. . . the keynote of government is injustice.
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee was more politically oriented. Part and parcel of the initial SNCC efforts was to not only go in for voter registration, but for political participation.
In order to see where we are going, we not only must remember where we have been, but we must understand where we have been.
Oppressed people, whatever their level of formal education, have the ability to understand and interpret the world around them, to see the world for what it is, and move to transform it.
You didn't see me on television, you didn't see news stories about me. The kind of role that I tried to play was to pick up pieces or put together pieces out of which I hoped organization might come. My theory is, strong people don't need strong leaders.
I have always thought that what is needed is the development of people who are interested not in being leaders as much as in developing leadership in others.
Until the killing of black men, black mothers' sons, becomes as important to the rest of the country as the killing of a white mother's sons, we who believe in freedom cannot rest until this happens.
We've removed the ceiling above our dreams. There are no more impossible dreams.
Practically speaking, your religion is the story you tell about your life.
We will never have peace in the world until men everywhere recognize that ends are not cut off from means, because the means represent the ideal in the making, and the end in process, and ultimately you can't reach good ends through evil means, because the means represent the seed and the end represents the tree.
You're not the center of the universe, you know.