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THE COALITION'S THE THING
RONALD V. DELLUMS

IT is an extraordinary honor and privilege to be here tonight at the FREEDOMWAYS annual W. E. B. Du Bois cultural evening to join you to honor tonight the man called King-a great man, a man who was taken from us, a man who died. And all of us gathered in this place, who touched him and felt his touch, who respected him and felt his respect, and who loved him and felt his love, must also leave this place. You and I must also die. No matter how many vitamin E pills, no matter how many cosmetics, no matter how much jogging you do, you're going to die. Death is inevitable. You can sit right here in Carnegie Hall long enough and you're all going to die. And so if you think about that for a moment, if that be so, then dying is not so challenging, but engaging in the struggle to live is human beings' greatest challenge.
The most courageous act known to human beings is engaging in the battle to live and struggling over the quality of life of human beings. And so dying is no big thing. So if living is what the greatest challenge is all about, then it's fit and proper that tonight has not been a night of gloom and remorse. You see, because King was born, he did live, he did walk among us. He was about life and not death. He was about living and not dying. And in these facts I think we have the right and the privilege to rejoice. For he was one of the most, one of the greatest and beautifully black men that ever walked the face of this earth. He was perhaps one of the most brilliant philosophers to ever conceptualize an idea. He was willing to assume the burden and the risk in the responsibility of leadership.
I never met the man called King that I love so much and respect so powerfully. I only saw him from the back of large crowds. But I heard him at the time when he was courageous enough to oppose America's illegal, immoral and insane adventurism in Indochina. Many of us stood up and said, "What does a 'nigger' know about foreign policy?" But his response was very powerful, and his response stays with me at this very moment, because he understood that lead-
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Ronald V. Dellums is in the forefront of the New Breed of young Congressmen who are a clear voice for the kind of basic social changes the United States needs. This speech was delivered at the Third Annual Du Bois Cultural Evening sponsored by FREEDOMWAYS maga- zine at Carnegie Hall, New York City on January 30, 1972.

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