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The Early Christians Rejoiced When They Were Deemed Worthy To Suffer For What They Believed. In Those Days The Church Was Not Merely A Thermometer That Recorded The Ideas And Principles O Popular Opinion; It Was A Thermostat That Transformed The Mores Of Society.

-Martin Luther King, Jr.

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The Early Christians Rejoiced

Martin Luther King, Jr.

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The Early Christians Rejoiced When They Were Deemed Worthy To Suffer For What They Believed. In Those Days The Church Was Not Merely A Thermometer That Recorded The Ideas And Principles O Popular Opinion; It Was A Thermostat That Transformed The Mores Of Society.

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The Moral Arc Of The Universe Bends At The Elbow Of Justice.

Nonviolent Direct Action Seeks To Create Such A Crisis And Establish Such Creative Tension That A Community That Has Consistently Refused To Negotiate Is Forced To Confront The Issue.

I Think In This Phase, After The Negro Emerges In And From The Desegregated Society, Then A Great Deal Of Time Must Be Spent In Improving Standards Which Lag Behind To A Large Extent Because Of Segregation,discrimination, And The Legacy Of Slavery.

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

I Say To You That Our Goal Is Freedom, And I Believe We Are Going To Get There Because However Much She Strays Away From It, The Goal Of America Is Freedom.

My Study Of Gandhi Convinced Me That True Pacifism Is Not Nonresistance To Evil, But Nonviolent Resistance To Evil. Between The Two Positions, There Is A World Of Difference. Gandhi Resisted Evil With As Much Vigor And Power As The Violent Resister, But True Pacifism Is Not Unrealistic Submission To Evil Power. It Is Rather A Courageous Confrontation Of Evil By The Power Of Love. . . .

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We Must Follow Nonviolence And Love.

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.

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I Think If We, Say, If All Of The Major Leaders In This Struggle [for Human's Rights] Were At, At War With Each Other, Then I Think It Would Be Very Difficult To Make This Social Revolution The Kind Of Powerful Revolution That It's Proved To Be.

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The Trailblazers In Human, Academic, Scientific And Religious Freedom Have Always Been Nonconformists.

The Darkness Of Racial Injustice Will Be Dispelled Only By The Light Of Forgiving Love. For More That Three Centuries American Negroes Have Been Frustrated By Day And Bewilderment By Night By Unbearable Injustice, And Burdened With The Ugly Weight Of Discrimination. Forced To Live With These Shameful Conditions, We Are Tempted To Become Bitter And Retaliate With A Corresponding Hate. But If This Happens, The New Order We Seek Will Be Little More Than A Duplicate Of The Old Order. We Must In Strength And Humility Meet Hate With Love.

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

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.

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We Must Have The Faith That Things Will Work Out Somehow, That God Will Make A Way For Us When There Seems No Way.

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Like An Unchecked Cancer, Hate Corrodes The Personality And Eats Away Its Vital Unity. Hate Destroys A Man's Sense Of Values And His Objectivity. It Causes Him To Describe The Beautiful As Ugly And The Ugly As Beautiful, And To Confuse The True With The False And The False With The True.

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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.

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Cowardice Is Submissive Surrender To Circumstances.

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If We Get Setbacks And If Something Happens Where The Civil Rights Bill Is Watered Down, For Instance, If The Negro Feels That He Can Do Nothing But Move From One Ghetto To Another And One Slum To Another, The Despair And The Disappointment Will Be So Great That It Will Be Very Difficult To Keep The Struggle Disciplined And Nonviolent.

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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.

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It Is Hardly A Moral Act To Encourage Others Patiently To Accept Injustice Which He Himself Does Not Endure.

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

I Firmly Believe That The Gandhian Philosophy Of Nonviolent Resistance Is The Only Logical And Moral Approach To The Solution Of The Race Problem In The United States.

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

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.

If You Lose Hope, Somehow You Lose The Vitality That Keeps Moving, You Lose That Courage To Be, That Quality That Helps You Go On In Spite Of It All. And So Today I Still Have A Dream.

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

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

The Whirlwinds Of Revolt Will Continue To Shake The Foundations Of Our Nation Until The Bright Day Of Justice Emerges.

I Have A Dream Speech

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We Must Learn To Live Together As Brothers Or Perish Together As Fools.

