The Protesters Are Upholding America’s Moral Authority Abroad

In December 1956, Martin Luther King Jr. interrupted himself during a speech on desegregation to discuss an event on the other side of the world: the prodemocracy uprising then being quashed in Hungary. “Our minds leap the mighty Atlantic,” he told the National Committee for Rural Schools, because we are “concerned about the Hungarians as they confront the desperate situation that they stand amid everyday.” By “desperate situation,” King meant the Soviet invasion that, while suppressing a popular revolt against Communist rule, had taken about 2,500 Hungarian lives.

Although King was sympathetic toward the Hungarians seeking freedom, he was far less sympathetic toward their boosters in the Eisenhower administration. “It is strange,” he remarked, “that the American government can be so much concerned about the Hungarians