Mlk Inspirational Quotes

The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.

Poetry empowers the simplest of lives to confront the most extreme sorrows with courage, and motivates the mightiest of offices to humbly heed lessons in compassion.

No matter the difficulty, no matter the danger. He inspire them like no other since or before.

Haters can never rejoice especially when their enemy wins. The moment you can’t be happy when someone wins, watch yourself. That habit is not good for you.

Now is the time that we walk as humans and not as labels. Rise and walk, like did Rosa Parks, MLK, Madiba (Mandela), Honest Abe (Lincoln), Mevlana (Rumi) and many more.

Tyson emails back: “I’m going to tell you the same thing that I told Henry Louis Gates” (Gates had asked Tyson to appear on his show Finding Your Roots): My philosophy of root-finding may be unorthodox. I just don’t care. And that’s not a passive, but active absence of caring. In the tree of life, any two people in the world share a common ancestor—depending only on how far back you look. So the line we draw to establish family and heritage is entirely arbitrary. When I wonder what I am capable of achieving, I don’t look to family lineage, I look to all human beings. That’s the genetic relationship that matters to me. The genius of Isaac Newton, the courage of Gandhi and MLK, the bravery of Joan of Arc, the athletic feats of Michael Jordan, the oratorical skills of Sir Winston Churchill, the compassion of Mother Teresa. I look to the entire human race for inspiration for what I can be—because I am human. Couldn’t care less if I were a descendant of kings or paupers, saints or sinners, the valorous or cowardly. My life is what I make of it.

Martin Luther King Jr., on April 4, 1967, at the Riverside Church, he speaks out against the Vietnam War. People push back against King. They tell him he's not patriotic. In that speech, he says that there comes a time when silence is betrayal. He says he's about to say this criticism because he loves the country, not because he hates the country. He also, in the same speech, says America is the greatest purveyor of violence in the world. But he says it's going to be a bitter but beautiful struggle to transform America, because he says the goal of America is freedom. Now, that's perfect. That's brilliant. That's beautiful. He's telling us all the different sides of our country and he's inspiring us to do something about it - right? - but he's also not calling us villains. He's saying that we can actually transform and create and build this beloved community. But King wants us to tell the story of poor people, farm workers. He wants us to end militarization and materialism and racism. So what I think, again, I think everything comes down to storytellers and the story, everything. And I - and I'm serious about that. And so we need to tell ourselves a different story about America.

Reconciliation is not a magic word that we can trot out whenever we need healing or inspiration. Deep down, I think we know this is true, because our efforts to partake of an easy reconciliation have proved fruitless in the world. Too often, our discussions of race are emotional but not strategic, our outreach work remains paternalistic, and our ethnic celebrations fetishize people of color. Many champions of racial justice in the Church has stopped using the term altogether, because it has been so watered down from its original potency. In their book Radical Reconciliation, Curtiss DeYoung and Allan Boesak unpack why this happens. They write, "reconciliation is revolutionary, that is, oriented to structural change." Which means, reconciliation can never be apolitical. Reconciliation chooses sides, and the side is always justice. This is why white American churches remain so far from experiencing anything resembling reconciliation. The white Church considers power its birthright rather than its curse. And so, rather than seeking reconciliation, they stage moments of racial harmony that don't challenge the status quo. They organize worship services where the choir of two racially different churches sing together, where a pastor of a different race preaches a couple times a year, where they celebrate MLK but don't acknowledge current racial injustices. Acts like these can create beautiful moments of harmony and goodwill, but since they don't change the underlying power structure of the organization, it would be misleading to call them acts of reconciliation. Even worse, when they're not paired with greater change, diversity efforts can have the opposite of their intended effect. They keep the church feeling good, innocent, maybe even progressive, allt he while preserving the roots of injustice.

All said and done, in our headstrong struggle for inclusion, we mustn't also underestimate everything we have achieved so far as a species. As a matter of fact, we've come a long way since our tribal days of division and discrimination. Let me show you how. World's most beloved poet, Mevlana Rumi, was a muslim - world's icon of civil rights, MLK, was a black person - world's greatest inspiration of science, Albert Einstein, was a German Jew - and most recently, as of 2023, PM of UK and VP of US, both are of Indian origin. So don't tell me, we've achieved nothing - don't tell me, there is no hope for integration! Integration is happening all over the world, despite the ancient impediments of intolerance and hate. Therefore, the question is not whether integration is possible - real question is, are you a part of that integration, or aren't you! Our home is planet earth - and here on earth, we all cry the same pain, smile the same joy, and live the same love.

Charismatic people tend to speak more loudly.  They modulate their voices. They stand up straight.  They gesticulate.  Think of MLK on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.