On March 7, 1965, some 600 civil rights activists marched in Selma, Alabama, demanding an end to racial discrimination. The demonstration was led by now-Rep. John Lewis and Hosea Williams, who worked with my father, Martin Luther King Jr.

The seminal right of the modern civil rights movement was the right to vote. My father fought so diligently for it. Certainly Congressman John Lewis and many others, Hosea Williams, fought for it as well.

I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law.

Many have fought for and even lost their lives to end segregation, to win the right to vote. It disappoints me to now have to cajole people to register and to vote.

Slavery is founded in the selfishness of man's nature - opposition to it is his love of justice. These principles are an eternal antagonism; and when brought into collision so fiercely, as slavery extension brings them, shocks and throes and convulsions must ceaselessly follow.

The people know their rights, and they are never slow to assert and maintain them when they are invaded.

Protecting the rights of even the least individual among us is basically the only excuse the government has for even existing.

America's view of apartheid is simple and straightforward We believe it is wrong. We condemn it. And we are united in hoping for the day when apartheid will be no more.

Let's face it. Our ass is in a crack. We're gonna have to let this nigger bill pass. [Said to Senator John Stennis (D-MS) during debate on the Civil Rights Act of 1957]

Doing what is right isn’t the problem. It is knowing what is right.

We want nothing from you that you do without grace or [...] understanding.

All that is required for the triumph of evil is that good men remain silent and do nothing.