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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.

-Martin Luther King, Jr.

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The Contemporary Tendency In

Martin Luther King, Jr.

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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.

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Why Should There Be Hunger And Deprivation In Any Land, In Any City, At Any Table, When Man Has The Resources And The Scientific Know-how To Provide All Mankind With The Basic Necessities Of Life? There Is No Deficit In Human Resources. The Deficit Is In Human Will.

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.

Our Goal Is To Create A Beloved Community," Said Dr. King, "and This Will Require A Qualitative Change In Our Souls As Well As A Quantitative Change In Our Lives.

Beloved Community

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. If The Inexpressible Cruelties Of Slavery Could Not Stop Us, The Opposition We Now Face Will Surely Fail. We Will Win Our Freedom Because The Sacred Heritage Of Our Nation And The Eternal Will Of God Are Embodied In Our Echoing Demands.

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.

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.

We Must In Strength And Humility Meet Hate With Love.

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

A Good Many Observers Have Remarked That If Equality Could Come At Once, The Negro Would Not Be Ready For It. I Submit That The White American Is Even More Unprepared.

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.

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

We Will Have To Repent In This Generation Not Merely For The Vitriolic Words And Actions Of The Bad People, But For The Appalling Silence Of The Good People.

There Can Be No Deep Disappointment Where There Is Not Deep Love.

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

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.

I Was Convinced That Worship At Its Best Is A Social Experience With People Of All Levels Of Life Coming Together To Realize Their Oneness And Unity Under God. Whenever The Church, Consciously Or Unconsciously, Caters To One Class It Loses The Spiritual Force Of The "whosoever Will, Let Him Come, Doctrine And Is In Danger Of Becoming A Little More Than A Social Club With A Thin Veneer Of Religiosity."

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

The Universe Is Under The Control Of A Loving Purpose, And That In The Struggle For Righteousness Man Has Cosmic Companionship (angels). Behind The Harsh Appearance Of The World There Is A Benign Power.

Many Of The Ugly Pages Of American History Have Been Obscured And Forgotten....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.

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

They Were Too God-intoxicated To Be "astronomically Intimidated." They Brought An End To Such Ancient Evils As Infanticide And Gladiatorial Contest.

I Oppose The War In Vietnam Because I Love America. I Speak Out Against It Not In Anger But With Anxiety And Sorrow In My Heart, And Above All With A Passionate Desire To See Our Beloved Country Stand As A Moral Example Of The World.

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

If The Cruelties Of Slavery Could Not Stop Us, The Opposition We Now Face Will Surely Fail. Because The Goal Of America Is Freedom, Abused And Scorned Tho' We May Be, Our Destiny Is Tied Up With America's Destiny.

My Friends, I Must Say To You That We Have Not Made A Single Gain In Civil Rights Without Determined Legal And Nonviolent Pressure.

I've Told The Kids In The Ghettos That Violence Won't Solve Their Problems, But Then They Ask Me, And Rightly So; "why Does The Government Use Massive Doses Of Violence To Bring About The Change It Wants In The World?" After This I Knew That I Could No Longer Speak Against The Violence In The Ghettos Without Also Speaking Against The Violence Of My Government.

The Road To Freedom Is A Difficult, Hard Road. It Always Makes For Temporary Setbacks.

Temporary Setbacks

Never Could I Advocate Nonviolence In This Country And Not Advocate Nonviolence For The Whole World.

We Must Build Dikes Of Courage To Hold Back The Flood Of Fear. That Old Law About "an Eye For An Eye" Leaves Everybody Blind... The Time Is Always Right To Do The Right Thing. Peace Is Not Merely A Distant Goal That We Seek, But A Means By Which We Arrive At That Goal.

It Is Not A Sign Of Weakness, But A Sign Of High Maturity, To Rise To The Level Of Self-criticism.

Some People Are So Worn Down By The Yoke Of Oppression That They Give Up.

