The poor in our countries have been shut out of our minds and driven from the mainstream of our societies, because we have allowed them to become invisible. – Martin Luther King,Jr., Nobel Prize lecture, 11 December 1968

Black Power alone is no more insurance against social injustice than white power. – Martin Luther King,Jr., Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?, 1967

If a man is called a streetsweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and Earth will pause to say, Here lived a great streetsweeper who did his job well. – Martin Luther King,Jr.

In the final analysis the weakness of Black Power is its failure to see that the black man needs the white man and the white man needs the black man. – Martin Luther King,Jr., Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?, 1967