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And I Must Say Tonight That A Riot Is The Language Of The Unheard. And What Is It America Has Failed To Hear? It Has Failed To Hear That The Plight Of The Negro Poor Has Worsened Over The Last Twelve Or Fifteen Years. It Has Failed To Hear That The Promises Of Freedom And Justice Have Not Been Met. And It Has Failed To Hear That Large Segments Of White Society Are More Concerned About Tranquility And The Status Quo Than About Justice And Humanity.

-Martin Luther King, Jr.

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And I Must Say

Martin Luther King, Jr.

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And I Must Say Tonight That A Riot Is The Language Of The Unheard. And What Is It America Has Failed To Hear? It Has Failed To Hear That The Plight Of The Negro Poor Has Worsened Over The Last Twelve Or Fifteen Years. It Has Failed To Hear That The Promises Of Freedom And Justice Have Not Been Met. And It Has Failed To Hear That Large Segments Of White Society Are More Concerned About Tranquility And The Status Quo Than About Justice And Humanity.

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Jazz Speaks For Life. The Blues Tell The Story Of Life's Difficulties.

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If You Can't Be A Sun, Be A Star. For It Isn't By Size That You Win Or Fail. Be The Best Of Whatever You Are.

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No Man (sic) Has Learned To Live Until He Can Rise Above The Narrow Confines Of His Individualistic Concerns To The Broader Concerns Of All Humanity. Length Without Breadth Is Like A Self-contained Tributary Having No Outward Flow To The Ocean. Stagnant, Still And Stale, It Lacks Both Life And Freshness. In Order To Live Creatively And Meaningfully, Our Self-concern Must Be Wedded To Other Concerns.

I’ve Been To The Mountaintop

It Was Argued That The Negro Was Inferior By Nature Because Of Noah's Curse Upon The Children Of Ham.... The Greatest Blasphemy Of The Whole Ugly Process Was That The White Man Ended Up Making God His Partner In The Exploitation Of The Negro.

I Feel That Non-violence Is Really The Only Way That We Can Follow Because Violence Is Just So Self-defeating. A Riot Ends Up Creating Many More Problems For The Negro Community Than It Solved. We Can Through Violence Burn Down A Building, But You Can't Establish Justice. You Can Murder A Murderer, But You Can't Murder Murder Through Violence. You Can Murder A Hater, But You Can't Murder Hate. And What We're Trying To Get Rid Of Is Hate, Injustice, And All Of These Other Things That Continue The Long Night Of Man's Inhumanity To Man.

We Cannot Walk Alone.

Violence As A Way Of Achieving Racial Justice Is Both Impractical And Immoral. It Is Impractical Because It Is A Descending Spiral Ending In Destruction For All.

Hate Is Too Heavy A Burden To Bear.

Our Lives Begin To End The Day We Become Silent About Things That Matter.

Human Salvation Lies In The Hands Of The Creatively Maladjusted.

Whatever Your Life's Work Is, Do It Well. A Man Should Do His Job So Well That The Living, The Dead, And The Unborn Could Do It No Better.

I'm Thinking Of Love In Action And Not Something Where You Say, "love Your Enemies," And Just Leave It At That, But You Love Your Enemies To The Point That You're Willing To Sit-in At A Lunch Counter In Order To Help Them Find Themselves. You're Willing To Go To Jail.

We Are Called To Speak For The Weak, For The Voiceless, For The Victims Of Our Nation And For Those It Calls Enemy, For No Document From Human Hands Can Make These Humans Any Less Our Brothers And Sisters.

This Revolution Is Genuine Because It Was Born From The Same Womb That Always Gives Birth To Massive Social Upheavals - The Womb Of Intolerable Conditions And Unendurable Situations.

How Hard It Is For People To Live Without Someone To Look Down Upon-really To Look Down Upon. It Is Not Just That They Feel Cheated Out Of Someone To Hate. It Is That They Are Compelled To Look More Closely Into Themselves And What They Don't Like About Themselves.

Freedom Has Always Been An Expensive Thing. History Is Fit Testimony To The Fact That Freedom Is Rarely Gained Without Sacrifice And Self-denial.

Just As Socrates Felt That It Was Necessary To Create A Tension In The Mind So That Individuals Could Rise From The Bondage Of Myths And Half-truths To The Unfettered Realm Of Creative Analysis And Objective Appraisal, So Must We See The Need For Nonviolent Gadflies To Create The Kind Of Tension In Society That Will Help Men Rise From The Dark Depths Of Prejudice And Racism To Majestic Heights Of Understanding And Brotherhood.

It Is Not Possible To Be In Favor Of Justice For Some People And Not Be In Favor Of Justice For All People.

Justice For All

The End Of Violence Or The Aftermath Of Violence Is Bitterness. The Aftermath Of Nonviolence Is Reconciliation And The Creation Of A Beloved Community. A Boycott Is Never An End Within Itself. It Is Merely A Means To Awaken A Sense Of Shame Within The Oppressor But The End Is Reconciliation, The End Is Redemption.

Beloved Community

Almost Always, The Creative Dedicated Minority Has Made The World Better.

Education Without Social Action Is A One-sided Value Because It Has No True Power Potential.

Never Again Can We Afford To Live With The Narrow, Provincial "outside Agitator" Idea. Anyone Who Lives Inside The United States Can Never Be Considered An Outsider.

School Takes 13 Years, Because That Is How Long It Takes To Break A Child's Spirit.

In The Final Analysis, Means And Ends Must Cohere Because The End Is Preexistent In The Means, And, Ultimately, Destructive Means Cannot Bring About Constructive Ends.

A Social Movement That Only Moves People Is Merely A Revolt. A Movement That Changes Both People And Institutions Is A Revolution.

Perhaps...the Nation And The World Are In Dire Need Of Creative Extremists.

Political Extremism

When The Architects Of Our Republic Wrote The Magnificent Words Of The Constitution And The Declaration Of Independence, They Were Signing A Promissory Note To Which Every American Was To Fall Heir.

Whatever Effects One Directly, Effects All Indirectly.

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Debbie Wasserman Schultz

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

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