We Need To Recapture The Gospel Glow Of The Early Christians Who Were Nonconformists In The Truest Sense Of The Word . . . Their Powerful Gospel Put An End To Such Barbaric Evils As Infanticide And Bloody Gladiatorial Contests. Finally, They Captured The Roman Empire For Jesus Christ.

In A Sense We've Come To Our Nation's Capital To Cash A Check. 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. This Note Was A Promise That All Men - Yes, Black Men As Well As White Men - Would Be Guaranteed The Unalienable Rights Of Life, Liberty And The Pursuit Of Happiness... America Has Given The Negro People A Bad Check, A Check Which Has Come Back Marked 'insufficient Funds.'

Pursuit Of Happiness

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.

He Who Is Devoid Of The Power To Forgive Is Devoid Of The Power To Love.

The Major Problem Of Life Is Learning How To Handle The Costly Interruptions. The Door That Slams Shut, The Plan That Got Sidetracked, The Marriage That Failed. Or That Lovely Poem That Didn't Get Written Because Someone Knocked On The Door.

A Nation That Will Keep People In Slavery For 244 Years Will "thingify" Them And Make Them Things. And Therefore, They Will Exploit Them And Poor People Generally Economically. And A Nation That Will Exploit Economically Will Have To Have Foreign Investments And Everything Else, And It Will Have To Use Its Military Might To Protect Them. All Of These Problems Are Tied Together. What I'm Saying Today Is That We Must Go From This Convention And Say, "america, You Must Be Born Again!"

A True Revolution Of Values Will Soon Cause Us To Question The Fairness And Justice Of Many Of Our Present Policies... True Compassion Is More Than Flinging A Coin To A Beggar. A True Revolution Of Values Will Soon Look On Uneasily Upon The Glaring Contrast Of Poverty And Wealth With Righteous Indignation.

Segregation Is The Adultery Of An Illicit Intercourse Between Injustice And Immorality.

If Our Economic System Is To Survive, There Has To Be A Better Distribution Of Wealth ... We Can't Have A System Where Some People Live In Superfluous, Inordinate Wealth, While Others Live In Abject Deadening Poverty.

Distribution Of Wealth

Nonviolence Is The Most Potent Technique For Oppressed People. Unearned Suffering Is Redemptive.

We Aren't Going To Let Any Mace Stop Us. We Are Masters In Our Nonviolent Movement In Disarming Police Forces; They Don't Know What To Do.

Human Progress Never Rolls In On The Wheels Of Inevitability; It Comes Through The Tireless Efforts And The Persistent Work Of Dedicated Individuals Who Are Willing To Be Co-workers With God And Without This Hard Work Time Itself Becomes An Ally Of The Primitive Forces Of Social Stagnation.

Every Man Is Somebody Because He Is A Child Of God.

The Only Time People Do Not Like Praise Is When Too Much Of It Is Going Toward Someone Else.

A True Revolution Of Values Will See That The Western Arrogance Of Feeling That It Has Everything To Teach Others And Nothing To Learn From Them Is Not Just.

Breaking Silence

What Seems So Necessary Today May Not Even Be Desirable Tomorrow.

Men Often Hate Each Other Because They Fear Each Other; They Fear Each Other Because They Don't Know Each Other; They Don't Know Each Other Because They Can Not Communicate; They Can Not Communicate Because They Are Separated.

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

We Will Not Be Satisfied Until Justice Rolls Down Like Waters.

I Have A Dream Speech

In That Dramatic Scene On Calvary's Hill Three Men Were Crucified.... All Three Were Crucified For The Same Crime-the Crime Of Extremism. Two Were Extremists For Immorality, And Thus Fell Below Their Environment. The Other, Jesus Christ, Was An Extremist For Love, Truth And Goodness, And Thereby Rose Above His Environment. Perhaps The South, The Nation And The World Are In Dire Need Of Creative Extremists.

