Background Image

...

Make Your Way To Death Row And Speak With The Tragic Victims Of Criminality. As They Prepare To Make Their Pathetic Walk To The Electric Chair, Their Hopeless Cry Is That Society Will Not Forgive. Capital Punishment Is Society's Final Assertion That It Will Not Forgive.

-Martin Luther King, Jr.

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

Make Your Way To

Martin Luther King, Jr.

...

Make Your Way To Death Row And Speak With The Tragic Victims Of Criminality. As They Prepare To Make Their Pathetic Walk To The Electric Chair, Their Hopeless Cry Is That Society Will Not Forgive. Capital Punishment Is Society's Final Assertion That It Will Not Forgive.

Views: 8

Topic

More From Martin Luther King, Jr.

To Have Peace In The World, Men & Nations Must Embrace The Nonviolent Assertion That Ends And Means Must Cohere.

There Is Such A Thing As Being Too Late. This Is No Time For Apathy Or Complacency. This Is A Time For Vigorous And Positive Action.

Every Word And Deed Must Contribute To An Understanding With The Enemy And Release Those Vast Reservoirs Of Goodwill Which Have Been Blocked By Impenetrable Walls Of Hate.

Any Nation Or Government That Deprives An Individual Of Freedom Is In That Moment Committing An Act Of Moral And Spiritual Murder. Any Individual Who Is Not Concerned About His Freedom Commits An Act Of Moral And Spiritual Suicide.

These Are The Times For Real Choices And Not False Ones. We Are At The Moment When Our Lives Must Be Placed On The Line If Our Nation Is To Survive Its Own Folly. Every Man Of Humane Convictions Must Decide On The Protest That Best Suits His Convictions, But We Must All Protest.

Injustice Anywhere Is A Threat To Justice Everywhere. We Are Caught In An Inescapable Network Of Mutuality, Tied In A Single Garment Of Destiny.

Communism Forgets That Life Is Individual. Capitalism Forgets That Life Is Social, And The Kingdom Of Brotherhood Is Found Neither In The Thesis Of Communism Nor The Antithesis Of Capitalism But In A Higher Synthesis. It Is Found In A Higher Synthesis That Combines The Truths Of Both.

We Were Not Unmindful Of The Difficulties Involved. So We Decided To Go Through A Process Of Self-purification.

There Is Some Good In The Worst Of Us, And Some Evil In The Best Of Us.

I Have Come To See More And More That One Of The Most Decisive Steps That The Negro Can Take Is That Little Walk To The Voting Booth. That Is An Important Step. We've Got To Gain The Ballot, And Through That Gain, Political Power.

I Am Not Afraid Of The Word Tension.

Creative Tension

We Are Prone To Judge Success By The Index Of Our Salaries Or The Size Of Our Automobiles Rather Than By The Quality Of Our Service And Relationship To Mankind.

History Will Have To Record That The Greatest Tragedy Of This Period Of Social Transition Was Not The Strident Clamor Of The Bad People, But The Appalling Silence Of The Good People.

Bad Relationship

My Friends, All I'm Trying To Say Is That If We Are To Go Forward Today, We've Got To Go Back And Rediscover Some Mighty Precious Values That We've Left Behind. That's The Only Way That We Would Be Able To Make Of Our World A Better World, And To Make Of This World What God Wants It To Be And The Real Purpose And Meaning Of It.

Your Self-image Should Not Come From The Job You Do But From How Well You Do Your Job.

When Evil Men Plot, Good Men Must Plan. When Evil Men Burn And Bomb, Good Men Must Build And Bind. When Evil Men Shout Ugly Words Of Hatred, Good Men Must Commit Themselves To The Glories Of Love.

Courage Is The Power Of The Mind To Overcome Fear.

He Who Is Greatest Among You Shall Be A Servant. That's The New Definition Of Greatness. ... By Giving That Definition Of Greatness, It Means That Everybody Can Be Great, Because Everybody Can Serve.

The Beauty Of Genuine Brotherhood And Peace Is More Precious Than Diamonds Or Silver Or Gold.

The Softminded Person Always Wants To Freeze The Moment And Hold Life In The Gripping Yoke Of Sameness.

When You Cut Facilities, Slash Jobs, Abuse Power, Discriminate, Drive People Into Deeper Poverty & Shoot People Dead Whilst Refusing To Provide Answers Or Justice, The People Will Rise Up & Express Their Anger & Frustration If You Refuse To Hear Their Cries. A Riot Is The Language Of The Unheard.

The Strong Man Holds In A Living Blend Strongly Marked Opposites.

We Are Now Faced With The Fact That Tomorrow Is Today. We Are Confronted With The Fierce Urgency Of Now. In This Unfolding Conundrum Of Life And History, There "is" Such A Thing As Being Too Late. This Is No Time For Apathy Or Complacency. This Is A Time For Vigorous And Postive Action.

