"Rediscovering Lost Values"
...
The universe hinges on moral foundations. There is something in this universe that justifies Carlyle in saying,
"No lie can live forever."
There is something in this universe that justifies William Cullen Bryant in saying,
"Truth, crushed to earth, will rise again."
There is something in this universe that justifies James Russell Lowell in saying,
"Truth forever on the scaffold,
Wrong forever on the throne.
With that scaffold sways the future.
Behind the dim unknown stands God,
Within the shadow keeping watch above his own."
.....
If we were to go forward, we must go back and rediscover these precious valuyes --that all reality hinges on moral foundations and that all reality has spiritual control.
p.33
"There is amazing power in unity. Where there is true unity, every effort to disunite only servesto strengthen the unity. " p. 88
Statement at Youth March for Integrated Schools
...Whatever career you may choose for yourself --doctor, lawyer, teacher--let me propose an avocation to be pursued along with it. Become a dedicated fighter for civil rights. make it a central part of your life.
It will make you a better doctor, abetter lawyer, a better teacher. It will enrich your spirit as nothing else possibly can. It will give you that rare sense of nobility that can only spring from love and selflessly helping your fellowman. Make a career of humanity. Commit yourself to the noble struggle for equal rights. You will make a greater person of yourself, a greater nation of your country, and a finer world to live in.
April 18, 1959, Washington, D.C.
p.138
"I Have a Dream"
...
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed --
we hold these truths to be self evedent that all men are created equal.
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Goergia the sons of former slaves and the 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 oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have adream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
I have a dream today!
I have a dreamthat one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama little black boys and girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.
I have a dream today!
I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, ebvery hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plainand the crooked places will be made straight and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.
....
p226
Man's inhumanity to man is not only perpetrated by the vitriolic actions of those who are bad. It is also perpetrated by thr vitiating inactions of those who are good. p.229
Source:
The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr. (Grand Central Publishing, Hachette Book Group, New York, NY: 1998). Edited by Clayborne Carson.
