Martin Luther King, Jr. Movement Quotations

The labor movement was the principal force that transforme­d misery and despair into hope and progress.

We aren't going to let any mace stop us. We are masters in our nonviolent movement in disarming police forces; they don't know what to do.

A social movement that only moves people is merely a revolt. A movement that changes both people and institutions is a revolution.

If the Negro is to achieve the goal of integration, he must organize himself into a militant and nonviolent mass movement.

History is a great teacher. Now everyone knows that the labor movement did not diminish the strength of the nation but enlarged it. By raising the living standards of millions, labor miraculously created a market for industry and lifted the whole nation to undreamed of levels of production. Those who attack labor forget these simple truths, but history remembers them.

We must see the great distinction between a reform movement and a revolutionary movement. We are called upon to raise certain basic questions about the whole society . . . . What America must be told today is that she must be born again. The whole structure of American life must be changed.