The Civil Rights Rhetoric of Bernadette Devlin and Martin Luther King Jr.

In April 1969, at the beginning of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, newly elected Bernadette Devlin took her seat the Westminster Parliament and spoke in defiance of the ruling party, advocating non-violence and resistance to the oppressive Unionist government of Northern Ireland.

Bernadette Devlin McAliskey, Irish civil rights leader    San Francisco, 1970
Bernadette Devlin McAliskey, Irish civil rights leader
San Francisco, 1970

By 1969, the North had been the scene of growing conflict between a dispossessed population of Catholics and poor Protestants, and a majority Protestant government concerned with maintaining power and connections to the United Kingdom. Devlin made her maiden speech in Parliament in the wake of increasingly violent clashes between civil rights protesters and Protestant mobs supported by police.

Injured civil rights protesters at Burntollet Bridge, a march which was modeled after the Selma-Montgomery march in the US. During this march, when protesters were attacked, police did nothing to help.
January 4th, 1969. Injured civil rights protesters at Burntollet Bridge, a march which was modeled after the Selma-Montgomery march in the US. During this march, when protesters were attacked, police did nothing to help.

In her first speech to Parliament, Devlin derides Parliament’s support for the Unionist party, advocates for unity between working class Protestants and Catholics, urges the importance of non-violent resistance in civil rights, and outlines many of the issues facing the poor in the North, including lack of representation in a sectarian government that refuses to share power.

A year earlier, in April 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. made his final speech in Memphis Tennessee, rallying support for the contentious Memphis sanitation strike, after a march turned violent. In his speech, King demands nonviolence and unity between sanitation workers and civil rights leaders, keeping the civil rights movement’s wider goal in mind: freedom and equality for every person.

Martin Luther King delivering his last speech at the Mason Temple Pentecostal Church in Memphis, Tennessee.
Martin Luther King delivering his last speech at the Mason Temple Pentecostal Church in Memphis, Tennessee.

King urges spiritual sacrifice and brotherhood, appealing to the history of the civil rights movement in America, while also urging leaders to take into account objective economic and social conditions that they must reform, and structures they must work to overturn.

As John Conroy remarks in Belfast Diary, “Northern Catholics in Belfast had a position in society equivalent to blacks in the United States at that time,” and that similarity comes across when comparing these texts: both speakers favor non-violence, both highlight the true political and economic power of a united movement, and both allude to wider aspirations to overturn social structures that breed inequality. A look at these two speeches also reveals where a comparison between the conditions of blacks in the United States and Catholics in Northern Ireland breaks down, particularly in the leaders’ attitudes toward religion, and their views on violence as defense for a non-violent movement.

Taken together, these two documents illustrate common themes between two different civil rights movements, revealing a common struggle to maintain non-violence against a violent and unjust socio-economic structure that dispossesses the many and favors the few. The two speeches also highlight important differences between the conditions of Northern Ireland and America in the 1960s. Devlin and King regard religion very differently, as the history of Northern Ireland is one of division by religion, and King uses religion to reach across racial and class divides. Regarding non-violence, Devlin and King share views on the morality and tactical advantage that non-violence has over violence, but differ over when violence is acceptable as self-defense, as Devlin quips, “I organized the civilians in that area to make sure they wasted not one solitary stone in anger.”

Barricades erected during the Battle of the Bogside in August 1969, in Derry.
Barricades erected during the Battle of the Bogside in August 1969, in Derry.

While the civil rights movements in the American South and Northern Ireland are often seen as parallel to each other, a direct comparison of speeches from their respective leaders reveals the common struggles of civil rights movements against entrenched unjust social structures, or as King puts it, “something is happening in our world. The masses of people are rising up.”

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