I Have A Dream That One Day On The Red Hills Of Georgia, Sons Of Former Slaves And Sons Of Former Slave-owners Will Be Able To Sit Down Together At The Table Of Brotherhood. I Have A Dream That One Day, Even The State Of Mississippi, A State Sweltering With The Heat Of Injustice, Sweltering With The Heat Of Oppression, Will Be Transformed Into A Oasis Of Freedom And Justice. I Have A Dream My Four Little Children Will One Day Live In A Nation Where They Will Not Be Judged By The Color Of Their Skin But By Content Of Their Character. I Have A Dream Today!

I Am Now Convinced That The Simplest Approach Will Prove To Be The Most Effective -- The Solution To Poverty Is To Abolish It Directly By A Now Widely Discussed Measure: The Guaranteed Income.

We Are Called Upon To Help The Discouraged Beggars In Life's Marketplace. But One Day We Must Come To See That An Edifice Which Produces Beggars Needs Restructuring.

Law And Order Exist For The Purpose Of Establishing Justice And When They Fail In This Purpose They Become The Dangerously Structured Dams That Block The Flow Of Social Progress.

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.

As A Young Man With Most Of My Life Ahead Of Me, I Decided Early To Give My Life To Something Eternal And Absolute. Not To These Little Gods That Are Here Today And Gone Tomorrow. But To God Who Is The Same Yesterday, Today, And Forever.

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.

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

We Must Face The Appalling Fact That We Have Been Betrayed By Both The Democratic And Republican Parties.

Be True To What You Said On Paper.

We Shall Match Your Capacity To Inflict Suffering By Our Capacity To Endure Suffering. We Will Meet Your Physical Force With Soul Force. Do To Us What You Will And We Will Still Love You....bomb Our Homes And Threaten Our Children, And, As Difficult As It Is, We Will Still Love You.

When Our Days Become Dreary With Low Hovering Clouds Of Despair, And When Our Nights Become Darker Than A Thousand Midnights, Let Us Remember That There Is A Creative Force In This Universe, Working To Pull Down The Gigantic Mountains Of Evil, A Power That Is Able To Make A Way Out Of No Way And Transform Dark Yesterdays Into Bright Tomorrows. Let Us Realize The Arc Of The Moral Universe Is Long But It Bends Toward Justice.

Our Nettlesome Task Is To Discover How To Organize Our Strength Into Compelling Power.

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

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

Nonviolent Resistance Makes It Possible For The Negro To Remain In The South And Struggle For His Rights. The Negro's Problem Will Not Be Solved By Running Away.

Most Of These People Will Never Make The Headlines And Their Names Will Not Appear In Who's Who. Yet When Years Have Rolled Past And When The Blazing Light Of Truth Is Focused On This Marvelous Age In Which We Live - Men And Women Will Know And Children Will Be Taught That We Have A Finer Land, A Better People, A More Noble Civilization - Because These Humble Children Of God Were Willing To Suffer For Righteousness' Sake.

God Made The World From Nothing, And If We Can Be Nothing, Then God Can Make Something Of Us.

I Will Always Remember My Delight When Mrs. Georgia Gilmore - An Unlettered Woman Of Unusual Intelligence - Told How An Operator Demanded That She Get Off The Bus After Paying Her Fare And Board It Again By The Back Door, And Then Drove Away Before She Could Get There. She Turned To Judge Carter And Said: "when They Count The Money, They Do Not Know Negro Money From White Money.

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

I Have Condemned Any Organizer Of War, Regardless Of His Rank Or Nationality.

Freedom Is Never Voluntarily Given By The Oppressor; It Must Be Demanded By The Oppressed.

To Ignore Evil Is To Become An Accomplice To It.

There Is A Magnificent New Militancy Within The Negro Community All Across This Nation. And I Welcome This As A Marvelous Development. The Negro Of America Is Saying He's Determined To Be Free And He Is Militant Enough To Stand Up.

