Freedom to learn is the first necessity of guaranteeing that man himself shall be self-reliant enough to be free. Such things did ...not need as much emphasis a generation ago, but when the clock of civilization can be turned back by burning libraries, by exiling scientists, artists, musicians, writers and teachers; by disbursing universities, and by censoring news and literature and art; an added burden, an added burden is placed on those countries where the courts of free thought and free learning still burn bright. If the fires of freedom and civil liberties burn low in other lands they must be made brighter in our own.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I have not been animated in my life to fight against race and sex discrimination simply because of my own identity. That would mea...n that one must be South African to fight apartheid, or a poor white in Appalachia to fight poverty, or Jewish to fight anti-Semitism. And I just reject that conception of how struggles should be waged.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It is my contention that civil disobedients are nothing but the latest form of voluntary association, and that they are thus quite... in tune with the oldest traditions of the country.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
There is all the difference in the world between the criminal's avoiding the public eye and the civil disobedient's taking the law... into his own hands in open defiance. This distinction between an open violation of the law, performed in public, and a clandestine one is so glaringly obvious that it can be neglected only by prejudice or ill will.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color-line--the relation of the darker to the lighter races of men in A...sia and Africa, in America and the islands of the sea. It was a phase of this problem that caused the Civil War.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Civil Rights: What black folks are given in the U.S. on the installment plan, as in civil-rights bills. Not to be confused with hu...man rights, which are the dignity, stature, humanity, respect, and freedom belonging to all people by right of their birth.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Now for civil service reform. Legislation must be prepared and executive rules and maxims. We must limit and narrow the area of pa...tronage. We must diminish the evils of office-seeking. We must stop interference of federal officers with elections. We must be relieved of congressional dictation as to appointments.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
When that devil's bullet lodged itself inside the body of Martin Luther King, he had already begun an astonishing mobilization of ...poor, Black, white, latino Americans who had nothing to lose. They would challenge our government to eliminate exploitative, merciless, and war-mongering policies, nationwide, or else "tie up the country" through "means of civil disobedience." Dr. King intended to organize those legions into "coercive direct actions" that would make of Babylon a dysfunctional behemoth begging for relief. Is it any wonder he was killed?LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »