Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was the most famous leader of the American civil rights movement, a political activist, and a Baptist minister. In 1964, King became the youngest man to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize (for his work as a peacemaker, promoting nonviolence and equal treatment for different races). On April 4, 1968, Dr. King was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. In 1977, he was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Jimmy Carter. In 1986, Martin Luther King Day was established as a United States holiday, only the fourth Federal holiday to honor an individual (the other three being in honor of Jesus of Nazareth, George Washington, and Christopher Columbus). In 2004, King was posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal. Considered by many to be one of the greatest public speakers in U.S. history,[1] Dr. King often called for personal responsibility in fostering world peace.[2] King's most influential and well-known public address is the "I Have A Dream" speech, delivered on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C..
- from Wikipedia.org
We must build dikes of courage to hold back the flood of fear.
The Negro needs the white man to free him from his fears. The white man needs the Negro to free him from his guilt.
Life's most urgent question is: what are you doing for others?
Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.
It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can keep him from lynching me, and I think that's pretty important.
Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.
A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus.
A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.
We will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.
We are not makers of history. We are made by history.
More Martin Luther King Jr quotes The struggle continues!
About Dr. King One of the most visible advocates of nonviolence and direct action as methods of social change, Martin Luther King, Jr. was born in Atlanta on 15 January 1929. As the grandson of the Rev. A.D. Williams, pastor of Ebenezer Baptist church and a founder of Atlanta's NAACP chapter, and the son of Martin Luther King, Sr., who succeeded Williams as Ebenezer's pastor, King's roots were in the African-American Baptist church. After attending Morehouse College in Atlanta, King went on to study at Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania and Boston University, where he deepened his understanding of theological scholarship and explored Mahatma Gandhi's nonviolent strategy for social change.
King married Coretta Scott in 1953, and the following year he accepted the pastorate at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. King received his Ph.D. in systematic theology in 1955.
On 5 December 1955, after civil rights activist Rosa Parks refused to comply with Montgomery's segregation policy on buses, black residents launched a bus boycott and elected King president of the newly-formed Montgomery Improvement Association. The boycott continued throughout 1956 and King gained national prominence for his role in the campaign. In December 1956 the United States Supreme Court declared Alabama's segregation laws unconstitutional and Montgomery buses were desegregated.
Seeking to build upon the success in Montgomery, King and other southern black ministers founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in 1957. In 1959, King toured India and further developed his understanding of Gandhian nonviolent strategies. Later that year, King resigned from Dexter and returned to Atlanta to become co-pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church with his father.
In 1960, black college students initiated a wave of sit-in protests that led to the formation of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). King supported the student movement and expressed an interest in creating a youth arm of the SCLC. Student activists admired King, but they were critical of his top-down leadership style and were determined to maintain their autonomy. As an advisor to SNCC, Ella Baker, who had previously served as associate director of SCLC, made clear to representatives from other civil rights organizations that SNCC was to remain a student-led organization. The 1961 "Freedom Rides" heightened tensions between King and younger activists, as he faced criticism for his decision not to participate in the rides. Conflicts between SCLC and SNCC continued during the Albany Movement of 1961 and 1962.
In the spring of 1963, King and SCLC lead mass demonstrations in Birmingham, Alabama, where local white police officials were known for their violent opposition to integration. Clashes between unarmed black demonstrators and police armed with dogs and fire hoses generated newspaper headlines throughout the world. President Kennedy responded to the Birmingham protests by submitting broad civil rights legislation to Congress, which led to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Subsequent mass demonstrations culminated in the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on 28 August 1963, in which more than 250,000 protesters gathered in Washington, D. C. It was on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial that King delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech.
King's renown continued to grow as he became Time magazine's Man of the Year in 1963 and the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. However, along with the fame and accolades came conflict within the movement's leadership. Malcolm X's message of self-defense and black nationalism resonated with northern, urban blacks more effectively than King's call for nonviolence; King also faced public criticism from "Black Power" proponent, Stokely Carmichael.
