Nonviolence is absolute commitment to the way of love. Love is not emotional bash; it is not empty sentimentalism. It is the active outpouring of one's whole being into the being of another.

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.

I just want to be there in love and in justice and in truth and in commitment to others, so that we can make of this old world a new world.

When our days become dreary with low-hovering clouds and our nights become darker than a thousand midnights, we will know that we are living in the creative turmoil of a genuine civilization struggling to be born.

The Negro needs the white man to free him from his fears. The white man needs the Negro to free him from his guilt.

You cannot defect form an insight. You cannot unsee what you have seen.

Jazz speaks for life. This is triumphant music.