from houses to ears to spacecraft; they even design better and faster computers. They can translate

English into Russian or enable the blind to read or help Michael Jackson produce on one synthesizer the sounds of a

whole orchestra. Linked by a network of satellites and fiber-optic cables, one individual with a desktop computer

and a telephone commands resources unavailable to the largest governments just a few years ago.

Like a chrysalis, we're emerging from the economy of the Industrial Revolution—an economy confined to and

limited by the Earth's physical resources—into, as one economist titled his book, "The Economy in Mind," in which

there are no bounds on human imagination and the freedom to create is the most precious natural resource. Think of

that little computer chip. Its value isn't in the sand from which it is made but in the microscopic architecture

designed into it by ingenious human minds. Or take the example of the satellite relaying this broadcast around the

world, which replaces thousands of tons of copper mined from the Earth and molded into wire. In the new economy,

human invention increasingly makes physical resources obsolete. We're breaking through the material conditions of

existence to a world where man creates his own destiny. Even as we explore the most advanced reaches of science,

we're returning to the age-old wisdom of our culture, a wisdom contained in the book of Genesis in the Bible: In the

beginning was the spirit, and it was from this spirit that the material abundance of creation issued forth.

But progress is not foreordained. The key is freedom—freedom of thought, freedom of information, freedom of

communication. The renowned scientist, scholar, and founding father of this university, Mikhail Lomonosov, knew

that. "It is common knowledge," he said, "that the achievements of science are considerable and rapid, particularly

once the yoke of slavery is cast off and replaced by the freedom of philosophy." You know, one of the first contacts

between your country and mine took place between Russian and American explorers. The Americans were members

of Cook's last voyage on an expedition searching for an Arctic passage; on the island of Unalaska, they came upon

the Russians, who took them in, and together with the native inhabitants, held a prayer service on the ice.

The explorers of the modern era are the entrepreneurs, men with vision, with the courage to take risks and faith

enough to brave the unknown. These entrepreneurs and their small enterprises are responsible for almost all the

economic growth in the United States. They are the prime movers of the technological revolution. In fact, one of the

largest personal computer firms in the United States was started by two college students, no older than you, in the

garage behind their home. Some people, even in my own country, look at the riot of experiment that is the free

market and see only waste. What of all the entrepreneurs that fail? Well, many do, particularly the successful ones;

often several times. And if you ask them the secret of their success, they'll tell you it's all that they learned in their

struggles along the way; yes, it's what they learned from failing. Like an athlete in competition or a scholar in

pursuit of the truth, experience is the greatest teacher.

And that's why it's so hard for government planners, no matter how sophisticated, to ever substitute for millions of

individuals working night and day to make their dreams come true. The fact is, bureaucracies are a problem around

the world. There's an old story about a town—it could be anywhere—with a bureaucrat who is known to be a good-

for-nothing, but he somehow had always hung on to power. So one day, in a town meeting, an old woman got up

and said to him: "There is a folk legend here where I come from that when a baby is born, an angel comes down

from heaven and kisses it on one part of its body. If the angel kisses him on his hand, he becomes a handyman. If he

kisses him on his forehead, he becomes bright and clever. And I've been trying to figure out where the angel kissed

you so that you should sit there for so long and do nothing." [Laughter]

We are seeing the power of economic freedom spreading around the world. Places such as the Republic of Korea,

Singapore, Taiwan have vaulted into the technological era, barely pausing in the industrial age along the way. Low-

tax agricultural policies in the subcontinent mean that in some years India is now a net exporter of food. Perhaps

most exciting are the winds of change that are blowing over the People's Republic of China, where one-quarter of

the world's population is now getting its first taste of economic freedom. At the same time, the growth of democracy

has become one of the most powerful political movements of our age. In Latin America in the 1970s, only a third of

the population lived under democratic government; today over 90 percent does. In the Philippines, in the Republic of

Korea, free, contested, democratic elections are the order of the day. Throughout the world, free markets are the

model for growth. Democracy is the standard by which governments are measured.

We Americans make no secret of our belief in freedom. In fact, it's something of a national pastime. Every four

years the American people choose a new President, and 1988 is one of those years. At one point there were 13 major

candidates running in the two major parties, not to mention all the others, including the Socialist and Libertarian

candidates—all trying to get my job. About 1,000 local television stations, 8,500 radio stations, and 1,700 daily

newspapers—each one an independent, private enterprise, fiercely independent of the Government—report on the

candidates, grill them in interviews, and bring them together for debates. In the end, the people vote; they decide

who will be the next President. But freedom doesn't begin or end with elections.

