We all have the drum major instinct. We all want to be important, to surpass others, to achieve distinction, to lead the parade.
Martin Luther King, Jr.They asked if our own nation wasn't using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today-my own government. For the sake of those boys, for the sake of this government, for the sake of hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent.
Martin Luther King, Jr.On the one hand we are called to play the good Samaritan on life's roadside; but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. "A Time to Break Silence," at Riverside Church
Martin Luther King, Jr.Black Power is a nihilistic philosophy born out of the conviction that the Negro can't win... the view that American society is so hopelessly corrupt and enmeshed in evil that there is no possibility of salvation from within.
Martin Luther King, Jr.Every man of humane convictions must decide on the protest that best suits his convictions, but we must all protest.
Martin Luther King, Jr.When you cut facilities, slash jobs, abuse power, discriminate, drive people into deeper poverty & shoot people dead whilst refusing to provide answers or justice, the people will rise up & express their anger & frustration if you refuse to hear their cries. A riot is the language of the unheard.
Martin Luther King, Jr.