Non-Violence Won
Wright, Marion A.
Non-Violence Won Stride Toward Freedom, by Martin Luther King, Jr. Harper. $2.95. Reviewed by Marion A. Wright When Thoreau wrote On the Duty of Civil Disobedience, "an insurgent essay that has...
...King was not without white support...
...There were many, but Thoreau seems to have introduced the idea...
...Reviewed by Marion A. Wright When Thoreau wrote On the Duty of Civil Disobedience, "an insurgent essay that has helped to reshape the world," the clang of the trolley had not been heard in the streets and the city bus was some decades in the future...
...Segregated seating on Montgomery buses and abusive treatment of Negro passengers did not present an issue so large as that of Indian independence...
...That is the book's great significance for the white South...
...It must in fairness be recorded that Dr...
...The issue could have involved any form of segregation—schools, parks, playgrounds, golf courses, theaters, and a dozen others...
...The sixth chapter of Stride Toward Freedom is appropriately entitled Pilgrimage to Non-violence...
...But the cause flourished and ultimately triumphed in Indian independence...
...The teachings of Jesus and of Gandhi gave it strength and support...
...But that essay was destined profoundly to affect his life and, through him, the customs and institutions of the Southern states...
...It will give the reader as clear an understanding of segregation as he could get from many days of sociological study...
...The story moves with spirit to the inevitable climax...
...It is one of the numberless tragedies of segregation that such skills are not officially utilized...
...For in this drama of a bus boycott there are found all of the components of the segregation problem—the humiliation, the brutality, the animal cunning, the official tyranny, the cowardice of midnight bombing, the evasion and insincerity on the one hand and the gentleness, determination, and administrative skill on the other...
...It was a method with which the Montgomery city authorities and the state of Alabama were unable to cope, as the British had been unable in India...
...But the two movements had in common the determination of men, whether in India or Alabama, that they would no longer endure oppression...
...This book is concerned with an effort in only one city—Montgomery, Alabama—and in relation to only one issue—seating on buses...
...It was his view that never the twain should meet...
...King's career gives that view a distinct jolt...
...Uneasy must lie the heads of those committed to maintaining a system of caste...
...The bus boycott began as a one-day protest...
...The spirit of non-violence, in Montgomery, at least, was not incompatible with practical and temporal exertions...
...And Dr...
...But the effort is the whole segregation story in microcosm...
...Stride Toward Freedom may be read in a few hours...
...The cast of characters is complete...
...This meant almost over-night arrangements to transport 17,000 Negroes to and from their jobs and on other essential missions...
...The parents of Martin Luther King, Jr., had not yet been born...
...In Alabama, as in India, there were arrests and brutal treatment, but there was also success...
...King and his followers in Montgomery would succeed anywhere...
...Car pools had to be set up, pick-up points established, routes and schedules worked out...
...King records the factors which propelled him into acceptance of the philosophy with which his name is associated...
...Referring to the "Montgomery incident," the author writes, "Christ furnished the spirit and motivation, while Gandhi furnished the method...
...It takes no fatalist to see that the spirit and method of Dr...
...The city could have been any one of scores in the South...
...King's ordeal was in part made bearable by the encouragement of friends to whom color was no barrier...
...E. S. Martin used to divide men neatly into two classifications—celestials and carnals, meaning roughly men of the spirit and men of practical affairs...
...But the response was so overwhelming and enthusiasm so intense that it was resolved to continue the riders' strike until their legitimate grievances were met...
...All of this was done with precision and administrative skill which would be envied by any utility corporation...
...Gandhi's salt marches and his other non-violent activities landed him in jail and brought brutal treatment for his followers...
...In that chapter Dr...
...A young white minister was ever loyally at his side...
Vol. 22 • December 1958 • No. 12
