Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954-63

by Taylor Branch

some black, not some yellow and some brown, but all flesh shall see it together. They shall see it from Montgomery! They shall see it from New York! They shall see it from Ghana! They shall see it from China! For I can look out and see a great number, as John saw, marching into the great eternity, because God is working in this world and at this hour and at this moment. And God grants that we will get on board and start marching with God, because we got orders now to break down the bondage and the walls of colonialism, exploitation, and imperialism, to break them down to the point that no man will trample over another man, but that all men will respect the dignity and worth of all human personality. And then we will be in Canaan’s freedom land. Moses might not get to see Canaan, but his children will see it. He even got to the mountain top enough to see it, and that assured him that it was coming.” King closed the service by asking the congregation to sing the traditional Baptist hymn of invitation, and the members of the prim little church filed out to the strains of the organ postlude, having sampled not only London and Ghana but King’s own vision of apocalypse.