Quotes about Empowerment
Nonviolence is power, but it is the right and good use of power.
— Martin Luther King, Jr.
The fact is that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor. It must be demanded by the oppressed — that's the long, sometimes tragic and turbulent story of history. And if people who are enslaved sit around and feel that freedom is some kind of lavish dish that will be passed out on a silver platter by the federal government or by the white man while the Negro merely furnishes the appetite, he will never get his freedom.
— Martin Luther King, Jr.
Even where the polls are open to all, Negroes have shown themselves too slow to exercise their voting privileges. There must be a concerted effort on the part of Negro leaders to arouse their people from their apathetic indifference to this obligation of citizenship. In the past, apathy was a moral failure. Today, it is a form of moral and political suicide.
— Martin Luther King, Jr.
Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The yearning for freedom eventually manifests itself, and that is what has happened to the American Negro. Something within has reminded him of his birthright of freedom, and something without has reminded him that it can be gained.
— Martin Luther King, Jr.
It was the Sermon on the Mount, rather than a doctrine of passive resistance, that initially inspired the Negroes of Montgomery to dignified social action. It was Jesus of Nazareth that stirred the Negroes to protest with the creative weapon of love. As
— Martin Luther King, Jr.
Everybody can be great because anybody can serve.
— Martin Luther King, Jr.
Use me God. Show me how to take who I am, who I want to be, and what I can do, and use it for a purpose greater than myself.
— Martin Luther King, Jr.
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.
— Martin Luther King, Jr.
The deep rumbling of discontent that we hear today is the thunder of disinherited masses rising from dungeons of oppression to the bright hills of freedom in one majestic chorus
— Martin Luther King, Jr.
freedom is not given, it is won.
— Martin Luther King, Jr.
Freedom is not won by a passive acceptance of suffering. Freedom is won by a struggle against suffering.
— Martin Luther King, Jr.
Nonviolence, the answer to the Negroes' need, may become the answer to the most desperate need of all humanity.
— Martin Luther King, Jr.