...laws prohibiting marriages might represent a slippery slope towards greater discrimination.
...Laws prohibiting marriages between white people and Negroes were enacted as early as 1872.
Such laws were overturned by the Supreme Court in 1967.
In South Africa, similar laws were enacted in 1949 and repealed in 1985.
...Let us separate religious issue[s] from the issue of discrimination and civil rights.
...The dream that became America began with the revolutionary concept expressed in the Declaration of Independence in words that are among the most noble and elegant ever written: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
...Martin Luther King’s legacy commands us to fight against this blatant infringement on civil rights with all our might and with all our soul.
Men often hate each other because they fear each other;
they fear each other because they don't know each other;
they don't know each other because they can not communicate;
they can not communicate because they are separated.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story, 1958
...When I consider the history of my people and how we have been subjected to the denial of civil rights and have been the object of discrimination, I can only conclude that as a Jew, bias, bigotry, and racism must be fought whenever and wherever they are present.
...Holocaust survivor and Nobel laureate Eli Wiesel ...teaches us
“The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference.
The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference.
The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference.
And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference.”..."
Fred
...there comes a time when people get tired of being trampled by the iron feet of oppression
... If we are wrong, the Supreme Court of this nation is wrong.
If we are wrong, the Constitution of the United States is wrong.
And if we are wrong, God Almighty is wrong.
If we are wrong, Jesus of Nazareth was merely a utopian dreamer
that never came down to Earth.
If we are wrong, justice is a lie, love has no meaning.
And we are determined..to work and fight until justice runs down like water,
and righteousness like a mighty stream.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Holt Street Baptist Church, 1955
that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor;
it must be demanded by the oppressed.
...I have yet to engage in a direct action campaign that was "well timed"
in the view of those who have not suffered unduly...
For years now I have heard the word "Wait!"
...This "Wait" has almost always meant "Never."
We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists,
that "justice too long delayed is justice denied."
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Letter From A Birmingham Jail, 1963
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence,
and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction
... The chain reaction of evil -- hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars
-- must be broken,
or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Strength To Love, 1963
