We all know the quote “I have a dream,” but what about the other quotes by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.? 50 years ago Dr. King was murdered in Memphis, Tennessee after years of fighting against segregation and racism. Lately it feels as if Dr. King’s work is quickly being erased, but as long as there are those of us who aren’t willing to be silent Dr. King’s legacy will live on and racism will eventually be pushed out of our country. Here are five Dr. King quotes to keep you inspired.
1. 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott- “And you know, my friends, there comes a time when people get tired of being trampled over by the iron feet of oppression. There comes a time, my friends, when people get tired of being plunged across the abyss of humiliation, where they experience the bleakness of nagging despair. There comes a time when people get tired of being pushed out of the glittering sunlight of life’s July and left standing amid the piercing chill of an alpine November. There comes a time.”
2. Beyond Vietnam- “‘A time comes when silence is betrayal.’ And that time has come for us in relation to Vietnam.”
Image from: The George F. Landegger Collection of Alabama Photographs in Carol M. Highsmith’s America, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division
3. Montgomery Bus Boycott- “We are here, we are here this evening because we’re tired now. And I want to say that we are not here advocating violence.”
4. I Have A Dream- “America has given the Negro people a bad check which has come back marked ‘insufficient funds.’ But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt.”
5. I Have A Dream- “In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.”