King responded in his own syndicated newspaper column, which ran in multiple Black papers, writing that a lot of white people were wondering when he would stop demonstrating and boycotting; when he would stop speaking out against war, poverty, and racism; when things in America could go back to normal. His answer was simple, he said. So long as war, poverty, and racism remain part of “normal” America, he wrote, “then I prefer to be maladjusted.”
