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<\/p>\nMartin Luther King\u2019s path to the Nobel Peace Prize took him to several countries and included encounters with J. Edgar Hoover, and the founders of the British civil rights movement. But it began with a Quaker in Philadelphia.<\/p>\n
Colin W. Bell, a career charitable worker, wrote the first nominating letter that led to King\u2019s award, the second Nobel Prize for Peace awarded to an African-American. (Diplomat Ralph Bunche received the 1950 prize for negotiations in the Arab-Israeli conflict.)<\/p>\n
The British-born Bell had done Friends relief work in Asia and managed a medical unit in China during World War II. At the time he nominated the civil rights legend he was executive secretary of the American Friends Service Committee. The Nobel Foundation includes \u201cdirectors of peace research institutes and foreign policy institutes\u201d as qualified nominators for the Peace Prize.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Board, in reaching its decision, was conscious of the baleful effect of racial tension upon the organization of peace\u201d Bell wrote. \u201cIt felt that the work and witness of Martin Luther King, and the spirit in which he promoted \u2018the dignity and worth of the human person,\u2019 were influencing the attitudes of great numbers of men and women throughout the world. Until the attitudes epitomized in the life of Martin Luther King were to spread among individual men the nations could not achieve real peace.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn this respect Martin Luther King\u2019s influence went far beyond the issue of racial tension, and pointed the way to basic new relationships between men everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n
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In its full nomination, the American Friends Service Committee played up the international dimension of King\u2019s movement, emphasizing the risks revealed by the Cuban missile crisis and pointing out the potential that leaders of the anti-colonial movement in Africa might adopt non-violence.<\/p>\n
But there was a hitch. The Friends nomination was sent in 1963, and the award that year went to the International Committee for the Red Cross. Nobel nominating rules set a February deadline for submissions, and Bell\u2019s letter reached Oslo after the due date.<\/p>\n
At the end of the year, Bell renewed his support for King and asked that the nomination be rolled over for 1964, a request the Nobel Foundation granted. King was one of forty-four nominees that year. Among the others were socialist politician Norman Thomas, Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia, and the Shah of Iran.<\/p>\n
Much had happened since King\u2019s first nomination. The August 1963 March on Washington focused international attention on the American civil rights movement, and King\u2019s \u201cI Have a Dream\u201d speech took its place in the catalogue of great rhetoric. King also received an important second nomination, this time in a letter signed by eight members of Sweden\u2019s parliament.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause of his strong influence,\u201d the Swedish politicians wrote, \u201che has managed to get his followers to adhere to the principle of nonviolence. Without King's firm conviction of the rightness and effectiveness of this principle, demonstrations and marches could easily have given way to riot and ended in bloodshed\u2026 King has helped establish that not hatred but reconciliation, understanding and respect have become hallmarks for both sides in the fight against racial discrimination.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Swedes also pointed up the global dimension of the non-violent civil rights movement. \u201cDr. Kings' efforts in the United States can be pattern-forming in the struggle for justice and equality elsewhere in the world,\u201d they wrote, \u201cthus contributing to the resolution of separate conflicts with peaceful means.\u201d<\/p>\n
The year 1964 also brought doubts that non-violence would win the day. A riot broke out in Harlem in mid-July, followed a few days later by one in Rochester, New York. North Philadelphia erupted in late August. The unrest in the three cities resulted in five deaths, hundreds of injuries, and more than 2,000 arrests.<\/p>\n
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The violence led some observers to question the southern, rural King\u2019s ability to speak for urban blacks. \u201cMartin Luther King can\u2019t reach those people,\u201d novelist James Baldwin said. \u201cI think he knows it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The October announcement of his prize came at a low point for King. He had checked into an Atlanta infirmary, pleading exhaustion, when his wife Coretta brought the good news. At thirty-five, the reverend was then the youngest person ever to receive the peace prize.<\/p>\n
The journey didn\u2019t end there. Prior to leaving the United States, King had a long, confidential meeting with FBI director Hoover, whom he had long criticized over the Bureau\u2019s civil rights record. On the first leg of his trip to Oslo, King stopped in London and spoke at St. Paul\u2019s Cathedral. Malcolm X, King\u2019s ideological opposite in the Civil Rights movement, was in London at the time, and in his public statements King minimized the appeal of militancy and separatism.<\/p>\n
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\u201cNegroes in the United States are more in line with the philosophy of integration and togetherness, and not in line with racial separation,\u201d he told reporters. King\u2019s most consequential encounter in Blighty was with a small group of local activists at the Hilton, who went on to found the Campaign Against Racial Discrimination, Britain\u2019s first modern civil rights organization.<\/p>\n
King had fewer than four years to live when he received his Nobel Peace Prize. Bell continued his work for the Friends until the late sixties and died in 1985. In his acceptance speech, King placed his own prize in the context of a mass movement with millions of unknown activists.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday I come to Oslo as a trustee, inspired and with renewed dedication to humanity,\u201d King said. \u201cI accept this prize on behalf of all men who love peace and brotherhood. I say I come as a trustee, for in the depths of my heart I am aware that this prize is much more than an honor to me personally.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Martin Luther King\u2019s path to the Nobel Peace Prize took him to several countries and included encounters with J. Edgar Hoover, and the founders of the British civil rights movement. But it began with a Quaker in Philadelphia. Colin W. Bell, a career charitable worker, wrote the first nominating letter that led to King\u2019s award, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39,"featured_media":39949,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,16],"tags":[33,368,369,370],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n