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.
It is a tragic mix-up when the United States spends $500,000 for every enemy soldier killed, and only $53 annually on the victims of poverty.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Topics: Poverty
I have a dream.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Topics: Dreams
Power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Whatever your life’s work is, do it well. A man should do his job so well that the living, the dead, and the unborn could do it no better.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Topics: Work, Society
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
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.
A riot is the language of the unheard.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Topics: Revolution
Keep moving. Let nothing slow you up. Move on with dignity and honor and respectability.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can’t ride you unless your back is bent.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Topics: Change
Every genuine expression of love grows out of a consistent and total surrender to God.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Never succumb to the temptation of bitterness.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Topics: Bitterness
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: Hate, Tolerance, Light, Goodness, Love
The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over, and I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the Promised Land.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Topics: Leadership, Prophecy, Vision
The means by which we live have outdistanced the ends for which we live. Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Topics: Science, Humanity, Weapon, Power
The question is no longer between violence and non-violence; it is between non-violence and non-existence.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Topics: Violence
Some things are right and some things are wrong, no matter if everybody is doing the contrary. Some things in this universe are absolute. The God of the universe has made it so. And so long as we adopt this relative attitude toward right and wrong, we’re revolting against the very laws of God himself.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
The thing that we need in the world today is a group of men and women who will stand up for right and to be opposed to wrong, wherever it is. A group of people who have come to see that some things are wrong, whether they’re never caught up with. And some things are right, whether nobody sees you doing them or not.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Civilization and violence are antithetical concepts.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Topics: Peace
The limitation of riots, moral questions aside, is that they cannot win and their participants know it. Hence, rioting is not revolutionary but reactionary because it invites defeat. It involves an emotional catharsis, but it must be followed by a sense of futility.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Topics: Violence
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.
Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that really matter.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Topics: Wildlife, Silence, Living
Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Topics: Stupidity, Ignorance, Foolishness
Darkness is only driven out with light, not more darkness.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed; We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal…
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Topics: Equality
In every age and every generation, men have envisioned a promised land.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Forgiveness is not an occasional act: it is an attitude.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Topics: Attitude, Forgiveness
I am coming to feel that the people of ill will have used time much more effectively than the people of goodwill. We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people. We must come to see that human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability. It comes through the tireless efforts and persistent work of men willing to be co-workers with God, and without this hard work time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. We must use time creatively, and forever realize that the time is always ripe to do right. Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy, and transform our pending national elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of human dignity.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Topics: Integrity, Time Management, Spending time wisely, Time, Acceptance, Goodness
When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism, are incapable of being conquered. A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
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