From Julian Bond to Martin Luther King, Jr., 25 July 1967

July 25, 1967

SCLC Auburn Avenue, NE

Dear Dr. King:

I noticed some remarks by you mentioning the importance of keeping white allies in the civil rights movement and thought I might forward you the following quotation from W. E. B. DuBois' The Souls of Black Folk which eloquently makes that point.

The qotation is from DuBois' essay on Booker T. Washingtion.

" . . . .it is a great truth to say that the Negro must strive and strive mightily to help himself, it is equally true that unless his striving be not simply seconded, but rather aroused and encouraged, by the initiative of the wiser and richer e environing group, he cannot hope for great success.

His doctrine (Washington's) has tended to make the whites, North and South, shift the burden of the Negro problem to the Negro's shoulders and stand aside as critical and rather pessimistic spectators; when if fact the burden belongs to the nation and the hands of none of us are clean is we bend not our energies to righting these great wrongs.

Sincerely ,

Julian Bond

JB: jc