The Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–68,) born Michael Luther King, Jr., was an American Baptist minister and leader of the civil rights movement. Known for his dedication to ending segregation peacefully, he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964.
In 1955, when King was only 26 and serving as a priest in Montgomery, Alabama, a seamstress named Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger on a city bus. King took up her cause and led a year-long Montgomery bus boycott during which his house was bombed, and he was assaulted and arrested. In 1957, the Supreme Court ruled that the segregation of buses and public facilities was unconstitutional.
The Montgomery bus boycott put King at the vanguard of the civil rights movement. In 1963, he joined other civil rights leaders at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, where he gave his famous “I Have a Dream” speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to an audience of 200,000.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. And the Voting Rights Act of 1965 ended voter discrimination in many Southern states.
In 1967, King delivered a speech called “Beyond Vietnam / A Time to Break Silence,” denouncing America’s involvement in the Vietnam War and the recruitment of poor and minority soldiers. The next year, King was assassinated at age 39 while standing on the balcony of a Memphis motel. He was preparing to lead a protest rally in solidarity with sanitation workers who were on strike. His death sparked riots in sixty cities.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Martin Luther King, Jr.
Our loyalties must transcend our race, our tribe, our class, and our nation; and this means we must develop a world perspective.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Each of us is something of a schizophrenic personality, tragically divided against ourselves.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Topics: Self-Discovery
On some positions, Cowardice asks the question, “Is it safe?” Expediency asks the question, “Is it politic?” And Vanity comes along and asks the question, “Is it popular?” But Conscience asks the question “Is it right?” And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must do it because Conscience tells him it is right. I believe today that there is a need for all people of good will to come together with a massive act of conscience and say in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “We ain’t goin’ study war no more.” This is the challenge facing modern man.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Let us therefore continue our triumphal march to the realization of the American dream. for all of us today, the battle is in our hands. The road ahead is not altogether a smooth one. There are no broad highways that lead us easily and inevitably to quick solutions. We are still in for the season of suffering. How long? Not long. Because no lie can live forever. our God is marching on.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
We must massively assert our dignity and worth. We must stand up amidst a system that still oppresses us and develop an unassailable and majestic sense of values.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
No one really knows why they are alive until they know what they’d die for.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Men often hate each other because they fear each other; they fear each other because they don’t know each other; they don’t know each other because they cannot communicate; they cannot communicate because they are separated.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
One of the sure signs of maturity is the ability to rise to the point of self criticism.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Ultimately a genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus, but a molder of consensus.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Topics: Vision, Courage
Keep moving. Let nothing slow you up. Move on with dignity and honor and respectability.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
I am not interested in power for power’s sake, but I’m interested in power that is moral, that is right and that is good.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Topics: Power
There is scarcely anything more tragic in human life than a child who is not wanted. That which should be a blessing becomes a curse for parent and child.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
When people are self-centered, they are self-centered because they are seeking attention, they want to be admired and this is the way they set out to do it. But in the process, because of their self-centeredness, they are not admired; they are mawkish and people don’t want to be bothered with them. And so the very thing they seek, they never get. And they end up frustrated and unhappy and disillusioned.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
The best way to solve any problem is to remove the cause.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
There is little hope for us until we become tough-minded enough to break loose from the shackles of prejudice, half-truths, and downright ignorance.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Discover the element of good in your enemy. And as you seek to hate him, find the center of goodness and place your attention there and you will take a new attitude.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Science investigates; religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge which is power; religion gives man wisdom which is control. Science deals mainly with facts; religion deals mainly with values. The two are not rivals. They are complementary.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Topics: Religion, Science, Knowledge
Power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Never, never be afraid to do what’s right, especially if the well-being of a person or animal is at stake. Society’s punishments are small compared to the wounds we inflict on our soul when we look the other way.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
No nation can rise to its full moral maturity so long as it subjects a segment of its citizenry on the basis of race or color.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon. Indeed, it is a weapon unique in history, which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
If you want to be important – that’s wonderful. If you want to be great – that’s wonderful. But recognize that he who is greatest among you shall be your servant. That’s your new definition of greatness – it means that everybody can be great because everybody can serve. You don’t have to know about Plato and Aristotle to serve. You don’t have to know the second law of thermodynamics to serve. You only need a heart full of grace, a soul generated by love…
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Topics: Helpfulness, Helping, Virtues, Greatness & Great Things, Greatness
It is not enough to know that two and two makes four, but we’ve got to know somehow that it’s right to be honest and just with our brothers. It’s not enough to know all about our philosophical and mathematical disciplines, but we’ve got to know the simple disciplines of being honest and loving and just with all humanity. If we don’t learn it, we will destroy ourselves by the misuse of our own powers.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Nonviolent resistance is not aimed against oppressors, but against oppression.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
The richer we have become materially, the poorer we have become morally and spiritually. We have learned to fly the air like birds and swim the sea like fish, but we have not learned the simple art of living together as brothers.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Great people aren’t those who are happy at times of convenience and content, but of how they are in times of catastrophe and controversy.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
An individual has not begun to live until he can rise above the narrow horizons of his particular individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity. And this is one of the big problems of life, that so many people never quite get to the point of rising above self. And so they end up the tragic victims of self-centeredness. They end up the victims of distorted and disrupted personality.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Topics: Love
If you’re not allowed to laugh in Heaven…I don’t want to go there.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate… Returning violence for violence multiples violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Topics: Violence, Peace, Love
True peace is not merely the absence of tension: it is the presence of justice.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Topics: Absence, Justice
I submit to you that if a man has not discovered something that he will die for, he isn’t fit to live.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Topics: Vision, Nature, Commitment, Dedication, Dying, Death
Everybody can be great. Because anybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You don’t have to know about Plato and Aristotle… (or) Einstein’s Theory of Relativity … (or) the Second Theory of Thermodynamics in physics to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Topics: Virtues, Greatness, Love, Greatness & Great Things
Only in the darkness can you see the stars.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
The time is always right to do what’s right.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Topics: Character, Virtues, Kindness, Time, Vision, Discipline, Revenge, Integrity, Virtue, The Present
Find your sense of importance in something outside of the self. And you are then able to live because you have given your life to something outside and something that is meaningful, objectified. You rise above this self-absorption to something outside. This is the way to go through life with a balance, with the proper perspective because you’ve given yourself to something greater than self. Sometimes it’s friends, sometimes it’s family, sometimes it’s a great cause, it’s a great loyalty, but give yourself to that something and life becomes meaningful.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Topics: Justice
We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Topics: Freedom, Society
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Topics: Ignorance
The basic thing about a man is not his specific but his fundamentum.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
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