Whatever Affects One Directly Affects All Indirectly.

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.

A Lie Cannot Live.

Courageous Men Never Lose The Zest For Living Even Though Their Life Situation Is Zestless; Cowardly Men, Overwhelmed By The Uncertainties Of Life, Lose The Will To Live. We Must Constantly Build Dykes Of Courage To Hold Back The Flood Of Fear.

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

On Some Positions, Cowardice Asks The Question, Is It Expedient? And Then Expedience Comes Along And Asks The Question, Is It Politic? Vanity Asks The Question, Is It Popular? Conscience Asks The Question, Is It Right? There Comes A Time When One Must Take The Position That Is Neither Safe Nor Politic Nor Popular, But He Must Do It Because Conscience Tells Him It Is Right.

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

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Worship Is As Natural To The Human Family As The Sing Of The Sun Is To The Cosmic Order.

Wherever Schools Can Be Integrated Through The Busing Method, And Where It Won't Be Just A, A Terrible Inconvenience, I Think It Ought To Be Done.

Many White Americans Of Good Will Have Never Connected Bigotry With Economic Exploitation. They Have Deplored Prejudice But Tolerated Or Ignored Economic Injustice.

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."

Justice Is Love Correcting That Which Revolts Against Love.

We Aren't Engaged In Any Negative Protest And In Any Negative Arguments With Anybody. We Are Saying That We Are Determined To Be Men. We Are Determined To Be People. We Are Saying That We Are God's Children. And That We Don't Have To Live Like We Are Forced To Live.

The Problem With Hatred And Violence Is That They Intensity The Fears Of The White Majority, And Leave Them Less Ashamed Of Their Prejudices Toward Negroes.

Within The Best Of Us, There Is Some Evil, And Within The Worst Of Us, There Is Some Good. When We Come To See This, We Take A Different Attitude Toward Individuals.

This Is The Unusual Thing About Nonviolence -- Nobody Is Defeated, Everybody Shares In The Victory.

And Violence Is Impractical, Because The Old Eye For An Eye Philosophy Ends Up Leaving Everybody Blind .. It Is Immoral Because It Is A Descending Spiral Ending In Destruction For Everybody. Means And Ends Are Inseparable. The Means Represent The Ideal In The Making; In The Long Run Of History Destructive Means Cannot Bring About Constructive Ends.

Hatred Paralyzes Life; Love Releases It.

As I Like To Say To The People In Montgomery: "the Tension In This City Is Not Between White People And Negro People. The Tension Is, At Bottom, Between Justice And Injustice, Between The Forces Of Light And The Forces Of Darkness.

So Let Freedom Ring From The Prodigious Hilltops Of New Hampshire.

I Have A Dream Speech

We Cannot Walk Alone. And As We Walk, We Must Make The Pledge That We Shall Always March Ahead. We Cannot Turn Back.

I Have A Dream Speech

Courage Faces Fear And Thereby Masters It. Cowardice Represses Fear And Is Thereby Mastered By It.

Mankind's Survival Is Dependent On Man's Ability To Solve The Problems Of Racial Injustice, Poverty, And War; The Solution Of These Problems Is In Turn Dependent Upon Man's Squaring His Moral Progress With His Scientific Progress, And Learning The Practical Art Of Living In Harmony.

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

We Must Come To See With The Distinguished Jurist Of Yesterday That "justice Too Long Delayed Is Justice Denied."

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

I Am Indebted To My Wife Coretta, Without Whose Love, Sacrifices, And Loyalty Neither Life Nor Work Would Bring Fulfillment. She Has Given Me Words Of Consolation When I Needed Them And A Well-ordered Home Where #christian Love Is A Reality.

It's Not Burn Baby Burn, But Learn, Baby, Learn, So That You Can Earn, Baby, Earn.

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.

The Time Is Always Right To Do What Is Right.

There Is Something Wrong With Our World, Something Fundamentally And Basically Wrong.

Our Eternal Message Of Hope Is That Dawn Will Come.

I Am Convinced That...in The Struggle For Righteousness Man Has Cosmic Companionship.

We Should Never Forget That Everything Adolph Hitler Did In Germany Was "legal" And Everything The Hungarian Freedom Fighers Did In Hungary Was "illegal." It Was "illegal" To Aid And Comfort A Jew In Hitler's Germany.

