Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? (King Legacy Book 2)

by Martin Luther King Jr.

Meanwhile frustration and a loss of confidence in white power have engendered among many Negroes a response that is essentially a loss of confidence in themselves. They are failing to appreciate two important facts. First, the line of progress is never straight. For a period a movement may follow a straight line and then it encounters obstacles and the path bends. It is like curving around a mountain when you are approaching a city. Often it feels as though you were moving backward, and you lose sight of your goal; but in fact you are moving ahead, and soon you will see the city again, closer by. We are encountering just such an experience today. The inevitable counterrevolution that succeeds every period of progress is taking place. Failing to understand this as a normal process of development, some Negroes are falling into unjustified pessimism and despair. Focusing on the ultimate goal, and discovering it still distant, they declare no progress at all has been made. This mood illustrates another fact that has been misinterpreted. A final victory is an accumulation of many short-term encounters. To lightly dismiss a success because it does not usher in a complete order of justice is to fail to comprehend the process of achieving full victory. It underestimates the value of confrontation and dissolves the confidence born of a partial victory by which new efforts are powered. The argument that the Negro has made no progress in a decade of turbulent effort rests on demonstr...