We are republishing a speech by Harry Belafonte, originally published in Freedomways in 1972. We believe that Belafonte’s assessment of King and Du Bois as revolutionaries contains vital lessons for the young generation. The original publisher’s note reads as follows: “Harry Belafonte, the internationally famous performing artist, was a trusted advisor and friend of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. These brief remarks preceded his performance accompanied by the Howard Roberts Chorale at the FREEDOMWAYS annual W.E.B. Du Bois Cultural Evening, January 30, 1972.”
On all levels of life and as each day unfolds, respect for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. grows impressively, and the essence of this respect is the fact that he had deeper insights than most of us have appreciated. It is not mere poetry to call him prophetic. The accuracy of his prophecies is almost uncanny.
By the early 1950’s, history had endowed him with a sense of the precise moment that black people were ready for mass action, ready for its risks, and ready for its responsibilities. At a time when there was only limited, essentially timid, activity, except for those acts solely confined to the courts, Dr. King realized that blacks were ready to do battle on a series of fronts and to do it defiantly, proudly and militantly in massed ranks. Although he was himself unique and incomparable, even among the foremost of leaders, he was not a believer in elitism. He knew that the power of the isolated intellectual had great limitations. He perceived that only in joining individual brilliance with the strength and steadfastness of the masses can a movement of transforming power be achieved. Thus he brought the people into the making of their own history.
Following his early dramatic triumphs, Dr. King brooded. For he recognized that dismantling segregation was in and of itself not enough. He understood that racism with all of its bestiality was only one of the aspects of the forces that were and are destroying mankind. In the face of this truth, he saw that it was necessary to consolidate centers of power that represent the thrust for liberation. Earlier than others he saw the potential in electoral activity, not on a token scale, but involving millions of black people, poor whites, Chicanos, students, and women. So he fought for the ballot. However, he did not fall into the trap of posing electoral activity against other forms of direct action. He favored both and felt black people could do both simultaneously. Before his brutal assassination, he was able to see partial fulfillment of his struggles in the election of black Mayors, Sheriffs, Congressmen and State Legislators. Today there are approximately 2,000 black elected officials—when Dr. King began his work there were less than 300.
Another of Dr. King’s prophecies was that American society would degenerate if it persisted in making wars and repressing its minorities. Obsessive militarism, he argued, would end in defeat no matter what territories the American military overran. He uttered this grave warning more than a decade ago. Today, no one denies that America has descended into a cultural and moral abyss. Old wars hang on, new ones loom on the horizon. The young generation is hounded by disillusionment and drugs and the black young are the most serious victims. The decay and death of the cities are a nationally recognized tragedy. The air and water are poisoned systematically. But beyond all of these there is a more extraordinary indication that like the Roman Empire of old, this system is degenerating though it still looks powerful; I am referring to the explosive growth of corruption in government, in business, in police forces, and in institutions of justice. Big business buys immunity from government regulations; racketeers bribe entire police departments, elected officials, and even judges; army generals in an even more sophisticated form of bribery are given fabulous salaries by war manufacturers when they leave the armed forces. Add to this that once again, history records that the American Army is committing mass atrocities expressive of its racism.
Taking it all together we are seeing a society ripping itself apart materially and spiritually. It does not matter what imposing production figures are accomplished, how many cars are made and sold, how many television sets are built and in use. None of this will change the painful fact that this is a morally weak and degenerating nation.
These facts are important to us because we have talked very often, very glibly, about revolution.
All too many leaders have simplistically understood revolution to be practical when those who are oppressed become dissatisfied. By itself, this is a dangerous illusion. In addition to the discontent of the oppressed, there must be a weakened and indeed a feeble adversary. If the ruling elite is powerful and arrogant, no amount of revolutionary zeal will enable a minority to seize its share of power. For too long we have been beguiled by many leaders who judged what we should demand only by what we wanted. Life is not so generous and neat. Our demands have to be related to our strength.