Jesus Recognized That Love Is Greater Than Like.

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

I Would Be The Last To Condemn The Thousands Of Sincere And Dedicated People Outside The Churches Who Have Labored Unselfishly Through Various Humanitarian Movements To Cure The World Of Social Evils, For I Would Rather A Man Be A Committed Humanist Than An Uncommitted Christian.

Without God, All Of Our Efforts Turn To Ashes And Our Sunrise Into The Darkest Of Nights.

I Could Never Again Raise My Voice Against The Violence Of The Oppressed, Without Having First Spoken Clearly To The Greatest Purveyor Of Violence In The World Today – My Own Government.

Education Must Enable One To Sift And Weigh Evidence, To Discern The True From The False, The Real From The Unreal, And The Facts From The Fiction.

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.

Love Is Basic For The Very Survival Of Mankind. I'm Convinced That Love Is The Only Absolute Ultimately; Love Is The Highest Good. He Who Loves Has Somehow Discovered The Meaning Of Ultimate Reality. He Who Hates Does Not Know God; He Who Hates Has No Knowledge Of God. Love Is The Supreme Unifying Principle Of Life.

We Are Now Faced With The Fact, My Friends, That Tomorrow Is Today. We Are Confronted With The Fierce Urgency Of Now.

Breaking Silence

Don't Let Anybody Take Your Manhood.

We Live In A World Of Guided Missiles And Misguided Men.

Hate Destroys The Very Structure Of The Personality Of The Hater.

We Have No Alternative But To Protest. For Many Years We Have Shown An Amazing Patience... But We Come Here Tonight To Be Saved From That Patience That Makes Us Patient With Anything Less Than Freedom And Justice.

I Know That God Is Not Going To Willfully Hurt Us. Why There Is Suffering Is The Business Of The Lord, But He Never Seems To Give Us More Than We Can Bear.

I Have Decided To Love. If You Are Seeking The Highest Good, I Think You Can Find It Through Love. God Is Love.

The Potential Beauty Of Human Life Is Constantly Made Ugly By Man's Ever-recurring Song Of Retaliation.

Lightning Makes No Sound Until It Strikes.

I Never Cease To Wonder At The Amazing Presumption Of Much Of White Society, Assuming That They Have The Right To Bargain With The Negro For His Freedom.

The Greatness Of Man Cannot Be Seen In The Hours Of Comfort And Convenience, But Rather In Moments Of Conflict/adversity

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

It's Not How Long You Live, It's How Well You Live.

The Negro Cannot Win The Respect Of The White People Of The South Or The Peoples Of The World If He Is Willing To Sell The Future Of His Children For His Personal And Immediate Comfort And Safety.

Whom You Would Change, You Must First Love.

I Have The Audacity To Believe That Peoples Everywhere Can Have Three Meals A Day For Their Bodies, Education And Culture For Their Minds, And Dignity, Equality And Freedom For Their Spirits. I Believe That What Self-centered Men Have Torn Down Men Other-centered Can Build Up. 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 Good Will Proclaim The Rule Of The Land.

Love Is Somehow The Key That Unlocks The Door Which Leads To Ultimate Reality.

Hate Destroys The Hater.

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.

We Who In Engage In Nonviolent Direct Action Are Not The Creators Of Tension. We Merely Bring To The Surface The Hidden Tension That Is Already Alive.

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

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

Another Way That You Love Your Enemy Is This: When The Opportunity Presents Itself For You To Defeat Your Enemy, That Is The Time Which You Must Not Do It.

You Have To Keep Moving Forward

Keep Moving Forward

O America, How You've Taken Necessities From The Masses To Give Luxuries To The Classes.

A Nation That Continues Year After Year To Spend More Money On Military Defense Than On Programs Of Social Uplift Is Approaching Spiritual Doom.

Find A Voice In A Whisper.

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

In Our Society It Is Murder, Psychologically, To Deprive A Man Of A Job Or An Income. You Are In Substance Saying To That Man That He Has No Right To Exist. You Are In A Real Way Depriving Him Of Life, Liberty, And The Pursuit Of Happiness, Denying In His Case The Very Creed Of His Society.

Babies, We Are Told, Are The Latest News From Heaven.