For More Than Two Centuries Our Foreparents Labored Here Without Wages; They Made Cotton King; And They Built The Homes Of Their Masters In The Midst Of Brutal Injustice And Shameful Humiliation - And Yet Out Of A Bottomless Vitality Our People Continue To Thrive And Develop.

Somehow We Must Transform The Dynamics Of The World Power Struggle From The Negative Nuclear Arms Race Which No One Can Win To A Positive Contest To Harness Man's Creative Genius For The Purpose Of Making Peace And Prosperity A Reality For All Of The Nations Of The World.

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

Many Men Cry Peace! Peace! But They Refuse To Do The Things That Make For Peace.

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

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.

If You Succumb To The Temptation Of Using Violence In The Struggle, Unborn Generations Will Be The Recipients Of A Long And Desolate Night Of Bitterness, And Your Chief Legacy To The Future Will Be An Endless Reign Of Meaningless Chaos.

A Man Who Won't Die For Something Is Not Fit To Live.

If We Are Going To Achieve A Real Equality, The U.s. Will Have To Adopt A Modified Form Of Socialism.

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.

We Must Build Dikes Of Courage To Hold Back The Flood Of Fear.

True Peace Is Not Merely The Absence Of Tension: It Is The Presence Of Justice.

[people] Don't See That There's A Great Deal Of A Difference Between Nonresistance To Evil And Nonviolent Resistance.

I Am Thankful, However, That Some Of Our White Brothers Have Grasped The Meaning Of This Social Revolution And Committed Themselves To It. They Are Still All Too Small In Quantity, But They Are Big In Quality.

Love Is The Supreme Unifying Principle Of Life.

Now Is The Time To Make Justice A Reality For All Of God's Children.

Never Succumb To The Temptation Of Bitterness.

Returning Hate For Hate Multiplies Hate.

Loving Your Enemies

Life's Most Persistent And Urgent Question Is, 'what Are You Doing For Others?'

We Know Through Painful Experience That Freedom Is Never Voluntarily Given By The Oppressor; It Must Be Demanded By The Oppressed. Frankly I Have Never Yet Engaged In A Direct Action Movement That Was 'well Timed,' According To The Timetable Of Those Who Have Not Suffered Unduly From The Disease Of Segregation. For Years Now I Have Heard The Word 'wait!' It Rings In The Ear Of Every Negro With A Piercing Familiarity. This 'wait' Has Almost Always Meant 'never.' We Must Come To See With The Distinguished Jurist Of Yesterday That 'justice Too Long Delayed Is Justice Denied.'

Painful Experiences

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

World Hinges On Moral Foundations. God Has Made It So! God Has Made The Universe To Be Based On A Moral Law. So Long As Man Disobeys It He Is Revolting Against God. That’s What We Need In The World Today - People Who Will Stand For Right And Goodness.

One Day The Absurdity Of The Almost Universal Human Belief In The Slavery Of Other Animals Will Be Palpable. We Shall Then Have Discovered Our Souls And Become Worthier Of Sharing This Planet With Them.

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.

Let Us Say Boldly, That If The Total Slum Violations Of Law By The White Man Over The Years Were Calculated And Compared With The Lawbreaking Of A Few Days Of Riots, The Hardened Criminal Would Be The White Man.

Capital Punishment Is Against The Best Judgment Of Modern Criminology And, Above All, Against The Highest Expression Of Love In The Nature Of God.

Power Is The Ability To Achieve Purpose.

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.

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

If I Lived In China Or Even Russia, Or Any Totalitarian Country, Maybe I Could Understand Some Of These Illegal Injunctions. ... But Somewhere I Read Of The Freedom Of Assembly. Somewhere I Read Of The Freedom Of Speech. Somewhere I Read Of The Freedom Of The Press. Somewhere I Read That The Greatness Of America Is The Right To Protest For Right.

The Only Weapon That We Have In Our Hands This Evening Is The Weapon Of Protest. That's All.

