Martin Luther King jr. Center or Nonviolence and Civil Courage Germany
Archives of the Civil Rights Movement of South West Saxony

The Martin Luther King Centre belongs to the German peace- and civil rights movement. It has is focus in Saxony, but it serves also as a nationwide information center. Confronted with increasing violence we are interested in remembering the endowment of Martin Luther King and other pionieers of nonviolence . We are drawing on the experience of the peaceful revolution in the German Democratic Republic in 1998 trying to apply that to present conflicts particularly in the field of right wing extremism.
We are collecting documents of the Bekennende Kirche (Confessional Church) in the Third Reich and we are serving as archives of the regional civil rights movement in the former East Germany (GDR).
The Martin Luther King center offers a training program mainly for young people. We motivate them to make use of our archives and our library specialized in nonviolent conflict resolution.

Some elder members of the Centre were watched by the Secret Service (Stasi) of the GDR for many years and learned to overcome control and repression by witty ideas like the presentation of a stamp collection concerning the life of Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi. The Center continues to present exhibitions on war and peace issues.

There are some interesting roots of nonviolent conflict resolution in the region of Werdau (near Zwickau, an industrial centre, where the favorite East-German-car „Trabant“ was produced). In 1937 there was a resistance by the Confessional Church to the Nazi-regime. After the war young people remembered the opposition of the „White Rose“ and opposed Stalinism. In 1951 19 youngsters were sentenced to 130 years in prison.
Similar confrontation was avoided later by more flexible methods in articulating dissence.- for example by presenting stamp collections in the offical framework of philatelistic cultural associations.

In Königswalde – near Werdau – in 1973 Christian peace meetings started using the local church facilities. These seminars were important spiritual and practical assemblies of the GDR-peace-and civil rights movement from 1973 until today.
In 1987 the big documentary film on the life of Martin Luther King, jr. was released in Werdau. It took four years of preparation to make this possible. This film was presented between 1987 and 1989 to 10.535 people.

There was a „round table“ in Werdau earlier than in Berlin - bringing together representatives of the civil rights movement and socialist functionaries, who were looking for a way out of the crisis. And in Werdau there was the first newspaper independent of state control.

The Martin Luther King Centre was founded in June 1998 due to the support of peace researchers from all over Germany. A highlight was a visit by Dr. Hildegard Goss-Mayr sharing her experience with nonviolent action all over the world and a concert of the afro-american gospel singer Melbra Rai. Both are honorary members of the Center, as well as Professor Dr. Horst-Eberhard Richter, psychologist and representative of International Physicians for the Prevention on Nuclear War (IPPNW), Peace Nobel Price Winner in 1985.

Remembering the 70th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King, there was an exposition of works of art in the memory of Dr. King.

There may be even some global influence of the Martin Luther King Center thanks to its internet-website. It is used by about 7000 people per month.

« It is not enough to say “we must not wage war”. It is necessary to ove peace and sacrifice for it »