Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on Civil Rights and Apartheid South Africa – December 7, 1964 in London
Our struggle as Black folks in America, and as African people throughout the diaspora, has always been a global struggle, fundamentally connected to freedom movements on the African continent. We stand to learn a lot from those who have gone ahead of us, and who have understood and engaged this struggle within that international context.
This speech by Dr. King adds much to that perspective, and to our understanding of what was (at that time) a growing internationalilzation of what had been domestically identified as the civil rights struggle. It has always been about so much more than "civil" rights.
From a Democracy Now broadcast earlier this year...
In a Democracy Now! and Pacifica Radio Archives exclusive, we air a newly discovered recording of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. In December 7, 1964, days before he received the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, King gave a major address in London on segregation, the fight for civil rights and his support for Nelson Mandela and the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa. The speech was recorded by Saul Bernstein, who was working as the European correspondent for Pacifica Radio. Bernstein's recording was recently discovered by Brian DeShazor, director of the Pacifica Radio Archives.