TIME WARP Once lost, a recording of MLK’s civil rights ASU speech echoes still. BY KRISTEN MOSBRUCKER M artin Luther King Jr. once told a crowd in Tempe that the “wind of change is blowing” and that wind was “sweeping away an old (world) order” of systemic racism, racial segregation, and civil rights for all in Ari- zona. That was on June 3, 1964. King Jr. pushed for the passage of the federal Civil Rights Act — stuck in a U.S. Senate filibuster at the time. “If it does not pass, and pass soon, it may well be that the already ugly soot of racial injustice on the body politic will suddenly turn malignant, and our nation will be inflicted with an incurable cancer that will totally destroy our moral and po- litical health,” King Jr. said that day. But the audio recording of that speech, King Jr.’s only public address in Arizona, was just a memory for the 8,000 attendees. Until 2013. That’s when a local resident discovered the reel-to-reel tapes of King speaking in- side Godwin Stadium at Arizona State Uni- versity. The tapes sat on a Phoenix Goodwill store shelf on sale for $3. The audio, donated to the thrift store as part of the Lincoln Ragsdale Sr. estate, was released to the public in 2014 but there was little fanfare at the time. Ragsdale Sr. was a local civil rights leader of his own right, a business owner, and Tuskegee Airman who died in 1995 and advocated for equal- ity alongside King during his life. King’s visit carries echoes today. Then, Senator Barry Goldwater voted against the Civil Rights Act in July 1964, despite King’s speech. Now, Senator Kyrsten Sinema halted passage of the Freedom to Vote and John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Acts in the U.S. Senate by refusing to change fed- eral filibuster rules. Sinema staunchly de- nied on the Senate floor that she is against the voting rights bills. Decades after King’s lone foray to Ari- 24 zona, on what would have been King’s 93rd birthday, his descendants gathered in Phoenix to advocate for those federal vot- ing rights bills, which are again unlikely to Stan Gilbert, Arizona State University move forward because of Arizona politics. King’s oldest living child, Martin Lu- ther King III, alongside his wife, Arndrea Waters King, and their daughter, Yolanda Renee King, marched for social justice in Phoenix on the holiday bearing their name. “Voting is an essential part of our de- mocracy’s infrastructure, and we cannot afford for it to crumble any further,” Wa- ters King said. Her father-in-law, King Jr., delivered his speech titled “Religious Witness for Human Dignity” to that ASU crowd. The civil rights leader and famous ora- tor was invited by the Maricopa County chapter of the NAACP and introduced by then-president G. Homer Durham of ASU. Racial segregation was rampant in schools, workplaces, and neighborhoods across the state for decades. Phoenix native Frederick H. Warren — the eldest of six children — was a young elementary school teacher at the time of King’s speech, which he faintly remembers attending more than 50 years ago. Warren, now 85, is a retired local school superintendent who lives in Tempe is the former president of the Black history museum in the area, the George Washington Carver Museum and Cultural Center. Warren went to Booker T. Washington Elementary School, where Phoenix New Times has its offices. Later, he attended Carver High School and his grandmother had the first Black-owned pharmacy across the road along Jefferson Street. Warren is a graduate of ASU and later worked there as an adjunct faculty mem- ber. He also holds a law degree from Pep- perdine University and retired from the Roosevelt School District in 2003. “I was impressed by Dr. King, by his speech and the crowd was impressed and welcoming,” Warren said. The stadium was where his uncle, Mor- rison Warren, played football for ASU be- fore he went on to become the first Black man to serve on the Phoenix City Council. Morrison Warren died in 2002. Before the 1960s, Black people were not allowed to eat at the lunch counters of Woolworth or other restaurants, and the movie theaters had a section in the balcony for Black moviegoers, Frederick Warren said. There were whites-only motels and even hospitals at the time. The neighbor- hood boundaries between white folks and Black folks were along Van Buren Martin Luther King Jr. at Arizona State University’s Goodwin Stadium in 1964 flanked by (from left) Msgr. Robert Donohoe, the Rev. Louis Eaton, an unidentified participant, Ralph Abernathy, and G. Homer Durham. >> p 26 JAN 27TH– FEB 2ND, 2022 PHOENIX NEW TIMES | MUSIC | CAFE | FILM | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | FEATURE | NEWS | OPINION | FEEDBACK | CONTENTS | phoenixnewtimes.com
