Assignment Paper

1. What is the central idea behind King’s speech?
2. Why does he think he has won this award?
3. Place the document in context: What concerns about America does he express in his
speech? How does this speak to more than the Civil Rights fight?
4. What hopes does he express?
5. As a well-informed student of history who has studied this period, why do you think he
was given this award?
Martin Luther King’s Acceptance Speech, for the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Dec. 10, 1964
I accept the Nobel Prize for Peace at a moment when 22 million Negroes of the United
States of America are engaged in a creative battle to end the long night of racial injustice. I
accept this award on behalf of a civil rights movement which is moving with determination and a
majestic scorn for risk and danger to establish a reign of freedom and a rule of justice. I am
mindful that only yesterday in Birmingham, Alabama, our children, crying out for brotherhood,
were answered with fire hoses, snarling dogs and even death. I am mindful that only yesterday in
Philadelphia, Mississippi, young people seeking to secure the right to vote were brutalized and
murdered. And only yesterday more than 40 houses of worship in the State of Mississippi alone
were bombed or burned because they offered a sanctuary to those who would not accept
segregation. I am mindful that debilitating and grinding poverty afflicts my people and chains
them to the lowest rung of the economic ladder.
Therefore, I must ask why this prize is awarded to a movement which is beleaguered and
committed to unrelenting struggle; to a movement which has not won the very peace and
brotherhood which is the essence of the Nobel Prize.
After contemplation, I conclude that this award which I receive on behalf of that
movement is a profound recognition that nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and
moral question of our time – the need for man to overcome oppression and violence without
resorting to violence and oppression. Civilization and violence are antithetical concepts. Negroes
of the United States, following the people of India, have demonstrated that nonviolence is not
sterile passivity, but a powerful moral force which makes for social transformation. Sooner or
later all the people of the world will have to discover a way to live together in peace and thereby
transform this pending cosmic elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. If this is to be
achieved, man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression,
and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.
The tortuous road which has led from Montgomery, Alabama to Oslo bears witness to
this truth. This is a road over which millions of Negroes are traveling to find a new sense of
dignity. This same road has opened for all Americans a new era of progress and hope. It has led
to a new Civil Rights Bill, and it will, I am convinced, be widened and lengthened into a
superhighway of justice as Negro and white men in increasing numbers create alliances to
overcome their common problems.
I accept this award today with an abiding faith in America and an audacious faith in the
future of mankind. I refuse to accept despair as the final response to the ambiguities of history…
I refuse to accept the idea that man is…unable to influence the unfolding events which surround
him. I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of
racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality.
I refuse to accept the cynical notion that nation after nation must spiral down a
militaristic stairway into the hell of thermonuclear destruction. I believe that unarmed truth and
unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right temporarily defeated is
stronger than evil triumphant. I believe that even amid today’s mortar bursts and whining bullets,
there is still hope for a brighter tomorrow. I believe that wounded justice, lying prostrate on the
blood-flowing streets of our nations, can be lifted from this dust of shame to reign supreme
among the children of men. I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have
three meals a day for their bodies, education, and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality,
and freedom for their spirits…When our days become dreary with low-hovering clouds and our
nights become darker than a thousand midnights, we will know that we are living in the creative
turmoil of a genuine civilization struggling to be born.