Martin Luther King, Jr. speaks - Part Three

TITLE: Martin Luther King, Jr., “The American Dream” (February 5, 1964)

CREATORS: Martin Luther King, Jr., Drew University Archives

SOURCE: Internet Archives upload from Drew University Archives

LICENSE: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (Creative Commons By Attribution-Non-Commercial-ShareAlike)

In this final portion of Dr. King’s great speech at Drew University, he delineates three types of love and applies them to the civil rights issues of his day.  King praises students who have taken up the cause of non-violent resistance.  He cautions the audience not to react in a knee-jerk way to the word “maladjusted.”  And he describes his conception of the beloved community, in which we can “respect the dignity and worth of human personality.”

Click on the arrow below to access Part Three of the speech.

To go to a particular timestamp, click to the right or left on the bars.
‍Important timestamps are as follows:

0:30 – “How can you love people who are bombing your home and people who are threatening your children and people who are using violence against your every move?”
1:18 – “eros” = affectionate love: romance
2:09 – “phileo” = reciprocal love: friendship
2:28 – “agape” = universal love: goodwill for all men
5:09 – “…we will wear you down…”
8:39 – “If this problem is to be solved, there must be something of a divine discontent.”
10:44 – “Indeed there is a need for a new organization in our world: the International Association for the Advancement of Creative Maladjustment.”
12:10 – “Before the victory is won, maybe some more like a courageous Medgar Evers will have to face physical death.”