Martin Luther King, Jr. Quotes About Social Justice

• 

  Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Love, Inspirational, Life

  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (2012). “A Gift of Love: Sermons from Strength to Love and Other Preachings”, p.67, Beacon Press

• Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man's sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Beautiful, Hate, Cancer

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

• 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.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Sad, Wisdom, Bad Relationship

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

• I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizens Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner but the white moderate who is more devoted to order than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Peace, Block, Order

  Letter from Birmingham Jail, Alabama, 16 Apr. 1963, in Atlantic Monthly Aug. 1963, p. 81

• Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Inspirational, Kings, Destiny

  "Letter from Birmingham Jail," 16 Apr. 1963

• We have deluded ourselves into believing the myth that capitalism grew and prospered out of the Protestant ethic of hard work and sacrifices. Capitalism was built on the exploitation of black slaves and continues to thrive on the exploitation of the poor, both black and white, both here and abroad.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Believe, Hard Work, Black And White

  "Secretary Zinke, we can't afford to ignore diversity" by Andre Perry, www.cnn.com. March 27, 2018.

• Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Wisdom, Peace, Kings

  "Letter from Birmingham Jail," 16 Apr. 1963

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

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Inspirational, Motivational, Change

• We are called to speak for the weak, for the voiceless, for the victims of our nation and for those it calls enemy, for no document from human hands can make these humans any less our brothers and sisters.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Brother, Hands, Justice

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

• We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And he's allowed me to go up to the mountaintop. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Land, Justice, Diversity

  I've Been to the Mountaintop, delivered 3 April 1968, Mason Temple (Church of God in Christ Headquarters), Memphis, Tennessee

• Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men. Our hope for creative living lies in our ability to reestablish the spiritual needs of our lives in personal character and social justice. Without this spiritual and moral reawakening we shall destroy ourselves in the misuse of our own instruments.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Spiritual, Lying, Character

• I want to be the white man's brother, not his brother-in-law.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Relationship, Brother, Men

  Quoted in New York Journal-American, 10 Sept. 1962

• 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”

• All life is interrelated. The agony of the poor impoverishes the rich; the betterment of the poor enriches the rich. We are inevitably our brother's keeper because we are our brother's brother. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Brother, Agony, Justice

  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (2013). “"In a Single Garment of Destiny": A Global Vision of Justice”, p.88, Beacon Press

• A society is always eager to cover misdeeds with a cloak of forgetfulness, but no society can fully repress an ugly past when the ravages persist into the present. America owes a debt of justice which it has only begun to pay.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Past, America, Justice

  "Where Do We Go from Here : Chaos or Community?". Book by Martin Luther King, Jr., p. 109, 1967.

• America must begin the struggle for democracy at home. The advocacy of free elections in Europe by American officials is hypocrisy when free elections are not held in great sections of America.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Struggle, Home, Europe

You May Also Like:

Malcolm X

Mahatma Gandhi

Nelson Mandela

Rosa Parks

Martin Luther King III

Coretta Scott King

Martin Luther