Dec. 6, 1964 - Dr. Martin Luther King told a congregation in London’s St. Paul Cathedral today that “the doctrine of black supremacy is as great a danger as the doctrine of white supremacy.” Four thousand Britons packed the cathedral to its huge doors to hear the first evening sermon ever delivered in St. Paul’s by a non-Anglican. Dr. King, a Baptist, said, “All over the world, as we struggle for justice and freedom, we must never use second-class methods to gain it.” Speaking in the measured cadence familiar to millions of Southern Negroes in the U.S., Dr. King added: “We must not seek to rise from a position of disadvantage to one of advantage, substituting injustice of one type for that of another. We must not substitute our oppression for another kind of oppression.”
The civil rights leader, visiting London on his way to Oslo to receive the Nobel Prize for Peace, devoted his sermon largely to noncontroversial themes. But his plea for moderation in the rights struggle appeared directed at the activities of Malcolm X, leader of the militant Black Nationalist movement, who is also in London.
Speaking on television last night, Mr. X warned that the patience of U.S. Negroes was wearing thin in the fight for equal rights. He intimated that major violence was just under the surface.
At a news conference after his sermon, Dr. King pursued the racial question. “Negroes in the United States are more in line with the philosophy of integration and togetherness,” he said, “and not in line with racial separation.”
He added that only 75,000 out of 22 million Negroes in the United States “joined groups supporting black supremacy.”
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