The Richer We Have Become Materially, The Poorer We Become Morally And Spiritually. We Have Learned To Fly In The Air Like Birds And Swim In The Sea Like Fish, But We Have Not Learned The Simple Art Of Living Together As Brothers.

Pity May Represent Little More Than The Impersonal Concern Which Prompts The Mailing Of A Check, But True Sympathy Is The Personal Concern Which Demands The Giving Of One's Soul.

A Woman Can Have A Smile, And A Woman Can Have A Large Backside, But I Have Been To The Mountain And I Am Here To Tell You That When A Woman Has Both Of Those Things She Is Not To Be Trusted.

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.

If The Negro Is To Achieve The Goal Of Integration, He Must Organize Himself Into A Militant And Nonviolent Mass Movement.

A Time Comes When Silence Is Betrayal. Even When Pressed By The Demands Of Inner Truth, Men Do Not Easily Assume The Task Of Opposing Their Government's Policy, Especially In Time Of War. Nor Does The Human Spirit Move Without Great Difficulty Against All The Apathy Of Conformist Thought, Within One's Own Bosom And In The Surrounding World.

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

And I Say To You, I Have Decided To Stick With Love, For I Know That Love Is Ultimately The Only Answer To Mankind's Problems. And I'm Going To Talk About It Everywhere I Go. For I Have Seen Too Much Hate... Every Time I See It, I Know That It Does Something To Their Faces And Their Personalities, And I Say To Myself That Hate Is Too Great A Burden To Bear. I Have Decided To Love.

And So We Shall Have To Do More Than Register And More Than Vote; We Shall Have To Create Leaders Who Embody Virtues We Can Respect, Who Have Moral And Ethical Principles We Can Applaud With Enthusiasm.

Ethical Principles

History Is A Great Teacher. Now Everyone Knows That The Labor Movement Did Not Diminish The Strength Of The Nation But Enlarged It. By Raising The Living Standards Of Millions, Labor Miraculously Created A Market For Industry And Lifted The Whole Nation To Undreamed Of Levels Of Production. Those Who Attack Labor Forget These Simple Truths, But History Remembers Them.

Labour Movement

In Any Nonviolent Campaign There Are Four Basic Steps: Collection Of The Facts To Determine Whether Injustices Exist; Negotiation; Self-purification; And Direct Action.

The World In Which We Live Is Geographically One. The Challenge That We Face Today Is To Make It One In Terms Of Brotherhood.

All Too Many Of Those Who Live In Affluent America Ignore Those Who Exist In Poor America; In Doing So, The Affluent Americans Will Eventually Have To Face Themselves With The Question That Eichman Chose To Ignore: How Responsible Am I For The Well-being Of My Fellows?

We Must In Strength And Humility Meet Hate With Love.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Free At Last, Free At Last, Thank God Almighty We Are Free At Last.

Don't Let Anybody Make You Think That God Chose America As His Divine, Messianic Force To Be A Sort Of Policeman Of The Whole World.

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

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

We Refuse To Believe That The Bank Of Justice Is Bankrupt.

I Have A Dream Speech

Forgiveness Is Not An Occasional Act, It Is A Constant Attitude.

The Problem Of Racism, The Problem Of Economic Exploitation, And The Problem Of War Are All Tied Together. These Are The Triple Evils That Are Interrelated.

Nonviolence Is Absolute Commitment To The Way Of Love. Love Is Not Emotional Bash; It Is Not Empty Sentimentalism. It Is The Active Outpouring Of One's Whole Being Into The Being Of Another.

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

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

Breaking Silence

Injustice Anywhere Threatens Justice Everywhere.

Injustice Anywhere

So When Jesus Says "love Your Enemies," He Is Setting Forth A Profound And Ultimately Inescapable Admonition.

The Supreme Task Is To Organize And Unite People So That Their Anger Becomes A Transforming Force.

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

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.

I'm Very Glad Christ Tells Us To Love Our Neighbor And Not To Like Our Neighbor Because It's Hard To Like Someone Threatening Your Children And Throwing Fire Bombs Through Your Window, But He Asks Us To Love Them And That I Can Do

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

I Have A Dream Speech

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.

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.

Nothing In The World Is More Dangerous Than Sincere Ignorance And Conscientious Stupidity.

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