When we ask Negroes to abide by the law, let us also declare that the white man does not abide by law in the ghettos. Day in and day out he violates welfare laws to deprive the poor of their meager allotments; he flagrantly violates building codes and regulations; his police make a mockery of law; he violates laws on equal employment and education and the provisions of civil services. The slums are the handiwork of a vicious system of the white society; Negroes live in them, but they do not make them, any more than a prisoner makes a prison.

One of the great liabilities of history is that all too many people fail to remain awake through great periods of social change.

Violence ends up defeating itself. It creates bitterness in the survivors and brutality in the destroyers.

There is no sound more powerful than the marching feet of a determined people.

Was not Jesus an extremist in love? - "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, pray for them that despitefully use you."

Use me, God. Show me how to take who I am, who I want to be, and what I can do, and use it for a purpose greater than myself.

We are challenged to develop a world perspective. No individual can live alone, no nation can live alone, and anyone who feels that he can live alone is sleeping through a revolution. The world in which we live is geographically one.