Martin Luther King, Jr. Quotes
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Riots are the voices of the unheard.
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We know nothing about Africa, although our roots are there in terms of our forbearers. But I mean as far as the average Negro today, he knows nothing about Africa. And I think he's got to face the fact that he is an American, his culture is basically American, and one becomes adjusted to this when he realizes what, what he is.
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The hottest place in Hell is reserved for those who remain neutral in times of great moral conflict.
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Occasionally in life there are those moments of unutterable fulfillment which cannot be completely explained by those symbols called words. Their meanings can only be articulated by the inaudible language of the heart.
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Cowardice asks the question, is it safe?
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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.
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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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Justice denied anywhere diminishes justice everywhere.
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The idea of a superior or inferior race is a myth that has been completely refuted by anthropological evidence.
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Where evil men would seek to perpetuate an unjust status quo, good men must seek to bring into being a real order of justice.
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The Negro has no room to make any substantial compromises because his store of advantages is too small. He must press unrelentingly for quality, integrated education or his whole drive for freedom will be undermined by the absence of a most vital and indispensable element - learning.
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You don't have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.
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I look forward confidently to the day when all who work for a living will be one with no thought to their separateness as Negroes, Jews, Italians or any other distinctions. This will be the day when we bring into full realization the American dream -- a dream yet unfulfilled.
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Jazz speaks for life. The Blues tell the story of life's difficulties.
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Returning hate for hate multiplies hate.
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Mother Dear, one day I'm going to turn this world upside down." --From My Brother Martin, by Christine King Farris.
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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.
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The greatness of our God lies in the fact that [He] is both tough minded and tender hearted.
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I would suffer all the humiliation, all the torture, the absolute ostracism and even death, to prevent violence.
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We are not makers of history. We are made by history.
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They were too God-intoxicated to be "astronomically intimidated." They brought an end to such ancient evils as infanticide and gladiatorial contest.
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With the tough mind, there must also be a tender heart.
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We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.
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In every age and every generation, men have envisioned a promised land. Some may have envisioned it with the wrong ideology, with the wrong philosophical presupposition. But men in every generation thought in terms of some promised land.