Martin Luther King, Jr. Quotes About Injustice

• A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Change, Uplifting, Spiritual

  Beyond Vietnam -- A Time to Break Silence, Delivered 4 April 1967, Riverside Church, New York City

• Philanthropy is commendable, but it must not cause the philanthropist to overlook the circumstances of economic injustice which make philanthropy necessary.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Political, Causes, Charity

  Martin Luther King Jr. (1963). “Strength to Love”

• An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Motivational, Respect, Kings

  "Letter from Birmingham Jail," 16 Apr. 1963

• Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Peace, Kings, Struggle

  "Letter from Birmingham Jail," 16 Apr. 1963

• History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Courage, Integrity, Destiny

  "Letter from Birmingham Jail," 16 Apr. 1963

• Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Inspirational, Kings, Health

• I feel that non-violence is really the only way that we can follow because violence is just so self-defeating. A riot ends up creating many more problems for the negro community than it solved. We can through violence burn down a building, but you can't establish justice. You can murder a murderer, but you can't murder murder through violence. You can murder a hater, but you can't murder hate. And what we're trying to get rid of is hate, injustice, and all of these other things that continue the long night of man's inhumanity to man.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Hate, Night, Men

• Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Wisdom, Peace, Kings

  "Letter from Birmingham Jail," 16 Apr. 1963

• Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with an its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Covered Up, Direct Action, Medicine

  Martin Luther King (Jr.) (1964). “Why we can't wait”

• Like a boil that must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed to the light of human conscience before it can be cured.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Light, Air, Medicine

  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (2011). “Why We Can't Wait”, p.62, Beacon Press

• Injustice and corruption will never be transformed by keeping them hidden, but only by bringing them out into the light and confronting them with the power of love.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Light, Injustice, Corruption

• Will we be extremists for hate, or will we be extremists for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice, or will we be extremists for the cause of justice?

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Inspirational, Hate, Justice

  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (2013). “The Essential Martin Luther King, Jr.: "I Have a Dream" and Other Great Writings”, p.99, Beacon Press

• Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Children, Real, Dark

  "I Have a Dream". Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Address Delivered at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, kinginstitute.stanford.edu. August 28, 1963.

• It is hardly a moral act to encourage others patiently to accept injustice which he himself does not endure.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Doe, Moral, Injustice

  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (2013). “The Essential Martin Luther King, Jr.: "I Have a Dream" and Other Great Writings”, p.17, Beacon Press

• ‎It is a cruel injustice to tell a bootless man to pull himself up by his bootstraps.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Men, Injustice, Bootstraps

• Many white Americans of good will have never connected bigotry with economic exploitation. They have deplored prejudice but tolerated or ignored economic injustice.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  White, Prejudice, Ignored

  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (2011). “Why We Can't Wait”, p.16, Beacon Press

• With all of its false assumptions and evil methods, communism grew as a protest against the hardships of the underprivileged. Communism in theory emphasized a classless society, and a concern for social justice, though the world knows from sad experience that in practice it created new classes and a new lexicon of injustice.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Wisdom, Practice, Class

  Martin Luther King (Jr.) (1964). “A Martin Luther King Treasury”

• I am in Birmingham because injustice is here. Just as the eighth century prophets left their little villages and carried their "thus saith the Lord" far beyond the boundaries of their home towns; and just as the Apostle Paul left his little village of Tarsus and carried the gospel of Jesus Christ to practically every hamlet and city of the Graeco-Roman world, I too am compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my particular home town. Like Paul, I must constantly respond to the Macedonian call for aid.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Jesus, Home, Cities

• The darkness of racial injustice will be dispelled only by the light of forgiving love. For more that three centuries American Negroes have been frustrated by day and bewilderment by night by unbearable injustice, and burdened with the ugly weight of discrimination. Forced to live with these shameful conditions, we are tempted to become bitter and retaliate with a corresponding hate. But if this happens, the new order we seek will be little more than a duplicate of the old order. We must in strength and humility meet hate with love.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Hate, Humility, Night

  "Loving Your Enemies". Speech delivered at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, Montgomery, Alabama, November 17, 1957.

• I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, sons of former slaves and sons of former slave-owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day, even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into a oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by content of their character. I have a dream today!

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Dream, Children, Character

  Speech at Civil Rights March,Washington, D.C., 28 Aug. 1963

• There is such a thing as the freedom of exhaustion. Some people are so worn down by the yoke of oppression that they give up. [...] The oppressed must never allow the conscience of the oppressor to slumber. [...] To accept injustice or segregation passively is to say to the oppressor that his actions are morally right.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Giving Up, People, Black History

  "Three Ways of Meeting Oppression". Essay by Martin Luther King, Jr., taken from MLK's book "Stride Toward Freedom", 1958.

• Of course, there is nothing new about this kind of civil disobedience. It was seen sublimely in the refusal of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego to obey the laws of Nebuchadnezzar because a higher moral law was involved. It was practiced superbly by the early Christians who were willing to face hungry lions and the excruciating pain of chopping blocks, before submitting to certain unjust laws of the Roman empire.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Christian, Pain, Block

  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (2013). “The Essential Martin Luther King, Jr.: "I Have a Dream" and Other Great Writings”, p.93, Beacon Press

• The great majority of Americans are suspended between these opposing attitudes. They are uneasy with injustice but unwilling yet to pay a significant price to eradicate it.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Attitude, Majority, Pay

• Communism will never be defeated by atomic bombs. Our greatest defense against Communism is to take offensive action on behalf of justice and righteousness. We must seek to remove conditions of poverty, injustice, and racial discrimination.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Justice, Defense, Bombs

• Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of human dignity.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Rocks, Dignity, Injustice

  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (2013). “The Essential Martin Luther King, Jr.: "I Have a Dream" and Other Great Writings”, p.96, Beacon Press

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