City of Faith Supplement: Pilgrims/This is Not That Dawn Bibliography
Transcript | Pilgrims/This Is Not That Dawn, 2022 Utsa Hazarika
Indian postage stamp (1969) featuring audio from Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Martin Luther King III, Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, Hasan Minhaj, Femi Oke and Malika Bilal.
Faiz: This stained light, this night-bitten dawn
King: When I was in India...
King III: I come, tracing my father and mother's steps... it all starts here
King: Leaders in and out of government
Organizations, particularly the Gandhi Smarak Nidhi
and the Quaker Center
and many homes and families, have done their utmost
to make our short stay both pleasant and instructive
Minhaj: We're in this country because of protest
because of the Civil Rights Movement
The only reason so many of us are here
is because of the Immigration Act of '65
That law rode the wave of the Civil Rights Act of '64
Faiz: The one we had longed for – this is not that dawn
King: In the same setting, in theological seminary days
I had heard of Gandhi
But I remembered hearing a message by the
President of Howard University, Dr. Mordecai Johnson
who had just returned from India
He spoke in Philadelphia
on his trip to India, and the whole philosophy of Gandhi
and passive and non-violent resistance
I was so deeply moved by the message
that I went away and bought several books
on Gandhi and Gandhian technique
and at that point I became deeply influenced by Gandhi
never realizing that I would live in a situation where
it would be useful and meaningful
Minhaj: Think of the chess moves
Martin gets Lyndon B. Johnson to sign
that sheet of paper
and little do we know
MLK cc'ed us on that email of progress
Because of that one signature
Faiz: The one we had longed for – this is not that dawn
Minhaj: America's story didn't start when we got here
King: When I was in India...
one afternoon, I went down to speak
in the southern part of India
in a school that was attended by and large by
young boys and girls who were
the children of former untouchables
I remember that afternoon that the principal
got up to introduce me
he said I would like to present to you
a fellow untouchable from the United States of America
and for the moment I was peeved, I was shocked
that I would be introduced as an untouchable
Minhaj: A Black man was murdered in cold blood
and we were on the fucking sidelines, watching
Ambedkar: Mere washing off of untouchability is of no consequence
We have been carrying on with untouchability for the
last two thousand years, nobody has bothered about it
Minhaj: But hey, it's not our fight right?
Femi Oke: Mahatma Gandhi is famous worldwide for his
non-violent resistance to British colonial rule
but last week, University of Ghana officials removed
his statue from the campus, citing complaints from
faculty and students that he was racist towards
Black Africans
King: Pretty soon my mind ran back across to America
Faiz: This is not that dawn, this is not that dawn
which we had set out hoping to find
someplace, somewhere
King: and I started thinking about the fact that there
were so many places that I couldn't go
because of the color of my skin
Minhaj: Twenty percent of Muslims in America are Black
we don't even like praying at the same mosques
Ambedkar: Nobody cares about Hindu temples now
The untouchables have become so conscious of the fact
that temple-going is of no consequence at all
You live in the untouchable quarter just the same
whether you went into the temple, or whether you
didn't enter the temple
King: My twenty million brothers and sisters
in the Negro community of America
still at the bottom of the economic ladder
Ambedkar: We want untouchability to be abolished, you see
but we also want, you see,
that we must be given equal opportunities, you see
so that we may rise to the level of the other classes
King: deprived of adequate housing conditions
unable to live in numerous neighborhoods
because of the color of their skin
Ambedkar: Mr. Gandhi was totally opposed – totally opposed
Faiz: The one we had longed for – this is not that dawn
Bilal: This is just the latest attack against Africans in India
where tens of thousands of students
from the continent study
Now African embassies are urging the
United Nations Human Rights Council to investigate
King III: I come, tracing my father and mother's steps
but also, following in the steps of Gandhi
It all starts here
Ambedkar: He was never a Mahatma
And I refuse to call him Mahatma
King: And I had to say to myself I am an untouchable
Segregation is evil and sinful because it stigmatizes
the segregated as an untouchable in a caste system
We have a moral edict, a moral mandate
to work to get rid of this unjust and evil system
if the American dream is to be a reality
Minhaj: We think we're not a part of the story
but we're at the scene of the crime
List of Sources
- Dr. B.R. Ambedkar interviewed by the BBC, 1955
- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. interviewed by Martin Agronsky for Look Here, NBC, 1957
- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. postage stamp, India Post, 1969
- Farewell Statement for All India Radio, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., All India Radio, Prasar Bharti Archives, 1959, published online 2021
- Martin Luther King – Untouchables in India and America, Los Angeles World Affairs Council & Town Hall, 1965, published online 2015
- Martin Luther King III commemorates his father's visit to India 50 years back, AP Archive, 2009, published online 2015
- Racism against Africans in India, The Stream, Al Jazeera English, 2017
- Subh-e-Azadi, Faiz Ahmed Faiz, 1947, audio published online by Brown Verses, 2022. Translation from Urdu to English adapted by the artist from Love and Revolution: Faiz Ahmed Faiz – The Authorised Biography, Ali Madeeh Hashmi, Rupa, 2016
- We Cannot Stay Silent About George Floyd, Patriot Act Digital Exclusive, Netflix, 2020
- Was Mahatma Gandhi racist?, The Stream, Al Jazeera English, 2018
