The United Nations
In the introduction, Martin Luther King Jr. particularizes, “In 1945 the newly formed United Nations had refused to take a firm stand against colonialism but three years later approved the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, giving moral support to struggles against colonialism and all forms of racial discrimination.” Although the UN sanctioned ‘the Universal Declaration of Human rights’, its initial refusal to censure colonialism is ironic. The UN would have been anticipated to endorse the integrity of its mandate by starting with the denunciation of colonialism because colonialism was the foremost stumbling block which was encumbering the unity of states.
“The Educated’s Indifference’
Martin Luther King Jr. explicates, “Due to a lack of tenacity on the part of the leaders and of active interest on the part of the citizens in general, the Citizens Coordinating Committee finally dissolved. With the breakdown of this promising undertaking, it appeared that the tragic division in the Negro community could be cured only by some divine miracle. But not only was the community faced with competing leadership; it was also crippled by the indifference of the educated group. This indifference expressed itself in a lack of participation in any move toward better racial conditions, and a sort of tacit acceptance of things as they were. To be sure, there were always some educated people who stood in the forefront of the struggle for racial justice—but they were exceptions. The vast majority were indifferent and complacent.” The educated folks’ antipathy designates that they were not passionate with clamoring for improved ‘racial conditions’; the education that they had accessed was not valuable in shifting their viewpoints on the realism of prejudice in America. The educated displayed a predilection for a status quo. The ironic complacency specifies that the educated were frightened to being at the vanguard of the civil campaigns because it would endanger their financial position which was dependent on the jobs controlled by authoritative whites.
‘The Negro Ministers’ Apathy’
Martin Luther King Jr. expounds, “The apparent apathy of the Negro ministers presented a special problem. A faithful few had always shown a deep concern for social problems, but too many had remained aloof from the area of social responsibility. Much of this indifference, it is true, stemmed from a sincere feeling that ministers were not supposed to get mixed up in such earthly, temporal matters as social and economic improvement; they were to “preach the gospel” and keep men’s minds centered on “the heavenly.” The ministers’ detachment is equivalent to unqualified carelessness. The ministers held a reliable locus of leadership that would have been convenient in advancing the case for equivalence. Instead, they elected to tranquilize the masses with ideas about heaven. Their indifference infers that the attention on individuals should be heaven and not the world. Evangelizing about heaven does not accord the faithful fair social conditions though. Heaven and earth are not mutually exclusive; inasmuch as faithful anticipate Heaven, their civil rights should not be despoiled frantically.
