I became convinced that noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good.

We know of no more crucial civil rights issue facing Congress today than the need to increase the federal minimum wage and extend its coverage.

This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism.

Ordinarily, a person leaving a courtroom with a conviction behind him would wear a somber face. But I left with a smile. I knew that I was a convicted criminal, but I was proud of my crime.

You can't talk about solving the economic problem of the Negro without talking about billions of dollars. You can't talk about ending the slums without first saying profit must be taken out of the slums. You're really tampering and getting on dangerous ground because you are messing with folk then. You are messing with captains of industry. Now this means that we are treading in difficult water, because it really means that we are saying that something is wrong with capitalism.

What good does it do to sit at the counter when you cannot afford a hamburger?

If I can help somebody as I pass along, if I can cheer somebody with a word or song, if I can show somebody he's traveling wrong, then my living will not be in vain.