Hate Destroys The Very Structure Of The Personality Of The Hater. [...] When You Start Hating Anybody, It Destroys The Very Center Of Your Creative Response To Life And The Universe; So Love Everybody.

Success, Recognition, And Conformity Are The Bywords Of The Modern World Where Everyone Seems To Crave The Anesthetizing Security Of Being Identified With The Majority.

If A Man Hasn't Discovered Something That He Will Die For, He Isn't Fit To Live.

I Cannot Forget That The Nobel Prize For Peace Was Also A Commission - A Commission To Work Harder Than I Had Ever Worked Before For "the Brotherhood Of Man".

Brotherhood Of Man

Love Is The Most Durable Power In The World. This Creative Force Is The Most Potent Instrument Available In Mankind's Quest For Peace And Security.

Man Must Evolve For All Human Conflict A Method Which Rejects Revenge, Aggression And Retaliation. The Foundation Of Such A Method Is Love.

We've Got Some Difficult Days Ahead. But It Doesn't Matter With Me Now. Because I've Been To The Mountaintop. And I Don't Mind. Like Anybody, I Would Like To Live A Long Life. Longevity Has Its Place. But I'm Not Concerned About That Now. I Just Want To Do God's Will. And He's Allowed Me To Go Up To The Mountaintop. And I've Looked Over. And I've Seen The Promised Land.

Let Us Be Practical And Ask The Question: How Do We Love Our Enemies?

Love Your Enemies

A Religion True To Its Nature Must Also Be Concerned About Man's Social Conditions....a Ny Religion That Professes To Be Concerned With The Souls Of Men And Is Not Concerned With The Slums That Damn Them, The Economic Conditions That Strangle Them, And The Social Conditions That Cripple Them Is A Dry-as-dust Religion.

Many Of The Ugly Pages Of American History Have Been Obscured And Forgotten. A Society Is Always Eager To Cover Misdeeds With A Cloak Of Forgetfulness, But No Society Can Fully Repress An Ugly Past When The Ravages Persist Into The Present. America Owes A Debt Of Justice Which It Has Only Begun To Pay. If It Loses The Will To Finish Or Slackens In Its Determination, History Will Recall Its Crimes And The Country That Would Be Great Will Lack The Most Indispensable Element Of Greatness — Justice.

I Still Believe That One Day Mankind Will Bow Before The Altars Of God And Be Crowned Triumphant Over War And Bloodshed, And Nonviolent Redemptive Goodwill Will Proclaim The Rule Of The Land.

A Man Who Hasn't Found Anything He'd Die For Doesn't Deserve To Live.

If A Man Is Called To Be A Street Sweeper, He Should Sweep Streets Even As A Michaelangelo Painted, Or Beethoven Composed Music Or Shakespeare Wrote Poetry. He Should Sweep Streets So Well That All The Hosts Of Heaven And Earth Will Pause To Say, 'here Lived A Great Street Sweeper Who Did His Job Well.

It Is Cheerful To God When You Rejoice Or Laugh From The Bottom Of Your Heart.

We Have Flown The Air Like Birds And Swum The Sea Like Fishes, But Have Yet To Learn The Simple Act Of Walking The Earth Like Brothers.

Another Reason Why We Must Love Our Enemies Is That Hate Scars The Soul And Distorts The Personality.

In Spite Of Its Glowing Talk About The Welfare Of The Masses, Communism's Methods And Philosophy Strip Man Of His Dignity And Worth, Leaving Him As Little More Than A Depersonalized Cog In The Ever-turning Wheel Of The State.

When We Ask Negroes To Abide By The Law, Let Us Also Declare That The White Man Does Not Abide By Law In The Ghettos. Day In And Day Out He Violates Welfare Laws To Deprive The Poor Of Their Meager Allotments; He Flagrantly Violates Building Codes And Regulations; His Police Make A Mockery Of Law; He Violates Laws On Equal Employment And Education And The Provisions Of Civil Services. The Slums Are The Handiwork Of A Vicious System Of The White Society; Negroes Live In Them, But They Do Not Make Them, Any More Than A Prisoner Makes A Prison.

Today, Is A Great Day To Make A Difference For Someone. 'i Have A Dream'.

Science Investigates, Religion Interprets. Science Gives Man Knowledge Which Is Power, Religion Gives Man Wisdom Which Is Control. Science Deals Mainly With Facts, Religion Deals With Values. The Two Are Not Rivals. They Are Complementary.

But There Is Another Way. And That Is To Organize Mass Non-violent Resistance Based On The Principle Of Love. It Seems To Me That This Is The Only Way As Our Eyes Look To The Future. As We Look Out Across The Years And Across The Generations, Let Us Develop And Move Right Here. We Must Discover The Power Of Love, The Power, The Redemptive Power Of Love. And When We Discover That We Will Be Able To Make Of This Old World A New World. We Will Be Able To Make Men Better. Love Is The Only Way.

