“But you know there comes a time when people get tired. There comes a time when people get tired of being trampled over by the iron feet of oppression.”
You’re listening to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. addressing the National Negro Funeral Directors Association in August of 1956. When Dr. King addressed the group, he was president of the Montgomery Improvement Association, which guided the Montgomery bus boycott.
“And so these people in a state of tiredness decided to rise up in protest.”
“In this moment, black people are not asking for permission for anything.”
Jessica Terry-Eliott is a PhD candidate in History and Curatorial Assistant at the Special Collections Research Center at the Syracuse University Libraries.
“I’m not going to ask for humanity, I’m going to get it myself. You don’t have the right to deny me freedom. You don’t have the right to deny me humility. You don’t have the right to do any of those things. But I have all of the power to make sure that I can operate in society as a full citizen”
“The old world of colonialism and imperialism is passing away. The new world of justice and freedom being born.”
Hear more episodes featuring “The Birth of a New Age” this week at sound beat.org. Sound Beat is produced at the Special Collections Research Center, Syracuse University Libraries.
Image used with permission of the Special Collections Research Center, Syracuse University Libraries.