Martin Luther King Protest Quotes & Sayings

We have no alternative but to protest. For many years we have shown an amazing patience ... But we come here tonight to be saved from that patience that makes us patient with anything less than freedom and justice. — Martin Luther King Jr.

We aren't engaged in any negative protest and in any negative arguments with anybody. We are saying that we are determined to be men. We are determined to be people. We are saying that we are God's children. And that we don't have to live like we are forced to live. — Martin Luther King Jr.

The only weapon that we have in our hands this evening is the weapon of protest. That's all. — Martin Luther King Jr.

No music. No rituals. At home I write in my office or on the laptop in the kitchen where our puppy likes to sleep, and I love his company. But I've trained myself to be able to work anywhere, and I write on trains, planes, in automobiles (if I'm not the driver), airports, hotel rooms. I travel often. If I couldn't write wherever I was I would get little done. I also can write in short bursts. Fifteen minutes are enough to move a story forward. — Gail Carson Levine

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.

And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it America has failed to hear? ... It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice and humanity. — Martin Luther King Jr.

If I lived in China or even Russia, or any totalitarian country, Maybe I could understand some of these illegal injunctions ... But somewhere I read of the freedom of assembly. Somewhere I read of the freedom of speech. Somewhere I read of the freedom of the press. Somewhere I read that the greatness of America is the right to protest for right. — Martin Luther King Jr.

In fishing, golf and gardening, if you don't have a healthy tolerance for your own ineptitude, then it isn't for you. — William Bernard Ziff Jr.

There is a more excellent way, of love and nonviolent protest. — Martin Luther King Jr.

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.

After the opposition had failed to negotiate us into a compromise, it turned to subtler means for blocking the protest; namely, to conquer by dividing. False rumors were spread concerning the leaders of the movement. Negro workers were told by their white employers that their leaders were only concerned with making money out of the movement. Others were told that the Negro leaders rode big cars while they walked. During this period the rumor was spread that I had purchased a brand new Cadillac for myself and a Buick station wagon for my wife. Of course none of this was true. — Martin Luther King Jr.

There is an element of anger among women who've been raped. There's certainly a major element of humiliation. But it really does seem like a medical condition of shock and horror — Nicholas D. Kristof

If you will protest courageously, and yet with dignity and Christian love, when the history books are written in future generations, the historians will have to pause and say, There lived a great people-a black people-who injected new meaning and dignity into the veins of civilization. — Martin Luther King Jr.

It was the Sermon on the Mount, rather than a doctrine of passive resistance, that initially inspired the Negroes of Montgomery to dignified social action. It was Jesus of Nazareth that stirred the Negroes to protest with the creative weapon of love. As — Martin Luther King Jr.

My benefactor said that when a man embarks on the paths of sorcery he becomes aware, in a gradual manner, that ordinary life has been forever left behind; that knowledge is indeed a frightening affair; that the means of the ordinary world are no longer a buffer for him; and that he must adopt a new way of life if he is going to survive. The first thing he ought to do, at that point, is to want to become a warrior ... — Carlos Castaneda

The moment you establish a line of communication between two points, you subtly change both. That is also true for the way the brain is affected by the mind. — David Amerland

Every [person] of humane convictions must decide on the protest that best suits [his or her] convictions, but we must all protest. — Martin Luther King Jr.

One has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. — Martin Luther King Jr.

I took my clothes out of the cupboard and looked at myself in the mirror. I dropped the wet towel. i took a long, clear-eyed look at myself. that i was different was nowhere apparent. — Sachin Kundalkar

We did not hesitate to call our movement an army. But it was a special army, with no supplies but its sincerity, no uniform but its determination, no arsenal except its faith, no currency but its conscience. — Martin Luther King Jr.

We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. — Martin Luther King Jr.