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One of the great liabilities of history is that all too many people fail to remain awake through great periods of social change.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

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Martin Luther King, Jr.
Age: 39 †
Born: 1929
Born: January 15
Died: 1968
Died: April 4
Civil Rights Advocate
Human Rights Activist
Humanitarian
Leader
Minister
Pacifist
Pastor
Peace Activist
Politician
Preacher
Theologian
Atlanta
Georgia
MLK
Martin Luther King
Dr. King
Michael King
Michael King Jr.
M.L. King
Martin Luther
Jr. King
Martin Luther King
Jr.
History
Liabilities
Social
Liability
Political
Awake
Change
Fail
Many
Remain
Great
Periods
People
Failing
Politics

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Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane.
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The truth may hurt, but love helps ease the pain.
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He should sweep streets so well that all the host of heaven and earth will pause to say, 'Here lives a great street-sweeper who did his job well'
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If we get setbacks and if something happens where the Civil Rights Bill is watered down, for instance, if the Negro feels that he can do nothing but move from one ghetto to another and one slum to another, the despair and the disappointment will be so great that it will be very difficult to keep the struggle disciplined and nonviolent.
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By opening our lives to God in Christ, we become new creatures. This experience, which Jesus spoke of as the new birth, is essential if we are to be transformed nonconformists . . . Only through an inner spiritual transformation do we gain the strength to fight vigorously the evils of the world in a humble and loving spirit.
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Man is man because he is free to operate within the framework of his destiny. He is free to deliberate, to make decisions, and to choose between alternatives.
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If you can't be a sun, be a star. For it isn't by size that you win or fail. Be the best of whatever you are.
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My parents would always tell me that I should not hate the white man, but that it was my duty as a Christian to love him.
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The great majority of Americans are suspended between these opposing attitudes. They are uneasy with injustice but unwilling yet to pay a significant price to eradicate it.
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Many white Americans of good will have never connected bigotry with economic exploitation. They have deplored prejudice but tolerated or ignored economic injustice.
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I have a dream, one dream, keep dreaming. Dream of freedom, justice dreaming, dreaming of equality and hopefully no longer required to dream them
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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.
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I just want to do God's will. And he's allowed me to go to the mountain. And I've looked over, and I've seen the promised land! I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the promised land.
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Everybody has the blues. Everybody longs for meaning. Everybody needs to love and be loved. Everybody needs to clap hands and be happy. Everybody longs for faith. In music, especially this broad category called jazz, there is a stepping-stone to all of these.
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Power is the ability to achieve purpose.
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The failures of the past must not be an excuse for the inaction of the present and the future.
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There are more Negroes in jail with me than there are on the voting rolls.
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True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that a system that produces beggars needs to be repaved. We are called to be the Good Samaritan, but after you lift so many people out of the ditch you start to ask, maybe the whole road to Jericho needs to be repaved.
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Each of us is something of a schizophrenic personality, tragically divided against ourselves.
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If the church of today does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authentic ring, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century.
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