I'm Concerned About A Better World. I'm Concerned About Justice; I'm Concerned About Brotherhood; I'm Concerned About Truth. And When One Is Concerned About That, He Can Never Advocate Violence. For Through Violence You May Murder A Murderer, But You Can't Murder Murder. Through Violence You May Murder A Liar, But You Can't Establish Truth. Through Violence You May Murder A Hater, But You Can't Murder Hate Through Violence. Darkness Cannot Put Out Darkness; Only Light Can Do That.

We Must Remember That Intelligence Is Not Enough. Intelligence Plus Character-that Is The Goal Of True Education. The Complete Education Gives One Not Only Power Of Concentration, But Worthy Objectives Upon Which To Concentrate.

Education Without Social Action Is A One-sided Value Because It Has No True Power Potential. Social Action Without Education Is A Weak Expression Of Pure Energy. Deeds Uninformed By Educated Thought Can Take False Directions. When We Go Into Action And Confront Our Adversaries, We Must Be As Armed With Knowledge As They. Our Policies Should Have The Strength Of Deep Analysis Beneath Them To Be Able To Challenge The Clever Sophistries Of Our Opponents.

Unless You Have Found Something In Life To Live For That Is More Important To You Than Your Own Life, You Will Always Be A Slave. For All Another Man Needs To Do Is Threaten To Take Your Life To Get You To Do His Bidding.

By Its Very Nature, Hate Destroys And Tears Down; By Its Very Nature, Love Creates And Builds Up.

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.

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.

Everyone Has The Power For Greatness, Not For Fame But Greatness, Because Greatness Is Determined By Service.

We Must Shift The Arms Race Into A 'peace Race'.

Now A Lot Of Us Are Preachers, And All Of Us Have Our Moral Convictions And Concerns, And So Often Have Problems With Power. There Is Nothing Wrong With Power If Power Is Used Correctly.

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

Gandhi Was Inevitable. If Humanity Is To Progress, Gandhi Is Inescapable. He Lived, Thought And Acted, Inspired By The Vision Of Humanity Evolving Toward A World Of Peace And Harmony. We May Ignore Gandhi At Our Own Risk.

The Means By Which We Live Have Outdistanced The Ends For Which We Live.

Inspirational Life

I Feel That When A White Child Goes To School Only With White Children, Unconsciously That Child Grows Up In Many Instances Devoid Of A World Perspective. There Is An Unconscious Provincialism, And It Can Develop Into An Unconscious Superiority Complex Just As A Negro Develops An Unconscious Inferiority Complex.

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

True Compassion Is More Than Flinging A Coin To A Beggar. It Comes To See That A System That Produces Beggars Needs To Be Repaved. We Are Called To Be The Good Samaritan, But After You Lift So Many People Out Of The Ditch You Start To Ask, Maybe The Whole Road To Jericho Needs To Be Repaved.

We Can Walk Through The Darkest Night With The Radiant Conviction That All Things Work Together For The Good.

Working Together

In Spite Of The Fact That The Law Of Revenge Solves No Social Problems, Men Continue To Follow Its Disastrous Leading. History Is Cluttered With The Wreckage Of Nations And Individuals That Pursued This Self-defeating Path.

We Must Rapidly Begin The Shift From A "thing-oriented" Society To A "person-oriented" Society. When Machines And Computers, Profit Motives And Property Rights Are Considered More Important Than People, The Giant Triplets Of Racism, Materialism, And Militarism Are Incapable Of Being Conquered.

In A Real Sense All Life Is Inter-related. All Men Are Caught In An Inescapable Network Of Mutuality, Tied In A Single Garment Of Destiny. Whatever Affects One Directly, Affects All Indirectly. I Can Never Be What I Ought To Be Until You Are What You Ought To Be, And You Can Never Be What You Ought To Be Until I Am What I Ought To Be... This Is The Inter-related Structure Of Reality.

Peace Is Not Merely A Distant Goal That We Seek, But A Means By Which We Arrive At That Goal.

