We are out to defeat injustice and not white persons who may be unjust.

I plan to stand by nonviolence, because I have found it to be a philosophy of life that regulates not only my dealings in the struggle for racial justice, but also my dealings with people, and with my own self.

[W]e are the heirs of a past of rope, fire, and murder. I for one am not ashamed of this past. My shame is for those who became so inhuman that they could inflict this torture upon us.

My obligation is to do the right thing. The rest is in God's hands.

Three hundred years of humiliation, abuse and deprivation cannot be expected to find voice in a whisper.

One of the great liabilities of history is that all too many people fail to remain awake through great periods of social change.

But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation.