“However deeply American Negroes are caught in the struggle
to be at last at home in our homeland of the United States, we cannot ignore
the larger world house in which we are also dwellers.” - Martin Luther King
Jr., Nobel Prize acceptance speech
During the Cold War in September of 1964, Martin Luther King
Jr. was invited to speak in Berlin, Germany at a memorial service for John F.
Kennedy and to 20,000 people at the Waldbühne amphitheater. The impact of his one-and-a-half-day visit is
still remembered today.
The invitation came from West Berlin Mayor Willy Brandt and
Provost Heinrich Grüber who had previously had contact with King during
separate visits to the U.S. Both men had
perceived the struggle of overcoming racism similar to the struggle of
resisting fascism.
Three years earlier, the Berlin Wall had been erected. Against the U.S. government’s wishes, King
also traveled to East Berlin. By word of
mouth, his offer of giving an ecumenical service at St. Mary’s Church spread,
resulting in 1,000 people squeezing into the ancient church. To accommodate the overflow turned away, King
repeated the speech at a different church.
At East Berlin’s Humboldt University, black students had the opportunity
to speak with King.
The East German clergy had been resisting the GDR
government’s policies. The pastor of St.
Mary’s Church had recently been imprisoned for speaking out against the
government and smuggling people across the border. King’s message “that nonviolence is not
sterile passivity, but a powerful moral force which makes for social
transformation,” was considered a ray of hope to the beleaguered clergy. He spent the evening with East German pastors
before returning to West Berlin by midnight.
“Here on either side of the Wall are God’s children and no
man-made barrier can obliterate that fact,” said King to the masses on both
sides of the wall. In East Berlin, his
words of “freedom” and “civil disobedience” resonated with the people.
During this trip, King also visited Pope Paul VI at the
Vatican. This picture was taken at a
press conference in London before King returned to the United States.