King's efficacy was not only hindered by divisions among black leadership, but also by the increasing resistance he encountered from national political leaders. FBI director J. Edgar Hoover's extensive efforts to undermine King's leadership were intensified during 1967 as urban racial violence escalated, and King's public criticism of U.S. intervention in the Vietnam War led to strained relations with Lyndon Johnson's administration.
In late 1967, King initiated The Poor People's Campaign designed to confront economic problems that had not been addressed by earlier civil rights reforms. The following year, while supporting striking sanitation workers in Memphis, he delivered his final address "I've Been to the Mountaintop." The next day, 4 April 1968, King was assassinated.
To this day, King remains a controversial symbol of the African-American civil rights struggle, revered by many for his martyrdom on behalf of nonviolence and condemned by others for his militancy and insurgent views.
SHOUTS OUT ALL BLACK-AFRIKANS AND NON-BLACK-AFRIKAN HATERZ WHO GIVE A FUX ABOUT OUR SITUATION AND OUR FUTURE...YOU ARE VERY MUCH APPRECIATED!!! KEEP ON WITH THE GREAT WORKS....
SUPPORT THIS BROTHA AND HIS ART!!! LET'S ALL SUPPORT EACH OTHER AND START CHANNELING THAT $700 BILLION PLUS BACK INTO BLACK HANDS!!! STAND UP BLACK-AFRIKAN PEOPLE...WAKE UP!!!
BEST BELIEVE RETALIATION FROM HIS HOMIES/FAMILY IS COMING
***more black on black****
STUNTIN WITH MATERIALISM AND VANITIES
WHAT YOU THINK IS "THE LIFE"
IS INSANITY
***a piece of paper vs. human life???***
BRAGGING AND BOASTING OF BALLIN
NOW THOSE YOUNG SOLDIERS WANT THEM THANGS
THAT YOU FLOSSIN
***divide and conquer is one of the oldest tricks in the book***
SELLING YOUR SOUL FOR A PIECE OF PAPER
DOING ANYTHING FOR THE DEVISH FAVORS
***w h o stands 2 benefit m o s t?***
F@CK KARMA AND THE CREATOR RIGHT??
WRONG!!!
YOU CAN RUN
BUT YOU CAN'T HIDE
FROM THE MOST HIGH
FOR UNIVERSAL TRUTH HAS EYES
JUDGEMENT WILL COME
SO DON'T BE SURPRISE
BECAUSE YOUR ACTIONS
HAVE LET TO YOUR DEMISE
YOU HAVE A CHOICE
TO DO WRONG
TO DO RIGHT
FOR THE BABIES
FOR THE FUTURE
FOR YOUR SELF
FOR YOUR SOUL
FOUR OUR PEOPLE
CHOOSE
LIFE
SELF DEFENSE
= EQUALS =
COMMON SENSE
“There is NO power in being someone else There is ALL power in being yourself” <<..>>
"You're not an African because you're born in Africa. You're an African because Africa is born in you. It's in your genes.... your DNA....your entire biological make up. Whether you like it or not, that's the way it is. However, if you were to embrace this truth with open arms....my, my, my....what a wonderful thing." <<..>>
It’s been time for SANKOFA! It is time to “KNOW” & “BE” our true Afrikan Selves.
ZULU NATION * LAWS OF SUCCESS (unknown author)
The greatest sin - GOSSIP
The greatest crippler - FEAR
The greatest mistake - GIVING UP
The most satisfying experience - DOING YOUR DUTY FIRST
The best action - KEEP THE MIND CLEAR AND THE JUDGEMENT GOOD
The greatest blessing - GOOD HEALTH
The biggest fool - THE MAN WHO LIES TO HIMSELF
The greatest gamble - SUBSTITUTING HOPE FOR FACTS
The most certain joy in life - CHANGE
The greatest joy - BEING NEEDED
The cleverest man - THE ONE WHO DOES WHAT HE THINKS IS RIGHT
The most potent force - POSITIVE THINKING
The greatest opportunity - THE NEXT ONE
The greatest victory - VICTORY OVER SELF
The greatest handicap - EGOTISM
The most expensive indulgence - HATE
The most dangerous man - THE LIAR
The most ridiculous trait - FALSE PRIDE
The greatest loss - LOSS OF SELF-CONFIDENCE
The greatest need - COMMON SENSE
MAKE SENSE? Learn OUR Glorious Afrikan History (Our Story) Now! And remember that Learning is an EVERYDAY thing.
