(Vol. 114 No. 1) Text (PDF) - Spelman College: Home

to speak the within of a man’s life,which is the realm of culture, and thewithout that is the realm of civilization.There is structure, which is therealm of means, and destiny, which isthe realm of ends, preliminary concernswhich are the realm of scienceand technology, ultimate concernswhich are the realm of morals andethical religion. The great danger thatfaces our civilization is that we willallow the without of life to absorb thewithin that we will allow destiny to gettied up in structure that we will allowour preliminary concerns to takeprecedence over ultimate concern. Wehave been in this mountain longenough.One of the dangers we must alwayswatch in our nation and in the systemunder which we live is known as capitalism.As you know, capitalismstresses the profit motive. Of coursecapitalism has done some marvelousthings for our nation and the world.Through this economic system wehave been able to build up the greatestsystem of production that the worldhas ever known and we have becomethe richest nation in the world. All ofthis is marvelous. But the dangerpoint is that we will become soinvolved in the profit-making andprofit-getting aspects of capitalismthat we will forget certain ends of life.There is always the danger that we willbecome more concerned about makinga living than making a life thatwe will not keep that line of divisionbetween life and one’s livelihood.And there is also the danger thatour system can lead to tragic exploitation.We must come out of the mountainand be concerned about a morehumane and just economic order.And I say, this afternoon, that we cannotsolve this problem by turning toCommunism. Communism is basedon as ethical relativism and a metaphysicalmaterialism that no Christiancan accept. I do believe that inAmerica we must use our vastresources of wealth to bridge the gulfbetween abject, deadening povertyand superfluous, inordinate wealth.God has left enough space in thisuniverse for all of his children to havethe basic necessities of life. As I traveledaround the Middle East and inIndia and Africa, I have always beenmoved and deeply concerned aboutthe poverty in those countries. Povertythere is so widespread, because thesepeople have been exploited by foreignpowers. Every time I look and noticethese conditions, I start thinkingabout the fact that in the UnitedStates of America we spend almostten billion dollars a year to store thesurplus food that we have in thenation. And I say to myself as I lookat these conditions, I know where wecan store that food free of charge, inthe wrinkled stomachs of hungrymen and women and children of Godall over the world. If the United Statesis to survive, along with all the citizensof the world, we must come outof this mountain of materialismwhich can be transformed from alegitimate individualism into arugged individualism, and we mustmove out of that into a proper concernfor all humanity and into aproper concern in our individual livesfor what I call the within of life —the realm of destiny.There is another mountain wehave been in long enough. We havebeen in the mountain of racial segregationlong enough. We all knowhow long we have been in this mountain,so I need not go back and givethe historical development of it. It isnow time for us to turn and take ourjourney toward the promised land ofintegration. In a real sense, segregationin any form is wrong. Segregationis wrong because it substitutes anI-it relationship for the I-thou relationship.Segregation is wrongbecause it relegates individuals to thestatus of things rather than takingthe high moral position of elevatingthem to the status of persons. Segregationis wrong because it assumesthat God made a mistake — andfinally, it is wrong because it stands inthe face of the great American creed“that all men are created equal andendowed by their creator with certaininalienable rights.” And so we mustgo out and say to our nation and sayto South Africa and say to the world,that we have been in the mountain ofsegregation too long and now wemust move out.Segregation is a cancer in the bodypolitic which must be removed beforeour democratic health can be realized.The underlying philosophy of segregationis diametrically opposed to theunderlying philosophy of democracyand Christianity and all the sophismsof the logicians cannot make them liedown together. We must make it clearthat in our struggle to end this thingcalled segregation, we are not strugglingfor ourselves alone. We are notstruggling only to free seventeen millionNegroes. The festering sore of segregationdebilitates the white man aswell as the Negro. We are struggling tosave America in this very importantdecisive hour of her history.This is why the student movementthat has taken place at this time allover our country is so significant. Letnobody fool you; this movement is oneof the most significant movements inthe whole civil rights struggle. For youstudents, along with other students allover the nation, have become of age,and you will no longer accept it andadjust to it. This movement says, moreclearly than was ever said before, thatsegregation cannot be maintained inthe South without leading to chaosand social disintegration. The beautifulthing about it is that you are notmerely demanding service at thelunch counter, though that is a basicpart of it. You’re not merely demandinga cup of coffee and a hamburgerhere and there. You are demandingrespect. You are saying in substance, Ifyou respect my dollar, you will alsohave to respect me as a person. Anindividual who is not concerned about“ We must alsomove out of themountain ofpracticalmaterialism.”W I N T E R / S P R I N G 2 0 0 05