To recognize that today the adversary is weaker than fifty years ago is to say that now we should strengthen our unity, increase our militance and broaden our demands. We are the most vital social force in the nation. If we keep ourselves together, the monolithic institution of racism and exploitation must fall. Just as a black King David, Martin Luther King, Jr., in the South fifteen years ago, declared segregation was doomed and put together the non-violent army that took it to its deserved grave. We now have a mandate. For Dr. King told us a time would come when the enemy would be weak enough and we would be strong enough. We need to listen closely to his prophetic voice because the time is near and we have work to do.
On this very platform in one of his last major addresses before his death in 1968, Dr. King said of Dr. Du Bois, and I quote:
"Above all he did not content himself with hurling invectives for emotional release and then to retire into smug passive satisfaction. History had taught him it is not enough for people to be angry—the supreme task is to organize and unite people so that their anger becomes a transforming force. It was never possible to know where the scholar Du Bois ended and the organizer Du Bois began. The two qualities in him were a single unified force.
"This life style of Dr. Du Bois is the most important quality this generation of Negroes needs to emulate. The educated Negro who is not really part of us, and the angry militant who fails to organize us have nothing in common with Dr. Du Bois. He exemplified black power in achievement and he organized black power in action. It was no abstract slogan to him.
"We cannot talk of Dr. Du Bois without recognizing that he was a radical all of his life. Some people would like to ignore the fact that he was a Communist in his later years. It is worth noting that Abraham Lincoln warmly welcomed the support of Karl Marx during the Civil War and corresponded with him freely. In contemporary life the English speaking world has no difficulty with the fact that Sean O'Casey was a literary giant of the twentieth century and a Communist, or that Pablo Neruda is generally considered the greatest living poet, though he also served in the Chilean Senate as a Communist. It is time to cease muting the fact that Dr. Du Bois was a genius and chose to be a Communist. Our irrational obsessive anti-communism has led us into too many quagmires to be retained as if it were a mode of scientific thinking."
If there be those among you here tonight who may find that quote irrelevant, then I suggest you reflect on, that while we are here gathered, a glorious sister, Angela Davis, is in a cruel cell of repression fulfilling her commitment to our freedom. Indeed the relevance of this award being made to Martin Luther King, Jr., tonight can be clearly found in a 1907 statement replying to criticism of a speech made in 1906 by Dr. Du Bois to the Niagara movement a quarter of a century before the birth of Dr. King, and I quote:
"The man that has a grievance is supposed to speak for himself. No one can speak for him—no one knows the thing as well as he does. Therefore, it is reasonable to say that if the man does not complain that it is because he has no complaint. If a man does not express his needs, then it is because his needs are filled. And it has been our great mistake in the last decade that we have been silent and still and have not complained when it was our duty not merely to ourselves but to our country and to humanity in general to complain and to complain loudly. It is then high time that the Negro agitator should be in the land.
"It is not a pleasant role to play. It is not always pleasant to nice ears to hear a man ever coming with his dark facts and unpleasant conditions. Nevertheless it is highest optimism to bring forward the dark side of any human picture. When a man does this he says to the world: ‘Things are bad but it is worthwhile to let the world know that things are bad in order that they may become better.’ The real crushing pessimism takes hold of the world when people say things are so bad that they are not worth complaining of because they cannot be made better.
"It is manifest that within the last year the whole race in the United States has awakened to the fact that they have lost ground and must start complaining and complain loudly. It is their business to complain."
The absence of Dr. King speaks so profoundly. Not just to those of us who were close to him and loved him dearly, but to the entire family of Man in this glorious, exciting, and enormously painful time in history when it is mandatory that, like the Phoenix, we rise from the ashes of decay and darkness and continually complain, and complain, and complain loudly until that day when—with resistance, rebellion, organizing and rebuilding unified by truth and the knowledge that our cause is just—Man will find himself wrapped in a new day of love, justice and eternal brotherhood.
Avant-Garde: A Journal of Peace, Democracy, and Science 
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