Power Is Love Implementing The Demands Of Justice. Justice Is Love Correcting Everything That Goes Against Love.

Never Succumb To The Temptation Of Becoming Bitter. As You Press For Justice, Be Sure To Move With Dignity And Discipline, Using Only The Instruments Of Love.

There Is No Sound More Powerful Than The Marching Feet Of A Determined People.

We May Have All Come On Different Ships, But We're In The Same Boat Now.

If I Sought To Answer All Of The Criticisms That Cross My Desk, My Secretaries Would Be Engaged In Little Else In The Course Of The Day, And I Would Have No Time For Constructive Work.

One Of The Great Liabilities Of History Is That All Too Many People Fail To Remain Awake Through Great Periods Of Social Change. Every Society Has Its Protectors Of Status Quo And Its Fraternities Of The Indifferent Who Are Notorious For Sleeping Through Revolutions. Today, Our Very Survival Depends On Our Ability To Stay Awake, To Adjust To New Ideas, To Remain Vigilant And To Face The Challenge Of Change.

But Now I Must Affirm That It Is Just As Wrong, Or Perhaps Even More So, To Use Moral Means To Preserve Immoral Ends.

We Stand In Life At Midnight; We Are Always At The Threshold Of A New Dawn.

I Want To Suggest Some Of The Things That Should Begin Your Life's Blueprint. Number One...should Be A Deep Belief In Your Own Dignity. Your Worth And Your Own Somebodiness... Always Feel That You Count. Always Feel That You Have Worth, And Always Feel That Your Life Has Ultimate Significance.

Rarely Do We Find Men Who Willingly Engage In Hard, Solid Thinking. There Is An Almost Universal Quest For Easy Answers And Half-baked Solutions. Nothing Pains Some People More Than Having To Think.

I Have A Dream That One Day, Down In Alabama, With Its Vicious Racists, With Its Governor Having His Lips Dripping With The Words Of "interposition" And "nullification" - One Day Right There In Alabama Little Black Boys And Black Girls Will Be Able To Join Hands With Little White Boys And White Girls As Sisters And Brothers.

The Strong Man Is The Man Who Can Stand Up For His Rights And Not Hit Back.

The Darwinian Concept Of The Survival Of The Fittest Has Been Substituted By A Philosophy Of The Survival Of The Slickest.

The Choice Is Not Between Violence And Nonviolence But Between Nonviolence And Nonexistence.

This Business Of Burning Human Beings With Napalm, Of Filling Our Nation's Homes With Orphans And Widows, Of Injecting Poisonous Drugs Of Hate Into Veins Of Peoples Normally Humane, Of Sending Men Home From Dark And Bloody Battlefields Physically Handicapped And Psychologically Deranged, Cannot Be Reconciled With Wisdom, Justice And Love.

I Am Not Interested In Power For Power's Sake, But I'm Interested In Power That Is Moral, That Is Right And That Is Good.

... The Right To Defend One's Home And One's Person When Attacked Has Been Guaranteed Through The Ages By Common Law.

Agape Is Disinterested Love. . . . Agape Does Not Begin By Discriminating Between Worthy And Unworthy People, Or Any Qualities People Possess. It Begins By Loving Others For Their Sakes. . . . Therefore, Agape Makes No Distinction Between Friend And Enemy; It Is Directed Toward Both.

I Won't Have Any Money To Leave Behind. I Won't Have The Fine And Luxurious Things Of Life To Leave Behind. But I Just Want To Leave A Committed Life Behind.

We Did Not Hesitate To Call Our Movement An Army. But It Was A Special Army, With No Supplies But Its Sincerity, No Uniform But Its Determination, No Arsenal Except Its Faith, No Currency But Its Conscience.

Intelligence Plus Character-that Is The Goal Of True Education.

We Must Speak With All The Humility That Is Appropriate To Our Limited Vision, But We Must Speak.

Breaking Silence

All Labor That Uplifts Humanity Has Dignity And Importance And Should Be Undertaken With Painstaking Excellence.

I Refuse To Accept The Idea That Man Is Mere Flotsam And Jetsam In The River Of Life, Unable To Influence The Unfolding Events Which Surround Him.

My Country, 'tis Of Thee, Sweet Land Of Liberty, Of Thee I Sing. Land Where My Fathers Died, Land Of The Pilgrim's Pride, From Every Mountainside, Let Freedom Ring.

The Truth May Hurt, But Love Helps Ease The Pain.

When Evil Men Burn And Bomb, Good Men Must Build And Bind.

We Have A Great Dream. It Started Way Back In 1776, And God Grant That America Will Be True To Her Dream.

