Martin Luther King, Jr. Quotes About Poverty

• The Curse of poverty has no justification in our age...The time has come for us to civilize ourselves by the total, direct and immediate abolition of poverty.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Age, Poverty, Curse

• Be The Peace You Wish To See In The World!

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Inspirational, Motivational, Change

• As long as there is poverty in the world I can never be rich, even if I have a billion dollars. As long as diseases are rampant and millions of people in this world cannot expect to live more than twenty-eight or thirty years, I can never be totally healthy even if I just got a good checkup at Mayo Clinic. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. This is the way our world is made. No individual or nation can stand out boasting of being independent. We are interdependent.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Inspirational, Independent, Eight

  Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (2017). “The Measure of a Man”, p.19, Pickle Partners Publishing

• When we look at modern man, we have to face the fact...that modern man suffers from a kind of poverty of the spirit, which stands in glaring contrast to his scientific and technological abundance; We've learned to fly the air like birds, we've learned to swim the seas like fish, and yet we haven't learned to walk the Earth as brothers and sisters.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Wisdom, Brother, Anger

• Nothing is so much needed as a secure family life for a people seeking to rise out of poverty and backwardness.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Family, People, Poverty

  Martin Luther King (Jr.), Alex Ayres (1993). “The Wisdom of Martin Luther King, Jr”, Plume

• When you cut facilities, slash jobs, abuse power, discriminate, drive people into deeper poverty & shoot people dead whilst refusing to provide answers or justice, the people will rise up & express their anger & frustration if you refuse to hear their cries. A riot is the language of the unheard.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Jobs, Cutting, Frustration

• If our economic system is to survive, there has to be a better distribution of wealth ... we can't have a system where some people live in superfluous, inordinate wealth, while others live in abject deadening poverty.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  People, Distribution Of Wealth, Poverty

• There is nothing new about poverty. What is new, however, is that we have the resources to get rid of it.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Poverty, Resources, Nothing New

  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (2013). “"In a Single Garment of Destiny": A Global Vision of Justice”, p.86, Beacon Press

• The existence of poverty in the US should not be accepted as a necessary evil or insoluble problem, but should be considered a crisis requiring emergency measures. It is a matter of will and priorities, not a matter of resources.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Evil, Priorities, Matter

• It is a tragic mix-up when the United States spends 500,000 for every enemy soldier killed, and only 53 annually on the victims of poverty.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  War, Soldier, Enemy

• There is nothing in all the world greater than freedom. It is worth paying for; it is worth going to jail for. I would rather be a free pauper than a rich slave. I would rather die in abject poverty with my convictions than live in inordinate riches with the lack of self respect.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Jail, Self, World

  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (2013). “The Essential Martin Luther King, Jr.: "I Have a Dream" and Other Great Writings”, p.35, Beacon Press

• If America does not use her vast resources of wealth to end poverty and make it possible for all of God's children to have the basic necessities of life, she too will go to hell.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Children, America, Doe

  Martin Luther King (Jr.), Michael K. Honey (2011). “All Labor Has Dignity”, p.143, Beacon Press

• The time has come for an all-out war against poverty. The rich nations must use their vast resources of wealth to develop the underdeveloped, school the unschooled, and feed the unfed. Ultimately a great nation is a compassionate nation. No individual or nation can be great if it does not have a concern for "the least of these".

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  War, School, Doe

  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (2013). “"In a Single Garment of Destiny": A Global Vision of Justice”, p.84, Beacon Press

• Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism... We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Lying, Hero, Racism

  "Beyond Vietnam". Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Speech at Riverside Church in New York City, kinginstitute.stanford.edu. April 4, 1967.

• The unemployed, poverty-stricken white man must be made to realize that he is in the very same boat with the Negro. Together, they could exert massive pressure on the government to get jobs for all. Together, they could form a grand alliance. Together, they could merge all people for the good of all.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Jobs, Men, White Man

  Source: www.thedailybeast.com

• I am now convinced that the simplest approach will prove to be the most effective -- the solution to poverty is to abolish it directly by a now widely discussed measure: the guaranteed income.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Income, Poverty, Prove

  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (2011). “"All Labor Has Dignity"”, p.117, Beacon Press

• The curse of poverty has no justification in our age.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Age, Poverty, Curse

  Martin Luther King (Jr.), Michael K. Honey (2011). “All Labor Has Dignity”, p.115, Beacon Press

• We have moved into an era where we are called upon to raise certain basic questions about the whole society. We are still called upon to give aid to the beggar who finds himself in misery and agony on life's highway. But one day, we must ask the question of whether an edifice which produces beggars must not be restructured and refurbished.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Agony, Giving, Society

• A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our present policies... True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. A true revolution of values will soon look on uneasily upon the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth with righteous indignation.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Compassion, Justice, Coins

  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (2013). “"In a Single Garment of Destiny": A Global Vision of Justice”, p.119, Beacon Press

• The white poor also suffer deprivation and the humiliation of poverty if not of color. They are chained by the weight of discrimination though its badge of degradation does not mark them. It corrupts their lives, frustrates their opportunities and withers their education. In one sense it is more evil for them because it has confused so many by prejudice that they have supported their own oppressors.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Confused, Opportunity, Color

• We must work passionately and indefatigably to bridge the gulf between our scientific progress and our moral progress. One of the great problems of mankind is that we suffer from a poverty of the spirit which stands in glaring contrast to our scientific and technological abundance. The richer we have become materially, the poorer we have become morally and spiritually.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Bridges, Suffering, Progress

  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (2013). “"In a Single Garment of Destiny": A Global Vision of Justice”, p.19, Beacon Press

• 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

• It is not only poverty that torments the Negro; it is the fact of poverty amid plenty. It is a misery generated by the gulf between the affluence he sees in the mass media and the deprivation he experiences in his everyday life.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Media, Everyday, Poverty

  Martin Luther King (Jr.), Alex Ayres (1993). “The Wisdom of Martin Luther King, Jr”, Plume

• The curse of poverty has no justification in our age. It is socially as cruel and blind as the practice of cannibalism at the dawn of civilization, when men ate each other because they had not yet learned to take food from the soil or to consume the abundant animal life around them. The time has come for us to civilize ourselves by the total, direct and immediate abolition of poverty.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Animal, Men, Practice

  "All Labor Has Dignity".

• Mankind's survival is dependent on man's ability to solve the problems of racial injustice, poverty, and war; the solution of these problems is in turn dependent upon man's squaring his moral progress with his scientific progress, and learning the practical art of living in harmony.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Art, War, Men

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