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!"
Martin Luther King, Jr.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.
Martin Luther King, Jr.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.
Martin Luther King, Jr.Evil must be attacked by. . . the day to day assault of the battering rams of justice.
Martin Luther King, Jr.