The Violence of Nonviolence

IN the Saturday Review of April 3, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King presents for us the etiology of nonviolence in the ongoing Negro revolution. To achieve his aims (which, as is usual with leaders of that revolution, he does not very clearly specify), it is necessary, he writes, that four things take place:

“1) Nonviolent demonstrators go into the streets to exercise their constitutiona1 rights. 2) Racists resist by unleashing violence against them. 3) Americans of conscience in the name of decency demand federal intervention and legislation. 4) The Administration, under mass pressure, initiate measures of immediate intervention and remedial legislation.”

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Frank S. Meyer

Frank S. Meyer was a senior editor of National Review.

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Frank Meyer

IN the Saturday Review of April 3, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King presents for us the etiology of nonviolence in the ongoing Negro revolution. To achieve his aims (which, as is usual with leaders of that revolution, he does not very clearly specify), it is necessary, he writes, that four things take place:

“1) Nonviolent demonstrators go into the streets to exercise their constitutiona1 rights. 2) Racists resist by unleashing violence against them. 3) Americans of conscience in the name of decency demand federal intervention and legislation. 4) The Administration, under mass pressure, initiate measures of immediate intervention and remedial legislation.”