The oppressed must never allow the conscience of the oppressor to slumber. Religion reminds every man that he is his brother's keeper.

My friends, I must say to you that we have not made a single gain in civil rights without determined legal and nonviolent pressure.

The contemporary tendency in our society is to base our distribution on scarcity, which has vanished, and to compress our abundance into the overfed mouths of the middle and upper classes until they gag with superfluity. If democracy is to have breadth of meaning, it is necessary to adjust this inequity. It is not only moral, but it is also intelligent. We are wasting and degrading human life by clinging to archaic thinking.

When I took up the cross I recognized it's meaning. The cross is something that you bear, and ultimately, that you die on.

In order to love your enemies, you must begin by analyzing self.

When the Negro was completely an underdog, he needed white spokesmen. Liberals played their parts in this period exceedingly well.... But now that the Negro has rejected his role as an underdog, he has become more assertive in his search for identity and group solidarity; he wants to speak for himself.

Life's piano can only produce melodies of brotherhood (and sisterhood) when it is recognized that the black keys are as basic, necessary and beautiful as the white keys.