If we are to go forward, we must go back and rediscover those precious values – that all reality hinges on moral foundations and that all reality has spiritual control.
It is incontestable and deplorable that Negroes have committed crimes; but they are derivative crimes. They are born of the greater crimes of the white society.
The principle of self defense, even involving weapons and bloodshed, has never been condemned, even by Gandhi.
We must concentrate not merely on the negative expulsion of war but the postive affirmation of peace.
All progress is precarious, and the solution of one problem brings us face to face with another problem.
Wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows.
The sweltering summer of the Negro’s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality.
It is not enough to say we must not wage war. It is necessary to love peace and sacrifice for it.
The Negro needs the white man to free him from his fears. The white man needs the Negro to free him from his guilt.
A riot is the language of the unheard.
A nation or civilization that continues to produce soft-minded men purchases its own spiritual death on the installment plan.
Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted.
The question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be… The nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.
War is a poor chisel to carve out tomorrow.
Seeing is not always believing.
If physical death is the price that I must pay to free my white brothers and sisters from a permanent death of the spirit, then nothing can be more redemptive.