About me: Press conference announcing The Poor People's Campaign [4 December 1967] [Atlanta, Ga.] Ladies and gentlemen of the press, I’m going to read an opening statement which I think [tape interrupted][. . .] and at the end we made a decision which I wish to announce today. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference will lead waves of the nation’s poor and disinherited to Washington, D.C. next spring to demand redress of their grievances by the United States government and to secure at least jobs or income for all. We will go there, we will demand to be heard, and we will stay until America responds. If this means forcible repression of our movement we will confront it, for we have done this before. If this means scorn or ridicule we embrace it, for that is what America’s poor now receive. If it means jail we accept it willingly, for the millions of poor already are imprisoned by exploitation and discrimination. But we hope with growing confidence that our campaign in Washington will receive at first a sympathetic understanding across our nation followed by dramatic expansion of nonviolent demonstrations in Washington and simultaneous protests elsewhere. In short, we will be petitioning our government for specific reforms and we intend to build militant nonviolent actions until that government moves against poverty. We have now begun preparations for the Washington campaign. Our staff soon will be taking new assignments to organize people to go to Washington from ten key cities and five rural areas. This will be no mere one-day march in Washington but a trek to the nation’s capital by suffering and outraged citizens who will go to stay until some definite and positive action is taken to provide jobs and income for the poor. We are sending [tape interrupted][. . .] America is at a crossroads of history and it is critically important for us as a nation and a society to choose a new path and move upon it with resolution and courage. It is impossible to underestimate the crisis we face in America. The stability of a civilization, the potential of free government, and the simple honor of men are at stake. Those who serve in the human rights movement, including our Southern Christian Leadership Conference, are keenly aware of the increasing bitterness and despair and frustration that threaten the worst chaos, hatred, and violence any nation has ever encountered. In a sense, we are already at war with and among ourselves. Affluent Americans are locked in the suburbs of physical comfort and mental insecurity. Poor Americans are locked inside ghettos of material privation and spiritual debilitation. And all of us can almost feel the presence of a kind of social insanity which could lead to national ruin. The true responsibility for the existence of these deplorable conditions lies ultimately with the larger society and much of the immediate responsibility for removing the injustices can be laid directly at the door of the federal government. This is the institution which has the power to act, the resources to tap, and the duty to [respond][tape interrupted][. . .] that a clear majority in America asking for the very things which we will demand in Washington. We have learned from hard and bitter experience in our movement that our government does not move to correct a problem involving race until it is confronted directly and dramatically. It required a Selma before the fundamental right to vote was written into the federal statutes. It took a Birmingham before the government moved to open doors of public accommodations to all human beings. What we now need is a new kind of Selma or Birmingham to dramatize the economic plight of the Negro and compel the government to act. We intend to channelize the smoldering rage and frustration [tape interrupted][. . .] our new Washington movement. We also look for participation by representatives of the millions of non-Negro poor: Indians, Mexican-Americans, Puerto Ricans, Appalachian whites, and others. And we shall welcome assistance from all Americans of good will. And so we have decided to go to Washington and use any means of legitimate, nonviolent protest necessary to move our nation and our government on a new course of social, economic, and political reform The Poor People's Campaign come to and end June 19 1968 , Mr Jerry Robinson President and vice President Mr Floyd Davis of The Poor People's Campaign Inc 12-29-2003 in Chicago il call 1-312-794-5335 This Campaign is for anyone that stands for equality,unity and respect among everyone no matter what your cultural,ethnic or religious background.We are against discrimination whether it be for gender,sexual orientation, disabilities, political ideas or morals. Here we'll discuss politics and basic things that people deal with everyday.We hope this group will expand and eventually become a network of people with a common goal.