
By Rosaland Tyler
Associate Editor
New Journal and Guide
In 1960, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. walked toward the podium at Spelman College, adjusted the microphone and announced the title of his Founder’s Day speech.
“Keep Moving From This Mountain,” in retrospect, was not a mere speech. Instead, it was a largely ambitious to-do list that was drafted during the Jim Crow era. Its relevance today stems from the fact that it illustrates what happens when a stack of dominoes starts a chain reaction.
Civil rights gains began to cascade and spill through the nation’s streets three years after Dr. King delivered his speech in 1960 but the civil rights movement’s momentum began long before 250,000 people attended the 1963 March on Washington. However, the historic march led to the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act which led to the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. But in 2013, the Supreme Court’s decision to suspend Section 5 from the Voting Rights Act slowed Black voter turnout which had steadily increased from 1965 to 2013.
Black voter turnout began to gain momentum in 1965 after the law was enacted. Specifically, it increased from 6 percent in 1964 to 59 percent in 1969.
From 1964 to 2020, Black voter turnout ranged from 48 to 62 percent. Then, Black voter turnout surged in 2008 and 2012. President Barack Obama won a first and a second term, at a time when Blacks voted at a higher rate than Whites in 2008.
“Obama’s candidacy forced a rewrite of the record books,” a 2016 Washington Post report noted. “Black turnout exceeded white turnout – 69.1 percent to 65.2 percent – for the first time in history. By 2012, when Obama sought reelection, the gap was even larger, even though turnout among both groups decreased slightly.”
While the number of eligible Black voters was projected to climb to 34.4 million in 2024, the momentum in Black-voter-turnout abruptly shifted gears after the 2013 Supreme Court ruling in the Shelby County v. Holder case. Or look at it this way. First, Shelby County v. Holder eliminated a key provision of the Voting Rights Act in 2013. Next, the Black-White voter turnout gap materialized. Similar to how only one domino falls and starts a chain reaction that soon gains momentum.
Some answers surface in the March 2, 2024 report compiled by the Brennan Center for Justice. Researchers analyzed nearly 1 billion voter file records of registered voters. Brennan researchers concluded, “Jurisdictions that previously had been required to preclear any changes to voting with the federal government dramatically increased the rate at which they removed voters, even if state laws governing list maintenance did not change.”
Translated, it means more states are purging voters.
And this is where Dr. King’s 1960 speech at Spelman on Founder’s Day comes in.
“Keep Moving From This Mountain” begins with Biblical imagery but quickly shifts. One minute, Dr. King’s speech describes how people “found themselves under the gripping yoke of Egyptian rule” and were led out of the Egypt of slavery to a bright and glowing promised land. The next minute, Dr. King talks about desegregating lunch counters, capitalism, moral and ethical relativism.
The speech is relevant today, (especially after Vice President Kamala Harris’ recent loss to President-elect Donald Trump), because Dr. King identifies three specific mountains (or attitudes) that Moses and the former slaves developed on their way to the promised land.
One group wanted to go back to Egypt, Dr. King said. “A second group abhorred the idea of going back to Egypt and yet could not quite attain the discipline and the sacrifice to go on to Canaan. These people chose the line of least resistance.
“There was a third group, probably the creative minority, which said in substance, ‘We will go on in spite of the obstacles, in spite of the difficulty, in spite of the sacrifices that we will have to make.’”
One day Moses confronted this problem. Writing in the book of Deuteronomy, the first chapter and the fifth verse, he said: “You have been in this mountain long enough, turn ye and go on your journey, move on to the mount of the Amorites.”
This was a message of God through Moses. And whenever God speaks he says go forward, saying in substance that you must never become bogged down in mountains and situations that will impede your progress. You must never become complacently adjusted to unobtained goals; you have been in this mountain long enough, “turn ye and take your journey.”
Dr. King wrapped up his speech. “I do not stand here as a detached spectator,” he added. “I speak as one who lives every day amidst the threat of death … keep moving, for it may well be that the greatest song has not yet been sung, the greatest book has not been written, the highest mountain has not been climbed. This is your challenge!”
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Today, a growing mountain of evidence suggests the Black-White voter turnout gap is the new challenge. “Keep Moving From This Mountain” is useful today because momentum describes a process. Momentum describes a movement that develops and becomes less likely to stop, similar to how a line of dominoes may abruptly flip on a dime while in motion and swing sharply right or left.
It is impossible to predict how many chain reactions will occur in 2025. Keep moving.