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Martin Luther King Jr. is not Black Buddha or Black Gandhi. Nonviolence was a tactic adopted in response to the poisoned conscience of white America. He knew that to lessen our death and suffering he had to maintain the moral high ground to spotlight the brutality of whiteness.
When white people isolate and elevate his belief in nonviolence while ignoring specific instructions directed at them, they’re prioritizing whiteness over the very man they’re disingenuously commemorating, and signal that like many in his time, they would’ve hated him too.
"There aren't enough white persons in our country who are willing to cherish democratic principles over privilege."
–Martin Luther King Jr.
–Martin Luther King Jr.
"And it [America] has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than justice, equality and humanity."
–Martin Luther King Jr.
–Martin Luther King Jr.
"I think you have to make a distinction between the people who are genuinely and absolutely committed in the white community on the question of racial equality, and I must confess that I think they are a very small minority."
–Martin Luther King Jr.
–Martin Luther King Jr.
"Many white Americans of good will have never connected bigotry with economic exploitation. They've deplored prejudice but tolerated or ignored economic injustice."
–Martin Luther King Jr.
–Martin Luther King Jr.
"I never cease to wonder at the amazing presumption of much of white society, assuming that they have the right to bargain with the Negro for his freedom."
–Martin Luther King Jr.
–Martin Luther King Jr.
"I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to order than to justice.”
–Martin Luther King Jr.
–Martin Luther King Jr.
"Whites, it must frankly be said, are not putting in a similar mass effort to reeducate themselves out of their racial ignorance.
It is an aspect of their sense of superiority that the white people of America believe they have so little to learn."
–Martin Luther King Jr.
It is an aspect of their sense of superiority that the white people of America believe they have so little to learn."
–Martin Luther King Jr.
True in 1967, still true in 2021:
“There has never been a single solid determined commitment of large segments of white America on the whole question of racial equality.”
–Martin Luther King Jr.
“There has never been a single solid determined commitment of large segments of white America on the whole question of racial equality.”
–Martin Luther King Jr.