(TOGETHER WE HAVE POWER) My people we must continue to stand as one. For as you all know it is together that we are most powerful. It was together that our people fought, went to jail, and even died for our sake. So it is now more than ever that we must stand taller than ever, and keep the fight that they started alive."WE MUST STOP POLICE BRUTRLITY, DRUGS,GANGS,GUNS,POVERTY,ALL OF THIS IS WHAT KEEPING OUR PEOPLE AND KIDS (DOWN AND OUT) MY PEOPLE WE ALL MUST STAND UP NOW AND ALWAYS (STOP THE VIOLENCE)We have These PROGRAMS & INITIATIVES, Voter Registration Education Conflict Resolution Nonviolence Training Economic Empowerment, Health Care, Youth Development At THE POOR PEOPLE'S CAMPAIGN INC.INJUSTICE ANYWHERE IS A THREAT TO JUSTICE EVERYWHERE MY PEOPLE WE MUST KEEP STANDING UP AS ONE FOR TOGETHER WE HAVE POWER,Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and his Poor People’s Campaign in 1967. We continue Dr. King’s prophetic call for justice for the poor.we must keep up the good fight De tous temps , il a fallu lutter pour la justice et la liberté !!!
Continuons !!!LET'S TAKE ACTION NOW TO PROTECT OUR BABIES!!!
LET'S INFORM THE WORLD THAT THEY WILL NO LONGER BE ABLE TO HATE NO ONE THE TIME IS NOW!!!!What will be your legacy?
The Poor People’s Campaign Inc seeks to directly compel America to redress the policies that create and substantiate poverty, oppress the poor and deny people the right to live with dignity, respect, justice, equality and freedom. The struggle continues! Visit POOR PEOPLE'S CAMPAIGN
Who I'd like to meet: The Poor People’s Campaign: Non-Violent Insurrection for Economic Justice
Unlikely allies George W. Bush and Bill Clinton joined in offering eulogies honoring the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. at the November 2006 groundbreaking of the King memorial in Washington, D.C. Yet, even when federal officials attempt to honor this martyred revolutionary, they nearly always dishonor everything he lived and died for. The United States government continues to eliminate fundamental housing, welfare, and employment programs crucial to the well-being of the poorest Americans whom King championed.
King was slain at the very moment that he was organizing a massive army of poor people who would march on Congress and the White House and use militant nonviolence to force the federal government to enact an Economic Bill of Rights for the Disadvantaged.
King’s last and most daring dream was The Poor People’s Campaign to win full employment, affordable housing for all, a decent income for those unable to work, and equal educational opportunities for the poor. He foresaw a massive public works program to rebuild the dilapidated and substandard housing of the inner city by those who lived there, providing jobs, training, and housing in a coordinated effort.
In organizing this campaign, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) had designed a carefully detailed strategy for a prolonged effort that would train poor people in 10 different areas of the nation in the techniques of “militant nonviolence.” The intention was to create a nonviolent uprising, a multiracial coalition of poor people and their allies who would march to Washington, D.C., set up mass encampments, and then launch protests every day for economic justice.
To this day, the blueprints for this poor people’s insurrection remain the most visionary and brilliant strategy to overcome poverty ever put forth in our nation.
Origins of the Campaign
In 1965 and 1966, Rev. King brought the brilliant organizing insights of the SCLC to the slums of Chicago to confront the evils of racist landlords. King moved his own family into a rundown housing unit in Chicago’s notorious Lawndale slum (renamed Slumdale by its occupants), where they endured for a time the harrowing poverty, squalor, and overcrowding that other slum residents had endured for decades.
King and the SCLC organized huge marches for fair housing, and conducted systematic rent strikes where residents of many dilapidated buildings banded together, refused to pay rent to the slumlords, and instead, pooled the rent money to make building repairs themselves. With a daring audacity too little seen in today’s movements for economic justice, King crossed swords with capitalism’s central decree that property rights are sacrosanct.