The Greatest Pain Is The Pain Of A New Idea.

The Church Must Be Reminded That It Is Not The Master Or The Servant Of The State, But Rather The Conscience Of The State. It Must Be The Guide And The Critic Of The State, And Never Its Tool. If The Church Does Not Recapture Its Prophetic Zeal, It Will Become An Irrelevant Social Club Without Moral Or Spiritual Authority.

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...'

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.

If An American Is Concerned Only About His Nation, He Will Not Be Concerned About The Peoples Of Asia, Africa, Or South America. Is This Not Why Nations Engage In The Madness Of War Without The Slightest Sense Of Penitence? Is This Not Why The Murder Of A Citizen Of Your Own Nation Is A Crime, But The Murder Of Citizens Of Another Nation In War Is An Act Of Heroic Virtue?

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

Man Was Born Into Barbarism When Killing His Fellow Man Was A Normal Condition Of Existence. He Became Endowed With A Conscience. And He Has Now Reached The Day When Violence Toward Another Human Being Must Become As Abhorrent As Eating Another's Flesh.

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.

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

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

Love Has Within It A Redemptive Power. And There Is A Power There That Eventually Transforms Individuals. Just Keep Being Friendly To That Person. Just Keep Loving Them, And They Can't Stand It Too Long. Oh, They React In Many Ways In The Beginning. They React With Guilt Feelings, And Sometimes They'll Hate You A Little More At That Transition Period, But Just Keep Loving Them. And By The Power Of Your Love They Will Break Down Under The Load. That's Love, You See. It Is Redemptive.

Lukewarm Acceptance Is More Bewildering Than Outright Rejection.

Capitalism Is Always In Danger Of Inspiring Men To Be More Concerned About Making A Living Than Making A Life. 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 Humanity-thus Capitalism Can Lead To A Practical Materialism That Is As Pernicious As The Materialism Taught By Communism.

I Believe That Unarmed Truth And Unconditional Love Will Have The Final Word In Reality. This Is Why Right, Temporarily Defeated, Is Stronger Than Evil Triumphant.

Science Deals Mainly With Facts; Religion Deals Mainly With Values. The Two Are Not Rivals. They Are Complementary.

I Must Face The Fact, As All Others In Positions Of Leadership Must Do, That America Today Is An Extremely Sick Nation, And That Something Could Well Happen To Me At Any Time. I Feel, Though, That My Cause Is So Right, So Moral, That If I Should Lose My Life, In Some Way It Would Aid The Cause.

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.

[malcolm X] Had Said A Great Deal About Nonviolence, Criticizing Nonviolence, And Saying That I Approved Of Negro Men And Women Being Bitten By Dogs And The Fire Hoses, And I Say, Say Go On And Not Defend Yourself. I Think This Kind Of Response Grew Out Of The Build Up, All Of The Talk About My Being A Sort Of Polished Uncle Tom.

The Ultimate Measure Of A Man Is Not Where He Stands In Moments Of Comfort And Convenience, But Where He Stands At Times Of Challenge And Controversy. Nothing Worthwhile Is Easy. Your Ability To Overcome Unfavorable Situations Will Provide You With Time To Demonstrate Your True Strength And Determination For Success. Always Set Your Standards High, Your Greatest Achievements Lie Within The Infinite Feats You Achieve In Your Life.

As Television Beamed The Image Of This Extraordinary Gathering Across The Border Oceans, Everyone Who Believed In Man's Capacity To Better Himself Had A Moment Of Inspiration And Confidence In The Future Of The Human Race.

We All Can't Be Famous But We Can All Be Great And We Become Great When We Serve Others

Jesus Is Not An Impractical Idealist; He Is The Practical Realist.

If You Will Protest Courageously, And Yet With Dignity And Christian Love, When The History Books Are Written In Future Generations, The Historians Will Have To Pause And Say, "there Lived A Great People-a Black People-who Injected New Meaning And Dignity Into The Veins Of Civilization.

