BHC: MLK on White folks and the Pace of Progress
“I have been dismayed at the degree to which abysmal ignorance seems to prevail among state, city and even Federal officals on the whole question of racial justice and injustice… But this white failure to comprehend the depth and dimension of the Negro Problem is far from being peculiar to Government officials…. It seems to be a malady even among those whites who like to regard themselves as “enlightened.” … I wonder at [persons] who dare to feel that they have some paternalistic right to set the timetable for another [person’s] liberation. Over the past several years, I must say, I have been gravely disappointed with such white “moderates.” I am inclined to think that they are more of a stumbling block to Negro’s progress than the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner.”
-Martin Luther King Jr.
July 1965