The curse of poverty has no justification in our age. – Martin Luther King,Jr., Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?, 1967

As a teenager I had never been able to accept the fact of having to go to the back of a bus or sit in the segregated section of a train. The first time I had been seated behind a curtain in a dining car, I felt as if the curtain had been dropped on my selfhood. – Martin Luther King,Jr., Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story, 1958

But alas! Science cannot now rescue us, for even the scientist is lost in the terrible midnight of our age. Indeed, science gave us the very instruments that threaten to bring universal suicide. – Martin Luther King,Jr., Strength to Love, 1963

It is often easier to become outraged by injustice half a world away than by oppression and discrimination half a block from home. – Carl T. Rowan