If I Can Help Somebody As I Pass Along, If I Can Cheer Somebody With A Word Or Song, If I Can Show Somebody He's Traveling Wrong, Then My Living Will Not Be In Vain.

Everybody Can Be Great, Because Everybody Can Serve. [...] You Only Need A Heart Full Of Grace.

If You Can’t Run, Walk; If You Can’t Walk, Crawl, But Keep Moving Forward!

The Great Military Leaders Of The Past Have Gone, Their Empires Have Crumbled And Burned To Ashes. But The Empire Of Jesus, Built Solidly And Majestically On The Foundation Of Love, Is Still Growing.

I Have A Dream, One Dream, Keep Dreaming. Dream Of Freedom, Justice Dreaming, Dreaming Of Equality And Hopefully No Longer Required To Dream Them

You Can't Talk About Solving The Economic Problem Of The Negro Without Talking About Billions Of Dollars. You Can't Talk About Ending The Slums Without First Saying Profit Must Be Taken Out Of The Slums. You're Really Tampering And Getting On Dangerous Ground Because You Are Messing With Folk Then. You Are Messing With Captains Of Industry. Now This Means That We Are Treading In Difficult Water, Because It Really Means That We Are Saying That Something Is Wrong With Capitalism.

We Must Meet The Forces Of Hate With The Power Of Love.

If We Are To Go Forward, We Must Go Back And Rediscover These Precious Values - That All Reality Hinges On Moral Foundations And That All Reality Has Spiritual Control.

African American

For All Of Us Today, The Battle Is In Our Hands. The Road Ahead Is Not Altogether A Smooth One. There Are No Broad Highways To Lead Us Easily And Inevitably To Quick Solutions. We Must Keep Going.

At The Heart Of All That Civilization Has Meant And Developed Is 'community' - The Mutually Cooperative And Voluntary Venture Of Man To Assume A Semblance Of Responsibility For His Brother.

The Time Has Come For An All-out War Against Poverty. The Rich Nations Must Use Their Vast Resources Of Wealth To Develop The Underdeveloped, School The Unschooled, And Feed The Unfed. Ultimately A Great Nation Is A Compassionate Nation. No Individual Or Nation Can Be Great If It Does Not Have A Concern For "the Least Of These".

True Compassion Is More Than Throwing A Coin To A Beggar. It Demands Of Our Humanity That If We Live In A Society That Produces Beggars, We Are Morally Commanded To Restructure That Society.

We Must Discover The Power Of Love, The Power, The Redemptive Power Of Love. And When We Discover That We Will Be Able To Make Of This Old World A New World. We Will Be Able To Make Men Better. Love Is The Only Way.

Education Without Direction Is A One-sided Social Value. Direct Action Without Education Is A Meaningless Expression Of Pure Energy.

The Saving Of Our World From Pending Doom Will Come, Not Through The Complacent Adjustment Of The Conforming Majority, But Through The Creative Maladjustment Of A Nonconforming Minority.

We All Have The Drum Major Instinct. We All Want To Be Important, To Surpass Others, To Achieve Distinction, To Lead The Parade.

When I Am Commanded To Love, I Am Commanded To Restore Community, To Resist Injustice, And To Meet The Needs Of My Brothers.

The True Neighbor Will Risk His Position, His Prestige, And Even His Life For The Welfare Of Others.

If A Man Has Not Discovered Anything So Dying Is Not Worth Living

The Intellectual And Moral Satisfaction That I Failed To Gain From The Utilitarianism Of Bentham And Mill, The Revolutionary Methods Of Marx And Lenin, The Social Contract Theory Of Hobbes, The "back To Nature" Optimism Of Rousseau, And The Superman Philosophy Of Nietzsche, I Found In The Nonviolent Resistance Philosophy Of Gandhi. I Came To Feel That This Was The Only Morally And Practically Sound Method Open To Oppressed People In Their Struggle For Freedom.

Before You Finish Eating Breakfast In The Morning, You've Depended On More Than Half Of The World.

The Conservatives Who Say, "let Us Not Move So Fast," And The Extremists Who Say, "let Us Go Out And Whip The World ," Would Tell You That They Are As Far Apart As The Poles. But There Is A Striking Parallel: They Accomplish Nothing; For They Do Not Reach The People Who Have A Crying Need To Be Free.

Accomplish Nothing

We Have Genuflected Before The God Of Science Only To Find That It Has Given Us The Atomic Bomb, Producing Fears And Anxieties That Science Can Never Mitigate.

Voting Is The Foundation Stone For Political Action.

We Are Out To Defeat Injustice And Not White Persons Who May Be Unjust.

The Group Consisting Of Mother, Father And Child Is The Main Educational Agency Of Mankind.

Property Is Intended To Serve Life, And No Matter How Much We Surround It With Rights And Respect, It Has No Personal Being. It Is Part Of The Earth Man Walks On. It Is Not Man.

