The words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Opinion,
Reflecting on the pivotal and memorable words of the civil rights leader
To commemorate Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the Editorial Board offers these quotes selected from some of his most pivotal and memorable speeches to honor his legacy.
“I am convinced that love is the most durable power in the world. It is not an expression of impractical idealism, but of practical realism. Far from being the pious injunction of a Utopian dreamer, love is an absolute necessity for the survival of our civilization. To return hate for hate does nothing but intensify the existence of evil in the universe. Someone must have sense enough and religion enough to cut off the chain of hate and evil, and this can only be done through love.
— “Advice for Living,” published in Ebony magazine, November 1957.
“I refuse to accept the idea that man is mere flotsam and jetsam in the river of life which surrounds him. I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daylight of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality. I believe that even amid today’s mortar bursts and whining bullets, there is still hope for a brighter tomorrow. I believe that wounded justice, lying prostrate on the blood-flowing streets of our nations, can be lifted from this dust of shame to reign supreme among the children of men.”
— Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech in Oslo, Norway, Dec. 10, 1964.
“[W]e must find an alternative to war and bloodshed. Anyone who feels, and there are still a lot of people who feel that way, that war can solve the social problems facing mankind is sleeping through a great revolution. … It is no longer a choice, my friends, between violence and nonviolence. It is either nonviolence or nonexistence. And the alternative ... may well be a civilization plunged into the abyss of annihilation, and our earthly habitat would be transformed into an inferno that even the mind of Dante could not imagine.”
— “Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution,” delivered at Morehouse College in Atlanta, March 31, 1968.
“[O]ne day we must come to see that peace is not merely a distant goal we seek, but that it is a means by which we arrive at that goal. We must pursue peaceful ends through peaceful means. All of this is saying that, in the final analysis, means and ends must cohere because the end is preexistent in the means, and ultimately destructive means cannot bring about constructive ends.”
— “A Christmas Sermon on Peace,” delivered at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Dec. 24, 1967.
“Let us not despair. Let us not lose faith in man and certainly not in God. We must believe that a prejudiced mind can be changed, and that man, by the grace of God, can be lifted from the valley of hate to the high mountain of love. Let us remember ... we must have love, compassion and understanding goodwill for those against whom we struggle, helping them to realize that ... we are not seeking to defeat them but to help them, as well as ourselves. God has a great plan for this world. His purpose is to achieve a world where all men will live together as brothers, and where every man recognizes the dignity and worth of all human personality.”
— “The Death of Evil upon the Seashore,” delivered at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York, May 7, 1956.
“(A)nother reason I’m happy to live in this period is that we have been forced to a point where we are going to have to grapple with the problems that men have been trying to grapple with through history, but the demands didn’t force them to do it. Survival demands that we grapple with them.”
— “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop,” delivered at Bishop Charles Mason Temple in Memphis, April 3, 1968.