Then, in March 1968, one month before his death, King marched with 1,300 striking sanitation workers in Memphis, telling the striking workers to stay strong on the picket line: “Don’t go back on the job until the demands are met,” King said. “Never forget that freedom is not something that is voluntarily given by the oppressor. It is something that must be demanded by the oppressed....If we are going to get equality, if we are going to get adequate wages, we are going to have to struggle for it.”
Unlike today, when well-meaning housing advocates and liberal budget policy groups try to prevent further cuts to the already shredded safety net by politely lobbying and e-mailing Congressional representatives, King had the audacity to organize a multiracial coalition of poor people who would confront Congress and the White House in a daring showdown—a nonviolent insurrection in the nation’s Capitol. And that is what King was doing when his last day dawned—preparing to defy the whole might of an unjust United States empire that mercilessly oppressed its poor citizens, then and now.
After months of training in the discipline of nonviolence, the Poor People’s Campaign would march on Washington, D.C., erect shantytowns near the White House to make poverty visible, and then begin a campaign of massive sit-ins at federal agencies. King openly declared that his call for massive civil disobedience was aimed at disrupting, and ultimately paralyzing, the functions of the most powerful government on earth, unless and until it granted the Economic Bill of Rights.
King planned to erect shantytowns for tens of thousands of poor people, prefiguring the tent cities and squatter’s encampments set up by homeless activists today. The shantytowns would make the suffering of economic deprivation so visible that federal legislators—and the public—would be forced to see it all around them in Washington, D.C.
Then, once these encampments had forced all America to confront the national disgrace of joblessness and poverty, stage two would begin—a more militant phase of nonviolent resistance.
His words were visionary, uncompromising, and revolutionary: “The dispossessed of this nation—the poor, both white and Black—live in a cruelly unjust society. They must organize a revolution against that injustice, not against the lives of their fellow citizens, but against the structures through which the society is refusing to lift the load of poverty.”
If Congress and the White House still refused to take actions to lift the load of poverty, the Poor People’s Campaign would organize waves of protesters who would cause “major massive dislocations” at government buildings. Unemployed people would nonviolently blockade the Department of Labor. Those without health care would be organized to sit in at hospitals and refuse to leave until they received medical treatment. Massive demonstrations would be held at federal agencies, while across the nation, allies would mount economic boycotts and nonviolent shut-downs of factories which refused to hire the poor.
Federal officials and the FBI were frightened by King’s announced intentions to lead a campaign of civil disobedience on a scale that could disrupt the nation’s Capitol, and they denounced King with blistering venom. Negative leaks, disinformation, informants and provocateurs were just some the tools used by the government to derail the effort.
King had developed a strategy to confront the federal government with the same unwinnable dilemma earlier perfected by civil rights activists in Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi: Either arrest innocent and poverty-stricken people by the thousands in the full glare of publicity in the nation’s Capitol and thereby create a national scandal, or capitulate to the just demands of those calling for an Economic Bill of Rights.
But it was not to be. King was murdered on April 4, 1968, just as The Poor People’s Campaign was getting off the ground. Long a prophet, King now became a martyr as well. Rather than the carefully planned civil disobedience that King was organizing, the United States went through riots and civil unrest in over 110 cities following King’s murder.
While the SCLC continued the campaign and got as far as building Resurrection City in Washington D.C., the riots, protests and violent repression that had followed Kings assassination had taken non-violent insurrection out of the realm of possibility. While over 7000 people started the encampment in May 1968, and over 50,000 joined in protest marches, the encampment was torn down in late June by police order, the promise of mass civil disobedience unfulfilled.
King had predicted that The Poor People’s Campaign would be a turning point in American history, a chance for the nation to redeem itself from its legacy of poverty, racism, war, and exploitation. Instead, the dreamer fell and his dream of justice was assassinated.
Can the dream of The Poor People’s Campaign be resurrected? It won’t be revived by creating monuments of marble in Washington, D.C., as long overdue as that honor may be. But King’s dream does come back to life every time any one of us sets out and marches in Martin’s footsteps to confront and overcome the inhumanity of poverty, unemployment, and homelessness.