Go to any American town, to take just an example, and you'll see dozens of churches, representing many different

beliefs—in many places, synagogues and mosques—and you'll see families of every conceivable nationality

worshiping together. Go into any schoolroom, and there you will see children being taught the Declaration of

Independence, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights—among them life, liberty, and

the pursuit of happiness—that no government can justly deny; the guarantees in their Constitution for freedom of

speech, freedom of assembly, and freedom of religion. Go into any courtroom, and there will preside an independent

judge, beholden to no government power. There every defendant has the right to a trial by a jury of his peers, usually

12 men and women—common citizens; they are the ones, the only ones, who weigh the evidence and decide on

guilt or innocence. In that court, the accused is innocent until proven guilty, and the word of a policeman or any

official has no greater legal standing than the word of the accused. Go to any university campus, and there you'll

find an open, sometimes heated discussion of the problems in American society and what can be done to correct

them. Turn on the television, and you'll see the legislature conducting the business of government right there before

the camera, debating and voting on the legislation that will become the law of the land. March in any demonstration,

and there are many of them; the people's right of assembly is guaranteed in the Constitution and protected by the

police. Go into any union hall, where the members know their right to strike is protected by law. As a matter of fact,

one of the many jobs I had before this one was being president of a union, the Screen Actors Guild. I led my union

out on strike, and I'm proud to say we won.

But freedom is more even than this. Freedom is the right to question and change the established way of doing things.

It is the continuing revolution of the marketplace. It is the understanding that allows us to recognize shortcomings

and seek solutions. It is the right to put forth an idea, scoffed at by the experts, and watch it catch fire among the

people. It is the right to dream—to follow your dream or stick to your conscience, even if you're the only one in a

sea of doubters. Freedom is the recognition that no single person, no single authority or government has a monopoly

on the truth, but that every individual life is infinitely precious, that every one of us put on this world has been put

there for a reason and has something to offer.

America is a nation made up of hundreds of nationalities. Our ties to you are more than ones of good feeling; they're

ties of kinship. In America, you'll find Russians, Armenians, Ukrainians, peoples from Eastern Europe and Central

Asia. They come from every part of this vast continent, from every continent, to live in harmony, seeking a place

where each cultural heritage is respected, each is valued for its diverse strengths and beauties and the richness it

brings to our lives. Recently, a few individuals and families have been allowed to visit relatives in the West. We can

only hope that it won't be long before all are allowed to do so and Ukrainian-Americans, Baltic-Americans,

Armenian-Americans can freely visit their homelands, just as this Irish-American visits his.

Freedom, it has been said, makes people selfish and materialistic, but Americans are one of the most religious

peoples on Earth. Because they know that liberty, just as life itself, is not earned but a gift from God, they seek to

share that gift with the world. "Reason and experience," said George Washington in his farewell address, "both

forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle. And it is substantially true,

that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government." Democracy is less a system of government than

it is a system to keep government limited, unintrusive; a system of constraints on power to keep politics and

government secondary to the important things in life, the true sources of value found only in family and faith.

But I hope you know I go on about these things not simply to extol the virtues of my own country but to speak to the

true greatness of the heart and soul of your land. Who, after all, needs to tell the land of Dostoyevsky about the quest

for truth, the home of Kandinsky and Scriabin about imagination, the rich and noble culture of the Uzbek man of

letters Alisher Navoi about beauty and heart? The great culture of your diverse land speaks with a glowing passion

to all humanity. Let me cite one of the most eloquent contemporary passages on human freedom. It comes, not from

the literature of America, but from this country, from one of the greatest writers of the 20th century, Boris Pasternak,

in the novel "Dr. Zhivago." He writes: "I think that if the beast who sleeps in man could be held down by threats—

any kind of threat, whether of jail or of retribution after death—then the highest emblem of humanity would be the

lion tamer in the circus with his whip, not the prophet who sacrificed himself. But this is just the point—what has

for centuries raised man above the beast is not the cudgel, but an inward music—the irresistible power of unarmed

truth."

The irresistible power of unarmed truth. Today the world looks expectantly to signs of change, steps toward greater

freedom in the Soviet Union. We watch and we hope as we see positive changes taking place. There are some, I

know, in your society who fear that change will bring only disruption and discontinuity, who fear to embrace the

hope of the future—sometimes it takes faith. It's like that scene in the cowboy movie Butch Cassidy and the

Sundance Kid, which some here in Moscow recently had a chance to see. The posse is closing in on the two outlaws,

Butch and Sundance, who find themselves trapped on the edge of a cliff, with a sheer drop of hundreds of feet to the

raging rapids below. Butch turns to Sundance and says their only hope is to jump into the river below, but Sundance

refuses. He says he'd rather fight it out with the posse, even though they're hopelessly outnumbered. Butch says

that's suicide and urges him to jump, but Sundance still refuses and finally admits, "I can't swim." Butch breaks up

laughing and says, "You crazy fool, the fall will probably kill you." And, by the way, both Butch and Sundance

made it, in case you didn't see the movie. I think what I've just been talking about is perestroika and what its goals

are.

But change would not mean rejection of the past. Like a tree growing strong through the seasons, rooted in the Earth

and drawing life from the sun, so, too, positive change must be rooted in traditional values—in the land, in culture,

in family and community—and it must take its life from the eternal things, from the source of all life, which is faith.

Such change will lead to new understandings, new opportunities, to a broader future in which the tradition is not

supplanted but finds its full flowering. That is the future beckoning to your generation.

