Letter - August 30, 1957

On August 30th, King wrote a two-page letter to Nixon. After explaining his silence since their June meeting (because of his busy schedule), he brought Nixon up to date on the civil rights situation as he saw it. He described his conviction that the impact of the 1957 Civil Rights Act that Nixon had been instrumental in successfully steering through Congress, would depend “on the program of a sustained mass movement on the part of Negroes.”In the letter’s last two paragraphs, King wrote positively about his impression of, and hopes for, the Vice President as a positive and proactive force for civil rights.