Incredible story in today’s column by EJ Montini, ‘Lost’ tape of MLK at ASU in 1964 haunts us in 2014. Mary Scanlon, a graphic designer, found a trove of reel-to-reel tapes in a Goodwill, recordings of a radio show by Lincoln Ragsdale, who was one of the Tuskegee airmen, and the only known tape of a speech Martin Luther King gave at ASU in 1964.
The whole story is worth a read, but I want to spotlight one section of MLK’s speech Montini quoted. Beautiful writing, perfectly constructed concept.
“It may be true that morality can’t be legislated, but behavior can be regulated. It may be true that the law cannot change the heart, but it can restrain the heartless. It may be true that the law can’t make a man love me, but it can restrain him from lynching me and I think that’s pretty important also.”
This article appears in Jan 30 – Feb 5, 2014.
Thank you, David Safier, for calling attention to what I consider to be the most significant event in my life: being in the presence of Martin Luther King Jr. at ASU in 1964.
I was halfway through high school and a member of the Methodist Youth Fellowship, aka: MYF. Our Minister, John Attwood and his wife, Louise Attwood, took some of us to the ASU football stadium to be there for that mind-blowing event. I say mind blowing because, well, for starters, there were no African American students at Scottsdale High School or at our church for that matter at that time. Banks “redlined” African Americans from obtaining a mortgage.
That event, indeed, was mind changing and had more influence over the rest of my life than any other single event.
As I recall, Martin Luther traveled all the way to LA that night in order to find a hotel that would take him in. At that time hotel owners through out Arizona refused Black people. Attorney William Rehnquist defended these hotel owners and Phoenix schools “right” to discriminate. It would not be too much longer before Richard Nixon made Rehnquist a Supreme Court Justice.
Thanks again for writing about MLK at ASU in 1964. You made my day!
Very interesting. I never knew he spoke at ASU
I suspect if MLK were here today – he’d be standing on the steps of White House beating the daylights out of Obama Holder and the NAACP crying out: “Set my people free!!”