The Press Conference Following Malcolm X's Assassination...
        [Q:] Dr. KING, could things possibly lead to if worse came to worse?
        [MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.] Well, it just continues to degenerate and to darken nights of violence. I think it has to stop somewhere. It isn‚t good for the image of our nation. It isn‚t good for the Negro cause. It isn‚t good for anything that we hold dear in our country and our democracy. I believe firmly in non-violence. I think we have got to learn to disagree without being violently disagreeable and this whole philosophy of expressing dissent through murder must be vigorously condemned.
        [Q:] DR. James Farner has indicated that he believes this is part of an international conspiracy. Do you have any comment on this?
        [K:] Well, I don‚t--I know about that. I have no knowledge to follow through or make such a statement. This may well be but my knowledge doesn‚t reveal this and I don‚t try at this point to even further a speculation as to who assassinated Malcolm X. The Police Department of New York, I assume, is vigorously investigating this and I think until the investigation is finished I would withhold any statement about the person or persons who perpetrated this dastardly act.
        [Q:] DR. KING, you have just come from Selma. What is the feeling of the Negro in general about this thing that is going on now as far as the Black Muslims are concerned. Do they have a feeling about it?
        [K:] Well, I think the general feeling in the Negro community, that this is very unfortunate and that we have such large problems to deal with in getting rid of racial injustice that it is both impractical and immoral to be fighting among ourselves. I think this is the general attitude that prevails among the people that I have had a chance to talk with about it.
        [Q:] DR. KING, is there a present threat to your life?
        [K:] Well, I get threats quite often. This is almost a daily and weekly occurrence. I mentioned in Selma just the other day that I had received information from reliable sources that there would be an attempt to take my life and that there was an attempt when I was in Marian, Alabama which is in Perry County about a week ago but at the time I was surrounded by a number of people and I was never clear enough to be a target and we got some anonymous threats on Monday when I returned to Selma; so that this continues and its something that we get, as I said, ever so often.
        [Q:] Did this information come to you from a well placed source like the FBI?
        [K:] Well, no it didn‚t come from the FBI. This information did come from investigative agencies though. Particularly the incident in Marian. This came from sources within the investigative machinery of the State.
        [Q:] Now, when you say the threat on your life, you‚re  not talking now about from the Black Muslim or the Nationalists. You‚re talking about white segregationists.
        [K:] Oh yes, from segregationists.
        [Q:] DR. KING, have the threats on your life been increasing, the number of them. Have they been increasing?
        [K:] Well, they always increase when we get in the heat and the heighth of the movement. They tend to decrease in periods when we are not in an intensified development but I think that whenever we have ben in the midst of a determined struggle, whether it was in Birmingham or St. Augustine Florida, or Albany, Georgia, or now in Selma. The threats tend to increase at that time.
        [Q:] Dr. King, do you feel there is a possibility that something might happen to you some time? Have you made arrangements for someone to carry on--something like President andVice President have if anything happens?
        [K:] O, yes, we have in our movement many dedicated, intelligent and dynamic leaders. We have this in my own organizations and we have definitely discussed these things very realistically. We are not fooling ourselves about the dangerous possibilities that we face.
        Q. Dr. King, what is your attitude toward the threats that you received?
        K. Well, I guess I have learned now to take them rather philosophically. I think this cause is right and because of my deep feeling about the rightness of the cause, it gives me courage to carry on, and I think that one has to conquer the feeling of death if he is going to do anything constructive in life and take a stand against evil, and I go along with the view that one who has not found something so true and so meaningful and profound that he will die for it is not fit to live, so I am prepared to face anything that comes in standing up to this struggle with the great belief and the great feeling that unmerited suffering is redemptive.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
during a press conference following the  assassination of Malcolm X;
February 25, 1964; Los Angeles