There May Come A Time When It Will Be Possible For You To Humiliate Your Worst Enemy Or Even To Defeat Him, But In Order To Love The Enemy You Must Not Do It... The Greek Language Has Another Word [for Love]. It Calls It Agape. Agape Is More Than Romantic Love. Agape Is More Than Friendship. Agape Is Understanding, Redemptive Goodwill For All Men. Agape Is An Overflowing Love, A Spontaneous Love, Which Seeks Nothing In Return. And Theologians Would Say That It Is The Love Of God Operating In The Human Heart. When You Rise To Love On This Level You Love All Men, Not Because You Like Them, Not Because Their Ways Appeal To You, Not Because They Are Worthful To You, But You Love All Men Because God Loves Them. And You Rise To The Noble Heights Of Loving The Person Who Does The Evil Deed While Hating The Deed That The Person Does. And I Think This Is What Jesus Means When He Says, “love Your Enemies.”

One Who Breaks An Unjust Law Must Do So Openly, Lovingly, And With A Willingness To Accept The Penalty.

There Is A Type Of Constructive Nonviolent Tension That Is Necessary For Growth

The Recent Statement Of Your Executive Committee Are The Sentiments Of My Own Heart And I Found Myself In Full Accord When I Read Its Opening Lines: "a Time Comes When Silence Is Betrayal." That Time Has Come For Us In Relation To Vietnam. Some Of Us Who Have Already Begun To Break The Silence Of The Night Have Found That The Calling To Speak Is Often A Vocation Of Agony, But We Must Speak. We Must Speak With All The Humility That Is Appropriate To Our Limited Vision, But We Must Speak.

A Piece Of Freedom Is No Longer Enough For Human Beings...unlike Bread, A Slice Of Liberty Does Not Finish Hunger. Freedom Is Like Life. It Cannot Be Had In Installments. Freedom Is Indivisible--we Have It All, Or We Are Not Free.

Each Of Us Is Something Of A Schizophrenic Personality, Tragically Divided Against Ourselves.

The Function Of Education Is To Teach One To Think Intensively And To Think Critically. Intelligence Plus Character - That Is The Goal Of True Education.

What Are You Doing For Others?

"i Criticize America Because I Love Her. I Want Her To Stand As A Moral Example To The World."

Science Investigates Religion Interprets. Science Gives Man Knowledge Which Is Power Religion Gives Man Wisdom Which Is Control.

It Is Appalling That The Most Segregated Hour Of Christian America Is Eleven O'clock On Sunday Morning.

We Must Follow Nonviolence And Love.

Now Let Us Begin. Now Let Us Rededicate Ourselves To The Long And Bitter - But Beautiful - Struggle For A New World.

Returning Hate For Hate Multiplies Hate, Adding Deeper Darkness To A Night Already Devoid Of Stars. Darkness Cannot Drive Out Darkness; Only Light Can Do That. Hate Cannot Drive Out Hate; Only Love Can Do That.

The Best Way To Solve Any Problem Is To Remove Its Cause.

Cowardice Is Submissive Surrender To Circumstances.

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.

Seeing Is Not Always Believing.

Without Love, There Is No Reason To Know Anyone, For Love Will In The End Connect Us To Our Neighbors, Our Children And Our Hearts.

Why Is The Church Always A Taillight Rather Than A Headlight?

...we Must Realize That A Vast Majority Of Believers Are Still Searching And Will Continue To Search For The Being Who Is The "source Of Human Good." Those Who Seek With Clear Heads And Sincere Hearts Will In Some Measure Find. Of Course The True Seeker Will Realize That There Is No One Way To Find God. To Be Sure, There Are Many Possible Ways Of Finding God.

Shallow Understanding From People Of Good Will Is More Frustrating Than Absolute Misunderstanding From People Of Ill Will.

War Is The Greatest Plague That Can Afflict Mankind... Any Scourge Is Preferable To It.

Our Lives Are Not Fully Lived If We're Not Willing To Die For Those We Love, For What We Believe.

Truth Crushed To Earth Will Rise Again.

But We Refuse To Believe That The Bank Of Justice Is Bankrupt. We Refuse To Believe That There Are Insufficient Funds In The Great Vaults Of Opportunity Of This Nation.

The Modern Choice Is Between Non-violence Or Non-existence.

Five Score Years Ago, A Great American, In Whose Symbolic Shadow We Stand Today Signed The Emancipation Proclamation. This Momentous Decree Came As A Great Beacon Light Of Hope To Millions Of Negro Slaves Who Had Been Seared In The Flames Of Withering Injustice. It Came As A Joyous Daybreak To End The Long Night Of Their Captivity. But One Hundred Years Later, We Must Face The Tragic Fact That The Negro Is Still Not Free.

