The Other America (speech)

"The Other America" is a speech by Martin Luther King Jr. delivered in various forms at least five times from 1967 until 1968. It was first given in its recognized form on Friday, April 14, 1967, at the Memorial Auditorium at Stanford University, where it was filmed and recorded by KQED-TV. King delivered three well-known variations that have transcriptions, at Stanford, Hunter College, and Grosse Pointe High School. In the original 49-minute speech, King addresses the concept of Two Americas, the history of the civil rights movement, the long-term problem of racism in the United States, arguments for and against addressing it, a proposal for a comprehensive anti-poverty program with a guaranteed minimum income, and closes out the speech by touching briefly on his opposition to the Vietnam War.

Historian Sylvie Laurent notes the speech draws influence from writer and activist Michael Harrington and economist John Kenneth Galbraith. The title and the theme of King's speech was influenced by Harrington, a democratic socialist who had once worked on several civil rights campaigns with King. Galbraith, a post-Keynesian economist who took an institutionalist approach, also informed King's speech, with both of their ideas evolving into key positions taken by King's Poor People's Campaign (PPC) a year later. King eventually developed a loose alliance with Robert F. Kennedy to promote the PPC, with three of the ideas originally found in the speech becoming PPC campaign policy proposals by March 1968: a call for a guaranteed annual income, a need for a public works program, and an end to the Vietnam War.