The Moral Arc

NOTES

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PROLOGUE: BENDING THE MORAL ARC

2. Many accounts describe King as being either at the top of the capitol steps, on the steps, or at the bottom of the steps. There are eyewitnesses accounts in which it is claimed that King delivered his famous speech from the steps. For example, John N. Pawelek recalls: “When we arrived at the state capitol, the area was filled with throngs of marchers. Martin Luther King was on the steps. He gave a fiery speech which only a Baptist minister can give.” (goo.gl/eNyaGX). The Alabama Byways site tells its patrons reliving the Selma to Montgomery march to “walk on the steps of the capitol, where King delivered his ‘How Long, Not Long’ speech to a crowd of nearly 30,000 people.” (goo.gl/gnAfSX). In his book Getting Better: Television and Moral Progress (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books, 1991, p. 48), Henry J. Perkinson writes: “By Thursday, the marchers, who now had swelled to twenty-five thousand, reached Montgomery, where the national networks provided live coverage as Martin Luther King strode up the capital [sic] steps with many of the movement’s heroes alongside. From the top of the steps, King delivered a stunning address to the nation.” Even the Martin Luther King Encyclopedia puts him “on the steps.” (goo.gl/Rxw8pY).
This is incorrect. The BBC reports of the day, for example, say that King “has taken a crowd of nearly 25,000 people to the steps of the state capitol” but was stopped from climbing the steps and so “addressed the protesters from a podium in the square.” (goo.gl/7ybfKa). The New York Times reports that “The Alabama Freedom March from Selma to Montgomery ended shortly after noon at the foot of the Capitol steps” and that “the rally never got on to state property. It was confined to the street in front of the steps.” (goo.gl/5vuJ8D). In this video, archival footage from 3:40 to 3:50 shows “The marchers make their way to the steps of the capitol building—but not beyond.” (http://goo.gl/KdLEhM). The original caption to the aerial photograph included in the text, from an educational online source, reads: “King was not allowed to speak from the steps of the Capitol. Can you find the line of state troopers that blocked the way?” Finally, in this video, from 40:53 to 41:15, you can see various entertainers who preceded Dr. King and the pulpit he used, all on a flatbed truck. (http://goo.gl/zq5XG6). This is confirmed by these firsthand accounts: “A few state employees stood on the steps. They watched a construction crew building a speaker’s platform on a truck bed in the street.” (goo.gl/K6a8U7). And: “The speakers platform is a flatbed truck equipped with microphones and loudspeakers. The rally begins with songs by Odetta, Oscar Brand, Joan Baez, Len Chandler, Peter, Paul & Mary, and Leon Bibb. From his truck-bed podium, King can clearly see Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.” (goo.gl/5HWznV).