Excerpts from
artin Luther King, Jr.'s Famous Sermon
"I See the Promised Land"
This was Dr. King's last ermon. He delivered it on the eve uf his a u sinutiou, April 3, 1968.
" ... Now the other thing we'll have to do' this: Alway anchor our e ternal direct
action with the power of economic withdrawal. Now, we are poor people, individu
ally, we are poor when you compare us with white ociety in America. We are poor. ever
top and forget that collectively, that means all of us together, collectively we are richer
than all the nation in the world, with the e ception of nine. Did you ever thin about
that? After you leave the United States, Soviet Russi, Great Britain, West Germany,
France, and I could name the others, the Negro collectively is richer than most nation of
the world. We have an annual income of more than thirty billion dollar a year, which is
more than all of the exports of the United States, and more than the national budget of
Canada. Did you know that? That's power right there, if we know how to pool it.
We don't have to argue with anybody. We don't have to cur e and go around acting bad
with our words. We don't need any bricks and bottle , we don't need any Molotov cocktails,
we just need to go around to these stores, and to th e massive industries in our country,
and say, "God sent us by here, to say to you that you're not treating his children right. And
we've come by here to 88 you to make the first item on your agenda - fair treatment, where
God's children are concerned. Now, if you are not prepared to do that, we do have an agenda
that e must folIo . And our agenda calls for withdrawing economic upport from you."
And , as a ult of this, we are asking you tonight, to go out and tell your neighbors not to buy
Coca-Cola in Memphis. Go by and tell them not to buy Sealtest milk. Tell them not to buy -."
" ... But not only that, we've got to strengthen blac institutions. I call upon you to take your
money out of the banks downtown and de po it your money in Tri-State Bank - we want a
"bank-in" movement in Memphi . So go by the savings and loan as ociation. I'm not
as ing you omething that we don't do our elves at SCLC. Judge Hoo and others will tell
you that we have an account here in the savings and loan a ociation from the Southern
Christian Leadership Conference. We're just telling you to follow what we're doing. Put
your money there. You have ix or seven blac insurance companies in Memphi . Take out
your in urance there. We want to have an "insurance-in."
ow th e are ome practical things we can do. We begin the proc of building a greater
economic ba e. And at the arne time, we are putting pre sure where it really hurts. I ask
you to follow through here.
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