What’s Past Is Prologue
On May 31, 1964, at the height of the Civil Rights Movement, the Los Angeles Coliseum became a rally stage for an unlikely pairing. As the nation grappled with racial injustice and awaited the historic Civil Rights Act, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered a stirring keynote address, declaring,
“Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to open the floodgates of opportunity and allow now an avalanche of justice to pour upon us.”
Amidst this electric atmosphere, actor Dick Van Dyke took the stage to deliver The Most Non-Political Speech, written by The Twilight Zone creator Rod Serling. Serling’s words transcended the political debates of the day, calling for a recognition of human dignity and equality as universal truths—fundamental values that surpass partisan divides and represent shared moral imperatives. His speech underscored a principle rooted in equality, justice, and the inherent dignity of all.
Today, November 5, 2024, Americans face another polarized political landscape, with many communities still fighting for equality. The struggle for justice and unity continues, now challenged by evolving forms of exclusion and discrimination.
Perhaps the most controversial idea Serling offered was a call for “we” over “me.” This concept, so basic and rational, should be obvious—far from an "ah-ha" moment from The Twilight Zone. And yet, sadly, it still is.
Rod Serling’s message resonates as powerfully today as it did in 1964. His words remind us that true democracy requires more than winning arguments; it demands dismantling systems of injustice and ensuring that all voices are heard and valued. These values extend beyond party lines and labels. As we vote, we each have a duty to help build a society that truly upholds the dignity and rights of every person.
A Most Non-Political Speech
By Rod Serling
May 31, 1964
Ladies and gentlemen, this may be the most non-political speech you ever hear. And, indeed, if you look for controversy, what I’m about to say conjures up little conflict.
We have reached a moment in time when restless men, dispossessed men, angry and impatient men, and anguished men look up and reach out for an elusive justice oft promised them, long denied them, but in the eyes of God and man’s conscience is their due and should be their expectation. I say this is non-political and non-controversial. We’re not talking now about miscegenation. Or whether a man can fence his yard. Or a hotdog vendor carefully select his customer. Or an innkeeper choose not to accommodate a particular traveler. These are the ramifications of the problem. They are not the problem. There have to be some bridges built; but first we have to acknowledge the rivers.
This is what I think is basic. This is what I believe to be the most common denominator in this spring of 1964. This must be first, the recognition and then the admission—that the dignity of human beings is not negotiable. The eminent worth of man has no pro and no con. And the desperate need for an understanding and a respect between all men is as fundamental as the process of breathing in and breathing out.
On this spring night we look toward Washington, D.C., and hear the echoed overtones of a debate. We watch the struggle to invoke a cloture. We hear the voices of the willful foot-draggers and the hopeful sprinters as they trade and compromise and give battle for what they believe. But again, there is something happening on this earth transcendent of the Senates, the governments, the temporal voices of the champions of rights and the filibusters of wrong.
What is happening is that a whole world has suddenly become cognizant of its oneness. An idea of brotherhood has ceased to be an abstract. It has taken on a form and dimension and breadth and meaning. “Every man’s death diminishes me”—a lyrical stab at truth from another century. But in this nineteen hundred and sixty-fourth year of our Lord, every man’s indignity, every man’s hunger, every man’s search for freedom, every man’s life reinforces me and revitalizes me and rededicates me. “We cannot be half-free and half-slave,” Mr. Lincoln said. And now, a hundred years later, we find that we cannot be half hungry and half content; half with dignity, half with shame; half with freedom, half with a simple yearning to be free; half with prerogatives, half asking for just a few; half superior, half denied the right to prove even equality.
You cannot legislate human love. Have you heard that phrase? “You cannot pass a law to stop people from hating”—a battle slogan of those who don’t want to be bothered. A statement of philosophy from 20th-century non-philosophers who would probably melt down the test tubes used to look for the microbes and the bacteria and the virus that caused cancer. Cancer is with us, so why fight it? Leave it to the individual patients. But don’t make waves. Don’t stir the river bed. And above all, don’t contemplate the beauty of this earth. The deeds of love. The small, gradual, but inexorable move upward of the human animal toward an enlightened moment in time when the person next door is the neighbor, the Negro is the darker neighbor, the South American is my Latin neighbor, the Japanese is my Oriental neighbor.
You can’t legislate against prejudice? You would rather perhaps accept it as part of the innate personality of the homo sapien? You would rather say that it’s with us, it’s here to stay, it’s part of the social phenomenon of our time. If this is the premise to be lived with, accepted, and—God help us—embraced, then let us throw away theology. Let us unencumber ourselves of the premise of God. Let us tear up our art, our literature, all of our culture, and let us retire to a rubble of our own making and manufacture barbed wire instead of stained glass.
Hatred is not the norm. Prejudice is not the norm. Suspicion, dislike, jealousy, and scapegoating—none of these things is the transcendent facet of the human personality. They are the diseases. They are the cancers of the soul.
They are the infectious and contagious viruses that have bled humanity over the years. But because they have been and are, is it necessary that they shall be?
I think not. If there is one voice left to say “welcome” to a stranger; if there is but one hand outstretched to say “enter and share”; if there is but one mind remaining to think a thought of warmth and friendship, then there is also a future in which we will find more than one hand, more than one voice, and more than one mind dedicated to the cause of man’s equality.
Wishful, hopeful, unassured, problematic, and not to be guaranteed. This is all true. But again, on this spring evening of 1964, a little of man’s awareness has shown itself. A little of his essential decency, his basic goodness, his preeminent dignity, has been made a matter of record. There will be moments of violence and expressions of hatred and an ugly re-echo of intolerance, but these are the clinging vestiges of a decayed past, not the harbingers of the better, cleaner future. To those who tell us that the inequality of the human animal is the necessary evil, we must respond by simply saying that first, it is evil but second, it is not necessary. We prove it, sitting here tonight. We prove it by reaffirming our faith. We prove it by having faith in our reaffirmations.
Horace Mann said, “Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.” Let’s paraphrase that tonight. Let us be ashamed to live without that victory.
Powerful word. I wish more people not only heard these words, but listened to them, absorbed them, and lived them with their every breath!
Thanks for sharing. Serling wrote this? Mind blown.