On October 17, 2006, Martin Luther King’s voice, his image, and his torch of resistance flared up anew in front of the Federal Building in Oakland, California, where about 400 demonstrators gathered to demand that the federal government make a renewed commitment to ending the scourge of poverty. Hundreds of Oakland schoolchildren, organized by St. Mary’s Center, marched with homeless seniors, religious activists, teachers, and housing advocates. The march was inspired by Martin Luther King’s commitment to end poverty; and, fittingly, the marchers were led every step of the way by a massive puppet of King, crafted by homeless seniors at St. Mary’s in loving tribute.
The procession culminated in a rally at the Federal Building, where Congresswoman Barbara Lee gave a stirring call to abolish poverty. She said: “It is appalling that in the wealthiest and most powerful country in the world, 37 million people are living in poverty. That is wrong! It’s immoral, it’s unethical. Look at our homeless veterans. Shame on America!”
The protest resurrected King’s commitment to economic rights and honored The Poor People’s Campaign as an unsurpassed blueprint for the edifice of human rights we are still waiting to construct, some 39 years after his death.
Although he had long since fallen to an assassin’s bullet, the Dreamer still had the last word at this rally for federal legislation to eradicate poverty. The demonstrators grew silent as a recording of King’s prophetic cry, “Let Freedom Ring!” rang out from loudspeakers outside the Federal Building in Oakland, and the giant likeness of Martin Luther King stood unvanquished, taller than ever. It felt like resurrection. At that moment, it felt like Martin’s last dream could never die
"If we as a nation are ever going to achieve that status of true greatness, then we must be courageous enough to deal with matters pertaining to race and racism, without seeking the artificial cloak of denial as some sort of safe haven."
I have court on 9/23/09 @ 1:30pm, courtroom 604, 300 W. Washington Street, Phoenix, AZ.
You and anyone else you may know who are interested - may sit and watch as I try and unfold the corruption (as I already have on 6/26/09) that goes on with the Phoenix PD Department (Sheriff Joe Arpaio's Maricopa County) by using my current case as an example:
Watch arresting video; winning 6/26/09 trial brief and audio of winning argument; links to laws and organizations for help:
Never stop caring about the little things in life Never stop dreaming or give into strife Never stop wondering, are we on our own Never stop thinking has your spirituality grown
Never stop building bridges that leads to better tomorrows Never stop trying or give into sorrow Never stop feeling amazed at the beauty that surrounds you Never stop hearing the music or give into the blues
Never stop pushing away negative thoughts that make you feel sad Never stop looking at the all the miracles we have had Never stop loving the ones you hold dear Never stop giving or give into the fear
Never stop smiling and look forward to each new day Never stop shining in your own special way Never forget that all storms will clear Remember brighter tomorrows are always near ..
My hearing is on 8/26/09 @ 1:30pm in Court Room 504; 300 W. Washington St., Phoenix, AZ!
Won 8/20/09 Hearing - Car illegally impounded: Driver's license is valid and cop didn't ask me for my name!
Which means, arrest was also illegal, too!
Please watch video, court documents, and audio of winning 6/26/09 trial hearing @ myspace.com/sarajfight4freedom - caught cop doing perjury on the stand and pressing for charges - the reasons behind the cop harassments!
Boyfriend always being racially profiled as passenger during same incidents!
Please help!
We're in Sheriff Joe Arpaio's county and illegally spent time in his jail 8/7/09 - day of arrest!
Hello everybody there!!
I have something New 4 You!!
3 NEW HIT Tracks Online.
KELS - KNOCKING YOU OUT
KELS - WELCOME TO KELS WORLD (MYSPACE EXLUSIVE)
LIAM BACK - MYSPACE 2 MYPLACE (coming soon)
Please listen and Give some Komments.
August 25th,2009 Aaliyah's Untimely Departure From Us Hear My Tribute Song " Gone Too Soon" myspace.com/tinamariesoriginalsongs Please Leave Me Your Comments They Mean A Lot To Me! Thanks Friends
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