History will treat me right.

I am not going to say I have been a saint. I have not been a perfect man. None is perfect but the Father, which is in Heaven.

I have suffered as much as Martin Luther King. Only I didn't get the bullet. And I would have taken the bullet if I could have.

History will treat me right.

I went to jail 44 times. I've been beaten and left for dead on the side of the road fighting for freedom. . . . Yet Rosa Parks is better known in history than Ralph David Abernathy. Why is that?

Bring on your tear gas, bring on your grenades, your new supplies of Mace, your state troopers and even your national guards. But let the record show we ain't going to be turned around.

I wanted to show that Martin Luther King was simply a human being, not a god, not a saint.