Today

Today

Today, we celebrate the life of Civil Rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King.

Here are a few of his remarkable words of wisdom. Please allow them to touch your heart and your mind and your spirit with not only their eloquence but with their spiritual significance.

"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."

"We have not made a single gain in civil rights without determined legal and nonviolent pressure. Lamentably, it is an historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but, as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups tend to be more immoral than individuals."

"We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed."

"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. Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be co workers with God."

"Right defeated is stronger than evil triumphant."

"We will win our freedom because the sacred heritage of our nation and the eternal will of God are embodied in our echoing demands."

"Those who engage in nonviolent protests are in reality standing up for what is best in the American dream and for the most sacred values in our Judaeo Christian heritage, thereby bringing our nation back to those great wells of democracy which were dug deep by the founding fathers in their formulation of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence."

"Let us all hope that the dark clouds of racial prejudice will soon pass away and the deep fog of misunderstanding will be lifted from our fear drenched communities, and in some not too distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over our great nation with all their scintillating beauty."