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King, Martin Luther, Jr. "I Have a Dream." March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. 28 Aug. 1963, Lincoln Memorial, Washington, DC, USA.

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Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.

Letter from Birmingham Jail

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King, Martin Luther, Jr. "Letter from a Birmingham Jail." 16 Apr. 1963.

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King, Martin Luther, Jr. "Letter from a Birmingham City Jail (1963)." A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches, edited by James M. Washington. HarperOne, 2003.

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I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low; the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

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King, Martin Luther, Jr. "I Have a Dream." March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. 28 Aug. 1963, Lincoln Memorial, Washington, DC, USA.

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I have also decided to stick with love...hate is too great a burden to bear.

Where Do We Go From Here?

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King, Martin Luther, Jr. "Where Do We Go From Here?" 11th Annual SCLC Convention. 16 Aug. 1967, Atlanta, GA, USA.

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A riot is at bottom the language of the unheard.

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King Martin Luther, Jr. Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? Harper & Row, 1967, ch. 4.

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When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir... America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned.

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King, Martin Luther, Jr. "I Have a Dream." March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. 28 Aug. 1963, Lincoln Memorial, Washington, DC, USA.

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When we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

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King, Martin Luther, Jr. "I Have a Dream." March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. 28 Aug. 1963, Lincoln Memorial, Washington, DC, USA.

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Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.

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Douglass, Frederick. "West India Emancipation." 3 Aug. 1857, Canandaigua, NY, USA.

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We shall overcome because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.

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King, Martin Luther, Jr. "Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution." 31 Mar. 1968, National Cathedral, Washington, DC, USA. Sermon.

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It is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced.

What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?

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Douglass, Frederick. Speech to the Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society. 5 July 1852, Corinthian Hall, Rochester, NY, USA.

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Douglass, Frederick. "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July? An Address." Frederick Douglass: Speeches & Writings, edited by David W. Blight. Library of America, 2022.

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The cost of liberty is less than the price of repression, even though that cost be blood.

W.E.B. Du Bois

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Du Bois, William Edward Burghardt. John Brown. George W. Jacobs and Company, 1909, ch. 13.

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Du Bois, William Edward Burghardt. John Brown. Routledge, 2015, ch. 13.

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If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without plowing up the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters.

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Douglass, Frederick. "West India Emancipation." 3 Aug. 1857, Canandaigua, NY, USA.

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What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham.

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Douglass, Frederick. "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?" Independence Day Celebration. 5 July 1852, Corinthian Hall, Rochester, NY, USA.

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Douglass, Frederick. "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?" Frederick Douglass: Speeches & Writings, edited by David W. Blight. Library of America, 2022.

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No, I make no pretension to patriotism. So long as my voice can be heard on this or the other side of the Atlantic, I will hold up America to the lightning scorn of moral indignation. In doing this, I shall feel myself discharging the duty of a true patriot; for he is a lover of his country who rebukes and does not excuse its sins.

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Douglass, Frederick. "Love of God, Love of Man, Love of Country." 24 Sept. 1847, Syracuse, NY, USA.

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Douglass, Frederick. "If I Had a Country, I Should Be a Patriot." American Heritage Book of Great American Speeches for Young People, edited by Suzanne McIntire. John Wiley & Sons, 2002.

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The man who is right is a majority. He who has God and conscience on his side, has a majority against the universe. Though he does not represent the present state, he represents the future state. If he does not represent what we are, he represents what we ought to be.

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Douglass, Frederick. "The Fugitive Slave Law." National Free Soil Convention. 11 Aug. 1852, Pittsburg, PA, USA.

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Douglass, Frederick. "The Fugitive Slave Law." The Essential Douglass: Selected Writings and Speeches. Hackett Publishing Company, 2016.

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One who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty.

Letter from Birmingham Jail

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Original Citation

King, Martin Luther, Jr. "Letter from a Birmingham Jail." 16 Apr. 1963.

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King, Martin Luther, Jr. "Letter from a Birmingham City Jail (1963)." A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches, edited by James M. Washington. HarperOne, 2003.

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The destiny of the colored American…is the destiny of America.

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Douglass, Frederick. "The Future of the Negro People of the Slave States." Emancipation League meeting. 12 Feb. 1862, Tremont Temple, Boston, MA, USA.

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That's our motto. We want freedom by any means necessary. We want justice by any means necessary. We want equality by any means necessary.

Malcolm X

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Malcolm X. Speech at the founding rally of Organization of Afro-American Unity. Founding rally of Organization of Afro-American Unity. 28 June 1964, Audubon Ballroom, New York City, NY, USA.

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It is both historically and biologically true that there can be no birth and growth without birth and growing pains. Whenever there is the emergence of the new we confront the recalcitrance of the old. So the tensions which we witness in the world today are indicative of the fact that a new world order is being born and an old order is passing away.

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King, Martin Luther, Jr. "Facing the Challenge of a New Age." First Annual Institute on Nonviolence and Social Change meeting. 3 Dec. 1956, Montgomery, AL, USA.

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Government action is not the whole answer to the present crisis, but it is an important partial answer. Morals cannot be legislated, but behavior can be regulated. The law cannot make an employer love me, but it can keep him from refusing to hire me because of the color of my skin.