Clergyman's

We must stand up and say, ""I'm black and I'm beautiful,"" and this self-affirmation is the black man's need, made compelling by the white man's crimes against him.
- "Martin Luther King, Jr."

We must stand up and say, ""I'm black and I'm beautiful,"" and this self-affirmation is the black man's need, made compelling by the white man's crimes against him.
- "Martin Luther King, Jr."

True greatness comes not by favoritism, but by fitness.
- "Martin Luther King, Jr."

Call it democracy, or call it democratic socialism, but there must be a better distribution of wealth within this country for all God's children.
- "Martin Luther King, Jr."

And we've been in the mountain of indifference too long and ultimately we must be concerned about the least of these; we must be concerned about the poverty-stricken because our destinies are tied together. And somehow in the final analysis, as long as there is poverty in the world, nobody can be totally rich. We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. And what affects one directly affects all indirectly. For some strange reason, I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. And you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. John Donne caught it years ago and placed it in graphic terms, ""No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main."" And he goes on toward the end to say, ""Any man's death diminishes me because I am involved in mankind. And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee."" And when we see this, we will move out of the mountain of indifference concerning poverty.
- "Martin Luther King, Jr."

This man was a fool because he failed to realize his dependence on God... this man-centered foolishness is still alive today. In fact, it has gotten to the point today that some are even saying that God is dead. The thing that bothers me about it is that they didn't give me full information, because at least I would have wanted to attend God's funeral. And today I want to ask, who was the coroner that pronounced Him dead? I want to raise a question, how long had He been sick? I want to know whether He had a heart attack or died of chronic cancer. These questions haven't been answered for me, and I'm going on believing and knowing that God is alive. You see, as long as love is around, God is alive. As long as justice is around, God is alive. There are certain conceptions of God that needed to die, but not God. You see, God is the supreme noun of life; He's not an adjective. He is the supreme subject of life; He's not a verb. He's the supreme independent clause; He's not a dependent clause. Everything else is dependent on Him, but He is dependent on nothing.
- "Martin Luther King, Jr."

Segregation is a cancer in the body politic which must be removed before ourdemocratic health can be realized. The underlying philosophy of segregation is diametrically opposed to the underlying philosophy of democracy and Christianity and all the sophisms of the logicians cannot make them lie down together. We must make it clear that in our struggle to end this thing called segregation, we are not struggling for ourselves alone. We are not struggling only to free seventeen million Negroes. The festering sore of segregation debilitates the white man as well as the Negro. We are struggling to save the soul of America. We are struggling to save America in this very important decisive hour of her history
- "Martin Luther King, Jr."