The struggle to eliminate the evil of racial injustice constitutes one of the major struggles of our time. The first problem that I would like to mention is racial injustice. I refer to racial injustice, poverty, and war. Each of these problems, while appearing to be separate and isolated, is inextricably bound to the other. This problem of spiritual and moral lag, which constitutes modern man’s chief dilemma, expresses itself in three larger problems which grow out of man’s ethical infantilism. When the “without” of man’s nature subjugates the “within”, dark storm clouds begin to form in the world. Enlarged material powers spell enlarged peril if there is not proportionate growth of the soul. If we are to survive today, our moral and spiritual “lag” must be eliminated. This is the serious predicament, the deep and haunting problem confronting modern man. So much of modern life can be summarized in that arresting dictum of the poet Thoreau 1: “Improved means to an unimproved end”. We have allowed the means by which we live to outdistance the ends for which we live. Our problem today is that we have allowed the internal to become lost in the external. The external is that complex of devices, techniques, mechanisms, and instrumentalities by means of which we live. The internal is that realm of spiritual ends expressed in art, literature, morals, and religion. We have learned to fly the air like birds and swim the sea like fish, but we have not learned the simple art of living together as brothers.Įvery man lives in two realms, the internal and the external. The richer we have become materially, the poorer we have become morally and spiritually. There is a sort of poverty of the spirit which stands in glaring contrast to our scientific and technological abundance. Yet, in spite of these spectacular strides in science and technology, and still unlimited ones to come, something basic is missing. This is a dazzling picture of modern man’s scientific and technological progress. His airplanes and spaceships have dwarfed distance, placed time in chains, and carved highways through the stratosphere. He has built gigantic bridges to span the seas and gargantuan buildings to kiss the skies. He has produced machines that think and instruments that peer into the unfathomable ranges of interstellar space. He has reached new and astonishing peaks of scientific success. Modern man has brought this whole world to an awe-inspiring threshold of the future. This evening I would like to use this lofty and historic platform to discuss what appears to me to be the most pressing problem confronting mankind today. These are the real heroes of the freedom struggle: they are the noble people for whom I accept the Nobel Peace Prize. But they are all united in the quiet conviction that it is better to suffer in dignity than to accept segregation in humiliation. I experience this high and joyous moment not for myself alone but for those devotees of nonviolence who have moved so courageously against the ramparts of racial injustice and who in the process have acquired a new estimate of their own human worth. Such is the moment I am presently experiencing. Their meaning can only be articulated by the inaudible language of the heart.
Occasionally in life there are those moments of unutterable fulfillment which cannot be completely explained by those symbols called words. It is impossible to begin this lecture without again expressing my deep appreciation to the Nobel Committee of the Norwegian Parliament for bestowing upon me and the civil rights movement in the United States such a great honor. Nobel Lecture *, DecemThe quest for peace and justice – Nobel Lecture Share this content via Email Share via Email: Martin Luther King Jr.– Nobel Lecture Share this content on LinkedIn Share on LinkedIn: Martin Luther King Jr.– Nobel Lecture Share this content on Twitter – Nobel Lecture Share this content on Facebook Share on Facebook: Martin Luther King Jr.
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