Quotes about Equality
Law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice.
— Martin Luther King, Jr.
My friends, I must say to you that 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.
— Martin Luther King, Jr.
Our goal is to create a beloved community and this will require a qualitative change in our souls as well as a quantitative change in our lives.
— Martin Luther King, Jr.
The greatest blasphemy of the whole ugly process was that the white man ended up making God his partner in the exploitation of the Negro. What greater heresy has religion known? Ethical Christianity vanished and the moral nerve of religion was atrophied. This terrible distortion sullied the essential nature of Christianity.
— Martin Luther King, Jr.
An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust.
— Martin Luther King, Jr.
I have a dream that my four little children will not be judged by the color of the skin. I have a dream today that we will overcome someday.
— Martin Luther King, Jr.
An unjust law is a code that a numerical or power majority group compels a minority group to obey but does not make binding on itself This is difference made legal. By the same token, a just law is a code that a majority compels a minority to follow and that is willing to follow itself. This is sameness made legal.
— Martin Luther King, Jr.
All labor has dignity.
— Martin Luther King, Jr.
Democracy transformed from thin paper to thick action is the greatest form of government on earth.
— Martin Luther King, Jr.
We must condemn those who are perpetuating the violence, and not the individuals who engage in the pursuit of their constitutional rights.
— Martin Luther King, Jr.
Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The urge for freedom will eventually come. This is what has happened to the American Negro. Something within has reminded him of his birthright of freedom; something without has reminded him that he can gain it.
— Martin Luther King, Jr.
The slaveholders of America had devised with almost scientific precision their systems for keeping the Negro defenseless, emotionally and physically.
— Martin Luther King, Jr.