Black Power alone is no more insurance against social injustice than white power.

Nonviolent resistance makes it possible for the Negro to remain in the South and struggle for his rights. The Negro's problem will not be solved by running away.

Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The yearning for freedom eventually manifests itself.

But I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough, can you see the stars.

The end of violence or the aftermath of violence is bitterness. The aftermath of nonviolence is reconciliation and the creation of a beloved community. A boycott is never an end within itself. It is merely a means to awaken a sense of shame within the oppressor but the end is reconciliation, the end is redemption.

In spite of the fact that the law of revenge solves no social problems, men continue to follow its disastrous leading. History is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path.

We must learn that passively to accept an unjust system is to cooperate with that system, and thereby to become a participant in its evil.