Quotes about Race
Whites, it must frankly be said, are not putting in a similar mass effort to reeducate themselves out of their racial ignorance. It is an aspect of their sense of superiority that the white people of America believe they have so little to learn.
- 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.
I always contended that we as a race must not seek to rise from a position of disadvantage to one of advantage, but to create a moral balance in society where democracy and brotherhood would be reality for all men.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
Many white men fear retaliation. The job of the Negro is to show them that they have nothing to fear, that the Negro understands and forgives and is ready to forget the past. He must convince the white man that all he seeks is justice, for both himself and the white man.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
Dr. Samuel G. Morton, a Philadelphia physician, emerged with the head-size theory which affirmed that the larger the skull, the superior the individual. This theory was used by other ethnologists to prove that the large head size of Caucasians signified more intellectual capacity and more native worth. A
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
There will be no permanent solution to the race problem until oppressed men develop the capacity to love their enemies. The darkness of racial injustice will be dispelled only by the light of forgiving love.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
In country after country we see white men building empires on the sweat and suffering of colored people.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
although there may be inferior and superior individuals within all races, there is no superior or inferior race. And segregationists refuse to acknowledge that science has demonstrated that there are four types of blood and these four types are found within every racial group. They blindly believe in the eternal validity of an evil called segregation and the timeless truth of a myth called white supremacy. What a tragedy!
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
My parents would always tell me that I should not hate the white man, but that it was my duty as a Christian to love him. The question arose in my mind: How could I love a race of people who hated me and who had been responsible for breaking me up with one of my best childhood friends? This was a great question in my mind for a number of years.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
Ever since the signing of the Declaration of Independence, America has manifested a schizophrenic personality on the question of race. She has been torn between selves - a self in which she has proudly professed democracy and a self in which she has sadly practiced the antithesis of democracy. The reality of slavery, has always had to confront the ideals of democracy and Christinanity.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
It is disappointment with the Christian church that appears to be more white than Christian, and with many white clergymen who prefer to remain silent behind the security of stained-glass windows.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
When people think about race problems they are too often more concerned with men than with God. The question usually asked is: 'What will my friends think if I am too friendly to Negroes or too liberal on the race question?' Men forget to ask: 'What will God think?
- Martin Luther King, Jr.