A Strong Man

For we’ve come to see the power of nonviolence. We’ve come to see that this method is not a weak method, for it’s the strong man who can stand up amid opposition, who can stand up amid violence being inflicted upon him and not retaliate with violence.

You see, this method has a way of disarming the opponent. It exposes his moral defenses. It weakens his morale, and at the same time it works on his conscience, and he just doesn’t know what to do. If he doesn’t beat you, wonderful. If he beats you, you develop the quiet courage of accepting blows without retaliating. If he doesn’t put you in jail, wonderful. Nobody with any sense likes to go to jail. But if he puts you in jail, you go in that jail and transform it from a dungeon of shame to a haven of freedom and human dignity. And even if he tries to kill you,  you’ll develop the inner conviction that there are some things so dear, some things so precious, some things so eternally true, that they are worth dying for.

And I submit to you that if a man has not discovered something that he will die for, he isn’t fit to live.

—Martin Luther King, Jr., 23 June 1963, Speech at the Great March on Detroit

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Image of Dr. King from the New York World-Telegram & Sun Collection of Library of Congress, through Wikimedia Commons

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…Until Justice Rolls Down

If [we] fail to act . . . history will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people. Our generation will have to repent not only for the acts and words of the children of darkness but also for the fears and apathy of the children of light.

—Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” April 16, 1963

 

. . . and none shall be afraid.

I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality and freedom for their spirits. I believe that what self-centered men have torn down, men other-centered can build up. I still believe that one day mankind will  . . . be crowned triumphant over war and bloodshed, and nonviolent redemptive goodwill will proclaim the rule of the land.

And the lion and the lamb shall lie down together and every man shall sit under his own vine and fig tree and none shall be afraid.

I still believe that we shall overcome.

—Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,  December 10, 1964, Oslo, Norway