Page 4...THE PEN...February, 1981 A Salute to Dr. Martm QUOTES OF REV DR MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR 1. “If you will protest courageously, any yet with dignity and Christian love, when the history books are written in future genera tions, the historians will pause and say, ‘There lived a great people--a black people who injected new meaning and dignity into the veins of civilization.’ This is our challenge and our overwhelming responsibili ty.” This was said by Dr. King in 1955 during the Montgomery bus boycott which lasted for a total of 382 days. This boycott resulted in, among other things; courteous treatment of negroes by white bus drivers; the hir ing of qualified blacks to drive city buses; and seating arrangement on buses on a first-come, first-serve basis. 2. “I guess it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say ‘Wait’. But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and down your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate- filled policemen curse, kick, brutalize and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you sud denly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammermg as you seek to explain to your six-year old daughter why she can’t go to the amusement park that she has just seen advertised on television and see tears welling up in her little eyes when she is told that ‘Funtown’ is closed to colored children, and see the depressing clounds of inferiority begin to form in her little mental sky, and see her begin to distort her little personality by unconsciously developing a bitterness toward white people; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading ‘white’ and ‘colored’; when your first name becomes ‘boy’ (however old you are) and when your wife and mother are never given the respected title ‘Mrs.’; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe 'stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of ‘Nobodyness’--Then you will understand why we find it so dif- ficuh to wait.” When in 1963 Dr. King was jailed in Birmingham, Alabama, he responded to the criticism of eight white Clergymen who had critized the demonstrations which he had been leading. 3. “No great victory comes without suffering.” This state ment was made by Dr. King in 1964 in Albany, Georgia, where he was leading demonstratons to desegregate public facilities. 4. “If every Negro in America turns to violence. I’ll still stand against it.” Dr. King said this in responding to the cry of “Black Power!” by Civil Rights veteran Stokely Carmichael in 1966. 5. “I have a^ dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these thruths to be self evident: That all men are created equal.’ “I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. “I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. “When we allow freedom to ring, we will be’able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gen tiles, Protestants and Catholics will be able to join hands and sing in the old Negro spiritual of all: ‘Free at last. Free at last! Thank God Almighty, I am free at last.’” Speech delivered on the march of Washington on August 28, 1963. 6. “If anyone should be killed, let it be me.” Dr. King said this in 1957, while in Montgomery, Alabama, just after his house had been bombed. 7. “Yes, if you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for righteousness; say that 1 was a drum major for peace and a drum major for humanity and all of the other shallow things of life will not matter. I won’t have any money to leave behind. 1 won’t have the fine and luxurious things of life to leave behind. I just want to leave a committed life behind. That’s all I want to say—If I can help somebody. If I can cheer somebody with a word or song. If I can show somebody he’s travelling wrong, then my living will not be in vain.” Final sermon delivered by Dr. King on February 4, 1968 from the pulpit of Ebenezer Baptist Church, which he co-pastered. 8. “We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn’t matter with me now. Because I’ve been to the mountaintop and 1 won’t mind. Like anybody, 1 would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. ■But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountaintop. 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 Promis ed Land. So I’m happy tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the coming of the Lord.” This was Dr. King’s last speech, delivered on April 3, 1968, at the Masonic Temple in Memphis, Tenn. He was assassinated on April 4, 1968, while standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tenn.