We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people.
'Letter from Birmingham Jail' in Why We Can't Wait 1963.
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More from Martin Luther King Jr.
The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state. It must be the guide and the critic of the state, and never its tool.
Strength to Love (1963)
viewI have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.”
Letter from a Birmingham Jail (1963)
From the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire, let freedom ring. From the mighty mountains of New York, let freedom ring. From the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania, let freedom ring … Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill …
Address at Lincoln Memorial during March on Washington, 28 Aug 63.
Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.
'Letter from Birmingham Jail' in Why We Can't Wait 1963.
The means by which we live have outdistanced the ends for which we live.
Strength to Love (1963)