I am so happy that I did not sneeze

Martin Luther King once said:

"You know, several years ago, I was in New York City autographing the first book that I had written. And while sitting there autographing books, a demented black woman came up. The only question I heard from her was, "Are you Martin Luther King?" And I was looking down writing, and I said, "Yes." And the next minute I felt something beating on my chest. Before I knew it I had been stabbed by this demented woman. I was rushed to Harlem Hospital. It was a dark Saturday afternoon. And that blade had gone through, and the X-rays revealed that the tip of the blade was on the edge of my aorta, the main artery. And once that's punctured, you're drowned in your own blood -- that's the end of you. It came out in the New York Times the next morning, that if I had merely sneezed, I would have died. Well, about four days later, they allowed me, after the operation, after my chest had been opened, and the blade had been taken out, to move around in the wheel chair in the hospital. They allowed me to read some of the mail that came in, and from all over the states and the world, kind letters came in. I read a few, but one of them I will never forget. I had received one from the President and the Vice-President. I've forgotten what those telegrams said. I'd received a visit and a letter from the Governor of New York, but I've forgotten what that letter said. But there was another letter that came from a little girl, a young girl who was a student at the White Plains High School. And I looked at that letter, and I'll never forget it. It said simply, 'Dear Dr. King, I am a ninth-grade student at the White Plains High School. While it should not matter, I would like to mention that I'm a white girl. I read in the paper of your misfortune, and of your suffering. And I read that if you had sneezed, you would have died. And I'm simply writing you to say that I'm so happy that you didn't sneeze.' And I want to say tonight -- I want to say tonight that I too am happy that I didn't sneeze. Because if I had sneezed, I wouldn't have been around here in 1960, when students all over the South started sitting-in at lunch counters. And I knew that as they were sitting in, they were really standing up for the best in the American dream, and taking the whole nation back to those great wells of democracy which were dug deep by the Founding Fathers in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. If I had sneezed, I wouldn't have been around here in 1961, when we decided to take a ride for freedom and ended segregation in inter-state travel. If I had sneezed, I wouldn't have been around here in 1962, when Negroes in Albany, Georgia, decided to straighten their backs up. And whenever men and women straighten their backs up, they are going somewhere, because a man can't ride your back unless it is bent. If I had sneezed -- If I had sneezed I wouldn't have been here in 1963, when the black people of Birmingham, Alabama, aroused the conscience of this nation, and brought into being the Civil Rights Bill. If I had sneezed, I wouldn't have had a chance later that year, in August, to try to tell America about a dream that I had had. If I had sneezed, I wouldn't have been down in Selma, Alabama, to see the great Movement there. If I had sneezed, I wouldn't have been in Memphis to see a community rally around those brothers and sisters who are suffering. I'm so happy that I didn't sneeze." ( read and hear the entire speech)

It is typical, when we experience such powerful eloquence, such masterful invention, and such a heroic attitude, to praise the virtues of the speaker or writer. We say then that he is brilliant, that he is a genius, and we talk about the power and depth of his feeling and courage. But I cannot at this moment find it in me to praise Dr. King. It is not merely because his words have broken me down and made me tearful and mute before the truth, though his words have done that. It's not merely because my powers as a writer are not equal to such praise, though that is true enough. No, I cannot praise Dr. King because if I did so I would be betraying something. My heart knows something and it will speak out. The human personality, on its own, with all its craft and invention and strength, with all its wealth of experience, could not speak such words. I think Dr. King would agree with me, since after all he was a preacher through and through. We may not believe in God in the same way that he did, because we are more intellectual or philosophical in our ways now, though that may not be a compliment to us. Yet there comes a point when we have to surrender somehow to this most direct way of speaking, and just frankly admit that God was speaking through him. If you listen to the whole speech you will hear the voice of a mighty spirit who descended upon our times, who entered into our turbulent and confused society, because that spirit wanted "to see what is unfolding." We are hearing the story of a spirit who found us robbed, beaten, and left to die upon "The Bloody Path", and risked everything to support us in our time of need. And what is more than all of this is that this spirit walked upon the earth in gladness. With all the evils that King both witnessed and suffered, even at the hands of his own people, still the spirit within him was glad to live, honored and blessed by the opportunity to be among us, "determined to go on anyhow," singing and praying before firehoses and police dogs and in paddywagons and in jail cells, and glad. And if my heart has been burst open by the words of this dynamite spirit, let me allow that spirit to take possession of me, too. And let me walk forth in gladness.