The soft-minded man always fears change. He feels security in the status quo, and he has an almost morbid fear of the new. For him, the greatest pain is the pain of a new idea.

We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now.

In the event of a violent revolution, we would be sorely outnumbered. And when it was all over, the Negro would face the same unchanged conditions, the same squalor and deprivation-the only difference being that his bitterness would be even more intense, his disenchantment even more abject. Thus, in purely practical as well as moral terms, the American Negro has no rational alternative to nonviolence.

You see, my friends...you begin to ask the questions, 'Who owns the oil?' You begin to ask the question, 'Who owns the iron ore?' You begin to ask the question, 'Why is it that people have to pay water bills in a world that is two-thirds water?'

America, you must be born again!

America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked 'insufficient funds.'

As the weeks and months unfolded, we realized that we were the victims of a broken promise.