At the same time, we should remember that reform that is not institutionalized will always be insecure. Such

freedom will always be looking over its shoulder. A bird on a tether, no matter how long the rope, can always be

pulled back. And that is why, in my conversation with General Secretary Gorbachev, I have spoken of how

important it is to institutionalize change—to put guarantees on reform. And we've been talking together about one

sad reminder of a divided world: the Berlin Wall. It's time to remove the barriers that keep people apart.

I'm proposing an increased exchange program of high school students between our countries. General Secretary

Gorbachev mentioned on Sunday a wonderful phrase you have in Russian for this: "Better to see something once

than to hear about it a hundred times." Mr. Gorbachev and I first began working on this in 1985. In our discussion

today, we agreed on working up to several thousand exchanges a year from each country in the near future. But not

everyone can travel across the continents and oceans. Words travel lighter, and that's why we'd like to make

available to this country more of our 11,000 magazines and periodicals and our television and radio shows that can

be beamed off a satellite in seconds. Nothing would please us more than for the Soviet people to get to know us

better and to understand our way of life.

Just a few years ago, few would have imagined the progress our two nations have made together. The INF treaty,

which General Secretary Gorbachev and I signed last December in Washington and whose instruments of

ratification we will exchange tomorrow—the first true nuclear arms reduction treaty in history, calling for the

elimination of an entire class of U.S. and Soviet nuclear missiles. And just 16 days ago, we saw the beginning of

your withdrawal from Afghanistan, which gives us hope that soon the fighting may end and the healing may begin

and that that suffering country may find self-determination, unity, and peace at long last.

It's my fervent hope that our constructive cooperation on these issues will be carried on to address the continuing

destruction and conflicts in many regions of the globe and that the serious discussions that led to the Geneva accords

on Afghanistan will help lead to solutions in southern Africa, Ethiopia, Cambodia, the Persian Gulf, and Central

America. I have often said: Nations do not distrust each other because they are armed; they are armed because they

distrust each other. If this globe is to live in peace and prosper, if it is to embrace all the possibilities of the

technological revolution, then nations must renounce, once and for all, the right to an expansionist foreign policy.

Peace between nations must be an enduring goal, not a tactical stage in a continuing conflict.

I've been told that there's a popular song in your country—perhaps you know it—whose evocative refrain asks the

question, "Do the Russians want a war?" In answer it says: "Go ask that silence lingering in the air, above the birch

and poplar there; beneath those trees the soldiers lie. Go ask my mother, ask my wife; then you will have to ask no

more, 'Do the Russians want a war?'" But what of your one-time allies? What of those who embraced you on the

Elbe? What if we were to ask the watery graves of the Pacific or the European battlefields where America's fallen

were buried far from home? What if we were to ask their mothers, sisters, and sons, do Americans want war? Ask

us, too, and you'll find the same answer, the same longing in every heart. People do not make wars; governments do.

And no mother would ever willingly sacrifice her sons for territorial gain, for economic advantage, for ideology. A

people free to choose will always choose peace.

Americans seek always to make friends of old antagonists. After a colonial revolution with Britain, we have

cemented for all ages the ties of kinship between our nations. After a terrible Civil War between North and South,

we healed our wounds and found true unity as a nation. We fought two world wars in my lifetime against Germany

and one with Japan, but now the Federal Republic of Germany and Japan are two of our closest allies and friends.

Some people point to the trade disputes between us as a sign of strain, but they're the frictions of all families, and the

family of free nations is a big and vital and sometimes boisterous one. I can tell you that nothing would please my

heart more than in my lifetime to see American and Soviet diplomats grappling with the problem of trade disputes

between America and a growing, exuberant, exporting Soviet Union that had opened up to economic freedom and

growth.

And as important as these official people-to-people exchanges are, nothing would please me more than for them to

become unnecessary, to see travel between East and West become so routine that university students in the Soviet

Union could take a month off in the summer and, just like students in the West do now, put packs on their backs and

travel from country to country in Europe with barely a passport cheek in between. Nothing would please me more

than to see the day that a concert promoter in, say, England could call up a Soviet rock group, without going through

any government agency, and have them playing in Liverpool the next night. Is this just a dream? Perhaps, but it is a

dream that is our responsibility to have come true.

Your generation is living in one of the most exciting, hopeful times in Soviet history. It is a time when the first

breath of freedom stirs the air and the heart beats to the accelerated rhythm of hope, when the accumulated spiritual

energies of a long silence yearn to break free. I am reminded of the famous passage near the end of Gogol's "Dead

Souls." Comparing his nation to a speeding troika, Gogol asks what will be its destination. But he writes, "There was

no answer save the bell pouring forth marvelous sound."

We do not know what the conclusion will be of this journey, but we're hopeful that the promise of reform will be

fulfilled. In this Moscow spring, this May 1988, we may be allowed that hope: that freedom, like the fresh green

sapling planted over Tolstoy's grave, will blossom forth at last in the rich fertile soil of your people and culture. We

may be allowed to hope that the marvelous sound of a new openness will keep rising through, ringing through,

leading to a new world of reconciliation, friendship, and peace.

Thank you all very much, and da blagoslovit vas gospod—God bless you.

Supreme Court Case Documents

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