Being A Negro In America Means Trying To Smile When You Want To Cry. It Means Trying To Hold On To Physical Life Amid Psychological Death. It Means The Pain Of Watching Your Children Grow Up With Clouds Of Inferiority In Their Mental Skies. It Means Having Their Legs Off, And Then Being Condemned For Being A Cripple.

Moral Principles Have Lost Their Distinctiveness. For Modern Man, Absolute Right And Absolute Wrong Are A Matter Of What The Majority Is Doing.

I'll Tell You, I've Seen The Lightning Flash. I've Heard The Thunder Roll. I Felt Sin-breakers Dashing, Trying To Conquer My Soul. But I Heard The Voice Of Jesus Saying Still To Fight On.

Whom You Would Change, You Must First Love.

We Must Learn That Passively To Accept An Unjust System Is To Cooperate With That System, And Thereby To Become A Participant In Its Evil.

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

My Parents Would Always Tell Me That I Should Not Hate The White Man, But That It Was My Duty As A Christian To Love Him.

The Greatest Purveyor Of Violence In The World : My Own Government, I Can Not Be Silent.

Friends Are Forever Boys Are Whatever.

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.

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.

I Am Convinced That It Is One Of The Most Unjust Wars That Has Ever Been Fought In The History Of The World. Our Involvement In The War In Vietnam Has Torn Up The Geneva Accord. It Has Strengthened The Military-industrial Complex; It Has Strengthened The Forces Of Reaction In Our Nation. It Has Put Us Against The Self-determination Of A Vast Majority Of The Vietnamese People, And Put Us In The Position Of Protecting A Corrupt Regime That Is Stacked Against The Poor.

Had It Not Been For The Ministry Of My Good Friend Dr. Billy Graham, My Work In The Civil Rights Movement Would Not Have Been As Successful As It Has Been.

I Think One Can Live In American Society With A Certain Cultural Heritage, Whether It's An African Heritage Or Other, European,what Have You, And Still Absorb A Great Deal Of This Culture. There Is Always Cultural Assimilation.

Each One Of Us Has The Power To Make Others Feel Better Or Worse. Making Others Feel Better Is Much More Fun Than Making Others Feel Worse. Making Others Feel Better Generally Makes Us Feel Better

Loving Your Enemies... Far From Being The Pious Injunction Of A Utopian Dreamer, This Demand Is An Absolute Necessity For The Survival Of Our Civilization. Yes It Is Love That Will Save Our World And Civilization; Love Even For Our Enemies.

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.

If You Want To Be Important-wonderful. If You Want To Be Recognized-wonderful. If You Want To Be Great-wonderful. But Recognize That He Who Is Greatest Among You Shall Be Your Servant. That's A New Definition Of Greatness.

Man Is Man Because He Is Free To Operate Within The Framework Of His Destiny. He Is Free To Deliberate, To Make Decisions, And To Choose Between Alternatives.

It Is Precisely Because Education Is The Road To Equality And Citizenship, That It Has Been Made More Elusive For Negroes Than Many Other Rights. The Walling Off Of Negroes From Equal Education Is Part Of The Historical Design To Submerge Him In Second Class Status. Therefore, As Negroes Have Struggled To Be Free They Have Had To Fight For The Opportunity For A Decent Education.

As A Teenager I Had Never Been Able To Accept The Fact Of Having To Go To The Back Of A Bus Or Sit In The Segregated Section Of A Train. The First Time I Had Been Seated Behind A Curtain In A Dining Car, I Felt As If The Curtain Had Been Dropped On My Selfhood.

If You Haven't Found Something Worth Dying For, You're Not Fit To Live.

You Have Very Little Morally Persuasive Power With People Who Can Feel Your Underlying Contempt.

Once You Become Dedicated To A Cause, Personal Security Is Not The Goal. What Will Happen To You Personally Does Not Matter. My Cause, My Race, Is Worth Dying For.