Segregation...not Only Harms One Physically But Injures One Spiritually...it Scars The Soul...it Is A System Which Forever Stares The Segregated In The Face, Saying 'you Are Less Than...''you Are Not Equal To...'

Religion Operates Not Only On The Vertical Plane But Also On The Horizontal. It Seeks Not Only To Integrate Men With God But To Integrate Men With Men And Each Man With Himself.

He Who Passively Accepts Evil Is As Much Involved In It As He Who Helps To Perpetrate It. He Who Accepts Evil Without Protesting Against It Is Really Cooperating With It.

It’s Wrong To Hate. It Always Has Been Wrong And It Always Will Be Wrong! It’s Wrong In America, It’s Wrong In Germany, It’s Wrong In Russia, It’s Wrong In China! It Was Wrong In Two Thousand B.c., And It’s Wrong In Nineteen Fifty-four A.d.! It Always Has Been Wrong, And It Always Will Be Wrong!

There Is No Easy Way To Create A World Where Men And Women Can Live Together... But If Such A World Is Created In Our Lifetime, It Will Be Done By Rejecting The Racism, Materialism, And Violence That Has Characterized Western Civilization And Especially By Working Toward A World Of Brotherhood, Cooperation, And Peace.

Nonviolence Is A Powerful As Well As A Just Weapon. If You Confront A Man Who Has Long Been Cruelly Misusing You, And Say, "punish Me, If You Will; I Do Not Deserve It, But I Will Accept It, So That The World Will Know I Am Right And You Are Wrong," Then You Wield A Powerful And A Just Weapon. This Man, Your Oppressor, Is Automatically Morally Defeated, And If He Has Any Conscience, He Is Ashamed.

Commit Yourself To The Noble Struggle For Human Rights. You Will Make A Greater Person Of Yourself, A Greater Nation Of Your Country And A Finer World To Live In.

Violence Is Anything That Denies Human Integrity, And Leads To Hopelessness And Helplessness.

To Accept Injustice Or Segregation Passively Is To Say To The Oppressor That His Actions Are Morally Right.

And I've Seen The Promised Land. I May Not Get There With You. But I Want You To Know Tonight, That We, As A People Will Get To The Promised Land

All Progress Is Precarious, And The Solution Of One Problem Brings Us Face To Face With Another Problem.

I'm Grateful To God That, Through The Negro Church, The Dimension Of Nonviolence Entered Our Struggle.

I Knew That America Would Never Invest The Necessary Funds Of Energies In Rehabilitation Of Its Poor As Long As Adventures Like Vietnam Continued To Draw Men And Skills And Money Like Some Demonic Destructive Suction Tube.

On The One Hand We Are Called To Play The Good Samaritan On Life's Roadside; But That Will Be Only An Initial Act. One Day We Must Come To See That The Whole Jericho Road Must Be Transformed So That Men And Women Will Not Be Constantly Beaten And Robbed As They Make Their Journey On Life's Highway. True Compassion Is More Than Flinging A Coin To A Beggar; It Is Not Haphazard And Superficial. It Comes To See That An Edifice Which Produces Beggars Needs Restructuring. "a Time To Break Silence," At Riverside Church

Change Does Not Roll In On The Wheels Of Inevitability, But Comes Through Continuous Struggle. And So We Must Straighten Our Backs And Work For Our Freedom. A Man Can't Ride You Unless Your Back Is Bent.

We Have Guided Missiles And Misguided Men.

I Have Decided To Stick With Love. Hate Is Too Great A Burden To Bear.

A Genuine Leader Is Not A Searcher For Consensus But A Molder Of Consensus.

I Still Believe That Standing Up For The Truth Of God Is The Greatest Thing In The World. This Is The End (purpose) Of Life. The End Of Life Is Not To Be Happy. The End Of Life Is Not To Achieve Pleasure And Avoid Pain. The End Of Life Is To Do The Will Of God, Come What May.

The Negroes Of America Had Taken The President, The Press And The Pulpit At Their Word When They Spoke In Broad Terms Of Freedom And Justice. But The Absence Of Brutality And Unregenerate Evil Is Not The Presence Of Justice. To Stay Murder Is Not The Same Thing As To Ordain Brotherhood.

The Contemporary Tendency In Our Society Is To Base Our Distribution On Scarcity, Which Has Vanished, And To Compress Our Abundance Into The Overfed Mouths Of The Middle And Upper Classes Until They Gag With Superfluity. If Democracy Is To Have Breadth Of Meaning, It Is Necessary To Adjust This Inequity. It Is Not Only Moral, But It Is Also Intelligent. We Are Wasting And Degrading Human Life By Clinging To Archaic Thinking.

Resistance And Nonviolence Are Not In Themselves Good. There Is Another Element That Must Be Present In Our Struggle That Then Makes Our Resistance And Nonviolence Truly Meaningful. That Element Is Reconciliation. Our Ultimate End Must Be The Creation Of The Beloved Community.

