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.

We must come to see with the distinguished jurist of yesterday that "justice too long delayed is justice denied."

People with good intentions but limited understanding are more dangerous than people with total ill will.

The Negro's problem will not be solved by running away.

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

The greatest purveyor of violence in the world : My own Government, I can not be Silent.

When Negroes looked for the second phase, the realization of equality, they found that many of their white allies had quietly disappeared.... To stay murder is not the same thing as to ordain brotherhood.