White Gandalf"#Injustice anywhere is a threat to #justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of #mutuality, tied in a single garment of #destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial 'outside #agitator' idea. Anyone who lives inside the #UnitedStates can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds." #MartinLutherKing Jr., Letter from #BirminghamJail, April 16, 1963. #MLKDay
"You may well ask: 'Why #DirectAction? Why #SitIns, #marches and so forth? Isn't #negotiation a better path?' . . . #Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a #crisis and foster such a #tension that a #community which has constantly refused to #negotiate is forced to confront the issue. . . . The #purpose of our direct action program is to create a situation so crisis packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation." #MartinLutherKing Jr., Letter from #BirminghamJail. #MLKDay
"My friends, I must say to you that we have not made a single gain in #civilrights without determined #legal and #nonviolent #pressure. Lamentably, it is an #historical #fact that #privileged groups seldom give up their #privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the #moral light and voluntarily give up their #unjust posture; but, as #ReinholdNiebuhr has reminded us, groups tend to be more #immoral than individuals." #MartinLutherKing Jr., Letter from #BirminghamJail, April 16, 1963. #MLKDay
"We know through painful experience that #freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. ... I have yet to engage in a #DirectAction campaign that was 'well timed' in the view of those who have not suffered ... segregation. For years now I have heard the word 'Wait!' ... This 'Wait' has almost always meant 'Never.' We must come to see ... that '#justice too long delayed is justice denied.'" #MartinLutherKing Letter from #BirminghamJail #MLKDay
"One may well ask: 'How can you advocate breaking some #laws and obeying others?' The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: #just and #unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a #legal but a #moral #responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with #StAugustine that 'an unjust law is no law at all.'" #MartinLutherKing Jr., Letter from #BirminghamJail #MLKDay
"An #UnjustLaw is a code that a numerical or power majority group compels a #minority group to obey but does not make binding on itself. This is #difference made #legal. By the same token, a #JustLaw is a code that a majority compels a minority to follow and that it is willing to follow itself. This is #sameness made legal." #MartinLutherKing Jr., Letter from #BirminghamJail, April 16, 1963. Image from interior of the Cannon Congressional Office Building, Washington, DC. #MLKDay