Beloved Community

The Major Problem Of Life Is Learning How To Handle The Costly Interruptions.

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.

The Decision We Must Make Now Is Whether We Will Give Our Allegiance To Outmoded And Unjust Customs Or To The Ethical Demands Of The Universe. As Christians We Owe Our Allegiance To God And His Will, Rather Than To Man And His Folkways

If A Person Sweeps Streets For A Living, He Should Sweep Them As Michelangelo Painted, As Beethoven Composed, As Shakespear Wrote.

Time Has Been Used Destructively By People Of Ill Will Much More Than It Has Been Used Constructively By Those Of Good Will.

I Would Urge You To Give Priority To The Search For God. Allow His Spirit To Permeate Your Being. ... If You Do Not Have A Deep And Patient Faith In God, You Will Be Powerless To Face The Delays, Disappointments, And Vicissitudes That Inevitably Come.

To Deny A Man A Job Is To Say That A Man Has No Right To Exist.

I'm Concerned About Justice. I'm Concerned About Brotherhood. I'm Concerned About Truth. And When One Is Concerned About These, He Can Never Advocate Violence.

The Thing That We Need In The World Today, Is A Group Of Men And Women Who Will Stand Up For Right And Be Opposed To Wrong, Wherever It Is. A Group Of People Who Have Come To See That Some Things Are Wrong, Whether They’re Never Caught Up With. Some Things Are Right, Whether Nobody Sees You Doing Them Or Not.

A Nation Or Civilization That Continues To Produce Soft-minded Men Purchases Its Own Spiritual Death On The Installment Plan.

I Always Had A Deep Affection For Malcolm And Felt That He Had A Great Ability To Put His Finger On The Existence And The Root Of The Problem. He Was An Eloquent Spokesman For His Point Of View And No One Can Honestly Doubt That Malcolm Had A Great Concern For The Problems We Face As A Race.

The Hope Of A Secure And Livable World Lies With Disciplined Nonconformists, Who Are Dedicated To Justice, Peace And Brotherhood. The Trailblazers In Human, Academic, Scientific And Religious Freedom Have Always Been Nonconformists. In Any Cause That Concerns The Progress Of Mankind, Put Your Faith In The Nonconformist!

When Negroes Looked For The Second Phase, The Realization Of Equality, They Found That Many Of Their White Allies Had Quietly Disappeared.... To Stay Murder Is Not The Same Thing As To Ordain Brotherhood.

When We Rise In The Morning... At The Table We Drink Coffee Which Is Provided To Us By A South American, Or Tea By A Chinese, Or Cocoa By A West African; Before We Leave For Our Jobs We Are Already Beholden To More Than Half The World.

Far From Being Disturbed By The Presence Of The Church, The Power Structure Of The Average Community Is Consoled By The Church's Often Vocal Sanction Of Things As They Are.

Agape Means Recognition Of The Fact That All Life Is Interrelated. All Humanity Is Involved In A Single Process, And All Men Are Brothers. To The Degree That I Harm My Brother, No Matter What He Is Doing To Me, To That Extent I Am Harming Myself.

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.

White Americans Must Be Made To Understand The Basic Motives Underlying Negro Demonstrations. Many Pent-up Resentments And Latent Frustrations Are Boiling Inside The Negro, And He Must Release Them. It Is Not A Threat But A Fact Of History That If An Oppressed People's Pent-up Emotions Are Not Nonviolently Released, They Will Be Violently Released.

One Day The South Will Know That When These Disinherited Children Of God Sat Down At Lunch Counters, They Were In Reality Standing Up For What Is Best In The American Dream And For The Most Sacred Values In Our Judaeo-christian Heritage, Thereby Bringing Our Nation Back To Those Great Wells Of Democracy Which Were Dug Deep By The Founding Fathers In Their Formulation Of The Constitution And The Declaration Of Independence.

Was Not Abraham Lincoln An Extremist? - "this Nation Cannot Survive Half Slave And Half Free."

Lord Help Me To See M. L. King As M. L. King In His True Perspective.

America Has Given The Negro People A Bad Check, A Check Which Has Come Back Marked 'insufficient Funds.'

I Have A Dream Speech

No One Really Knows Why They Are Alive Until They Know What They'd Die For.

It Is Not Enough To Say We Must Not Wage War. It Is Necessary To Love Peace And Sacrifice For It.

A True Revolution Of Values Will Soon Cause Us To Question The Fairness And Justice Of Many Of Our Present Policies.

Breaking Silence

There Are Two Types Of Laws: There Are Just Laws And There Are Unjust Laws... What Is The Difference Between The Two?...an Unjust Law Is A Man-made Code That Is Out Of Harmony With The Moral Law.

Courage Faces Fear And Thereby Masters It

The Negro Needs The White Man To Free Him From His Fears. The White Man Needs The Negro To Free Him From His Guilt.