Jesus Reminds Us That The Good Life Combines The Toughness Of The Serpent And The Tenderness Of The Dove. To Have Serpent-like Qualities Devoid Of Dovelike Qualities Is To Be Passionless, Mean, And Selfish. To Have Dovelike Without Serpent-like Qualities Is To Be Sentimental, Anemic And Aimless. We Must Combine Strongly Marked Antitheses.

I" Cannot Reach Fulfillment Without "thou." The Self Cannot Be Self Without Other Selves. Self-concern Without Other-concern Is Like A Tributary That Has No Outward Flow To The Ocean.

Like Anybody, I Would Like To Have A Long Life. Longevity Has Its Place. But I'm Not Concerned About That Now. I Just Want To Do God's Will.

I Had A Very Depressing Response Because I Realized That These Were My Own People, These Were Negroes Throwing Eggs At Me. I'm Concerned About The Fact That Maybe All Of Us Have Contributed To This By Not Working Harder To Get Rid Of The Conditions, The Poverty, The Social Isolation, And All Of The Conditions That Cause Individuals To Respond Like This.

I Don't Think You Can Be In Public Life Without Being Called Bad Names.

Hatred Paralyzes Life; Love Releases It.

As Long As There Is Poverty In The World I Can Never Be Rich, Even If I Have A Billion Dollars. As Long As Diseases Are Rampant And Millions Of People In This World Cannot Expect To Live More Than Twenty-eight Or Thirty Years, I Can Never Be Totally Healthy Even If I Just Got A Good Checkup At Mayo Clinic. I Can Never Be What I Ought To Be Until You Are What You Ought To Be. This Is The Way Our World Is Made. No Individual Or Nation Can Stand Out Boasting Of Being Independent. We Are Interdependent.

Where Evil Men Would Seek To Perpetuate An Unjust Status Quo, Good Men Must Seek To Bring Into Being A Real Order Of Justice.

If Your Opponent Has A Conscience, Then Follow Gandhi And Nonviolence. But If Your Enemy Has No Conscience Like Hitler, Then Follow Bonhoeffer.

Knowledge Is A Process Of Piling Up Facts; Wisdom Lies In Their Simplification.

I Cannot Sit Idly By In Atlanta And Not Be Concerned About What Happens In Birmingham.

Injustice Anywhere

The Great Majority Of Americans Are Suspended Between These Opposing Attitudes. They Are Uneasy With Injustice But Unwilling Yet To Pay A Significant Price To Eradicate It.

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

Change Does Not Roll In On The Wheels Of Inevitability, But Comes Through Continuous Struggle.

I Have A Dream That My Four Little Children Will One Day Live In A Nation Where They Will Not Be Judged By The Color Of Their Skin, But By The Content Of Their Character.

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

In Order To Love Your Enemies, You Must Begin By Analyzing Self.

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

The Curse Of Poverty Has No Justification In Our Age...the Time Has Come For Us To Civilize Ourselves By The Total, Direct And Immediate Abolition Of Poverty.

Through Violence, You May Murder The Hater, But You Do Not Murder The Hate.

Let Us Not Wallow In The Valley Of Despair.

I Have A Dream Speech

Have We Not Come To Such An Impasse In The Modern World That We Must Love Our Enemies - Or Else? The Chain Reaction Of Evil - Hate Begetting Hate, Wars Producing More Wars - Must Be Broken, Or Else We Shall Be Plunged Into The Dark Abyss Of Annihilation.

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.

In The Struggle For Human Rights And Justice, Negros Will Make A Mistake If They Become Bitter And Indulge In Hate Campaigns.

It Is Our Experience That The Nation Doesn't Move Around Questions Of Genuine Equality For The Poor And For Black People Until It Is Confronted Massively, Dramatically In Terms Of Direct Action.

The Art Of Acceptance Is The Art Of Making Someone Who Has Just Done You A Small Favor Wish That He Might Have Done You A Greater One.

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