My Obligation Is To Do The Right Thing. The Rest Is In God's Hands.

[w]e Are The Heirs Of A Past Of Rope, Fire, And Murder. I For One Am Not Ashamed Of This Past. My Shame Is For Those Who Became So Inhuman That They Could Inflict This Torture Upon Us.

I Was Not Afraid Of The Words Of The Violent, But Of The Silence Of The Honest.

We Will Not Build A Peaceful World By Following A Negative Path. It Is Not Enough To Say We Will Not Wage War. It Is Necessary To Love Peace And Sacrifice For It. We Must Concentrate Not Merely On The Negative Expulsion Of War, But On The Positive Affirmation Of Peace

The End Of Life Is Not To Be Happy, Nor To Achieve Pleasure And Avoid Pain, But To Do The Will Of God, Come What May.

An Individual Has Not Begun To Live Until He Can Rise Above The Narrow Horizons Of His Particular Individualistic Concerns To The Broader Concerns Of All Humanity. And This Is One Of The Big Problems Of Life, That So Many People Never Quite Get To The Point Of Rising Above Self. And So They End Up The Tragic Victims Of Self-centeredness. They End Up The Victims Of Distorted And Disrupted Personality.

It Really Boils Down To This: That All Life Is Interrelated. We Are All Caught In An Inescapable Network Of Mutuality, Tired Into A Single Garment Of Destiny. Whatever Affects One Destiny, Affects All Indirectly.

When The Negro Was Completely An Underdog, He Needed White Spokesmen. Liberals Played Their Parts In This Period Exceedingly Well.... But Now That The Negro Has Rejected His Role As An Underdog, He Has Become More Assertive In His Search For Identity And Group Solidarity; He Wants To Speak For Himself.

What The Negro Wants - And Will Not Stop Until He Gets - Is Absolute And Unqualified Freedom And Equality Here In This Land Of His Birth, And Not In Africa Or In Some Imaginary State. The Negro No Longer Will Be Tolerant Of Anything Less Than His Due Right And Heritage. He Is Pursuing Only That Which He Knows Is Honorably His. He Knows That He Is Right.

If A Man Hasn't Found Anything Worth Dying For, He Hasn't Anything Worth Living For.

Before The Pilgrims Landed At Plymouth, We Were Here. Before The Pen Of Jefferson Etched Across The Pages Of History The Majestic Words Of The Declaration Of Independence, We Were Here.

Civilization And Violence Are Antithetical Concepts.

There Is Nothing In All The World Greater Than Freedom. It Is Worth Paying For; It Is Worth Going To Jail For. I Would Rather Be A Free Pauper Than A Rich Slave. I Would Rather Die In Abject Poverty With My Convictions Than Live In Inordinate Riches With The Lack Of Self Respect.

Is Is Always Time To Do The Right Thing.

Capitalism Does Not Permit An Even Flow Of Economic Resources. With This System, A Small Privileged Few Are Rich Beyond Conscience, And Almost All Others Are Doomed To Be Poor At Some Level. That's The Way The System Works. And Since We Know That The System Will Not Change The Rules, We Are Going To Have To Change The System.

God Is Not Merely Interestd In The Freedom Of Brown Men, Yellow Men, Red Men And Black Men.he Is Interested In The Freedom Of The Whole Human Race.

Let's Build Bridges, Not Walls.

A Man Can't Ride Your Back Unless It's Bent.

African American

Good And Just Society Is Neither The Thesis Of Capitalism Nor The Antithesis Of Communism, But A Socially Conscious Democracy Which Reconciles The Truths Of Individualism And Collectivism.

Somebody Must Have Sense Enough To Meet Hate With Love. Somebody Must Have Sense Enough To Meet Physical Force With Soul Force. If We Will But Try This Way, We Will Be Able To Change These Conditions And Yet At The Same Time Win The Hearts And Souls Of Those Who Have Kept These Conditions Alive A Way As Old As The Insights Of Jesus Of Nazareth, As Modern As The Techniques Of Mohandas K. Gandhi. There Is Another Way.

We Aren't Going To Have Peace On Earth Until We Recognize The Basic Fact Of The Interrelated Structure Of All Reality.

Eating Breakfast

Agape Is Something Of The Understanding, Creative, Redemptive Goodwill For All Men. It Is A Love That Seeks Nothing In Return. It Is An Overflowing Love; It's What Theologians Would Call The Love Of God Working In The Lives Of Men. And When You Rise To Love On This Level, You Begin To Love Men, Not Because They Are Likeable, But Because God Loves Them.

Education Must Enable A Man To Become More Efficient, To Achieve With Increasing Facility The Legitimate Goals Of His Life.

Trending Author

Morrie Schwartz

Christopher Hitchens

John Lothrop Motley

Category