The greatness of a community is most accurately measured by the compassionate actions of its members.
Coretta Scott King
Hate is too great a burden to bear. It injures the hater more than it injures the hated.
Struggle is a never ending process. Freedom is never really won, you earn it and win it in every generation.
Women, if the soul of the nation is to be saved, I believe that you must become its soul.
Justice is never advanced in the taking of a human life.
Freedom and justice cannot be parceled out in pieces to suit political convenience. I don't believe you can stand for freedom for one group of people and deny it to others.
The failure to invest in youth reflects a lack of compassion and a colossal failure of common sense.
My story is a freedom song from within my soul. It is a guide to discovery, a vision of how even the worst pain and heartaches can be channeled into human monuments, impenetrable and everlasting.
Nelson Mandela sat in a South African prison for 27 years. He was nonviolent. He negotiated his way out of jail. His honor and suffering of 27 years in a South African prison is really ultimately what brought about the freedom of South Africa. That is nonviolence.
Revenge and retaliation always perpetuate the cycle of anger, fear and violence.
Nonviolence is the only credible response to the violence we're seeing around the world.
My story is a freedom song of struggle. It is about finding one's purpose, how to overcome fear and to stand up for causes bigger than one's self.
When fear rushed in, I learned how to hear my heart racing but refused to allow my feelings to sway me. That resilience came from my family. It flowed through our bloodline.
As one whose husband and mother-in-law have died the victims of murder and assassination, I stand firmly and unequivocally opposed to the death penalty for those convicted of capital offenses... An evil deed is not redeemed by an evil deed of retaliation.
Just be what you are. And I try to be my best self and be what I am and knowing what I am and be satisfied with that. And if people don't know it, maybe they'll eventually know it.
Something is wrong that we have to feed so many. Why should there be poverty with all of our science and technology? There is no deficit in human resources - it is a deficit in human will.
Non-violence is a permanent attitude we bring to the breakfast table and bring to bed at night.
There is no reason why a nation as rich as ours should be blighted by poverty, disease, and illiteracy.
Nonviolence would work today, it would work 2,000 years from now, it would work 5,000 years from now.
I'm fulfilled in what I do. I never thought that a lot of money or fine clothes - the finer things of life - would make you happy. My concept of happiness is to be filled in a spiritual sense.
Segregation was wrong when it was forced by white people, and I believe it is still wrong when it is requested by black people.
What most did not understand then was that I was not only married to the man I loved, but I was also married to the movement that I loved.
On Thanksgiving Night, 1942, when I was fifteen years old, white racists burned our house to the ground.
To abandon affirmative action is to say there is nothing more to be done about discrimination.
In the area of economic justice, we still have a long way to go. We have too many people who are discriminated against just because they happen to be black or they happen to be a woman or some other minority.
I believe all Americans who believe in freedom, tolerance and human rights have a responsibility to oppose bigotry and prejudice based on sexual orientation.
I can't help but believe that at some time in the not-too-distant future, there is going to be another movement to change these systemic conditions of poverty, injustice, and violence in people's lives. That is where we've got to go, and it is going to be a struggle.
I think that... discrimination in the job market is a very important area where work needs to be done.
If American women would increase their voting turnout by ten percent, I think we would see an end to all of the budget cuts in programs benefiting women and children.
Marrying Martin and the movement perfected my journey of discovery, soothed my yearning to pour out the values and vision within my soul.
A constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage is a form of gay bashing and it would do nothing to protect traditional marriages.
The woman power of this nation can be the power which makes us whole and heals the rotten community, now so shattered by war and poverty and racism. I have great faith in the power of women who will dedicate themselves whole-heartedly to the task of remaking our society.
I suppose I experienced the personal dilemma that baffles every working woman. What happens when you are expected to be Superwoman, to perform a dozen conflicting tasks at the same time?
It is plain that we don't care about our poor people except to exploit them as cheap labor and victimize them through excessive rents and consumer prices.
We can prevent many people from becoming terrorists by truly listening to people who feel they've been treated unjustly and responding to their concerns with a sense of justice and compassion.
Knowing what I know now, if I could have chosen parents, I would have chosen exactly the ones God selected for me.
Before I was married to Martin and became a King, I was a proud Scott, shaped by my mother's discernment and my father's strength.
During the bus boycott, I was tested by fire, and I came to understand that I was not a breakable crystal figurine.
Scandal sells books; fidelity does not.
If you use weapons of war to bring about peace, you're going to have more war and destruction.
My professional and personal roots in Alabama are deep and lasting.
You have to have people who prick the consciences of the nation.
I think if people really read Martin Luther King, Jr., then they would begin to understand what he really represented.
Civil rights leaders, including my husband and Albert Turner, have fought long and hard to achieve free and unfettered access to the ballot box. Mr. Sessions has used the awesome power of his office to chill the free exercise of the vote by black citizens in the district he now seeks to serve as a federal judge.
Our Congress passes laws which subsidize corporation farms, oil companies, airlines, and houses for suburbia. But when they turn their attention to the poor, they suddenly become concerned about balancing the budget and cut back on the funds for Head Start, Medicare, and mental health appropriations.
Martin Luther King, Jr. tried to live his life serving others.
I always knew that I was called to do something. I didn't know what, but I finally rationalized after I met Martin - and it took a lot of praying to discover this - that this was probably what God had called me to do: to marry him.
Homophobia is like racism and anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry in that it seeks to dehumanize a large group of people, to deny their humanity, their dignity and personhood.
The Voting Rights Act was, and still is, vitally important to the future of democracy in the United States.
Particularly in the South, efforts continue to be made to deny blacks access to the polls, even where blacks constitute the majority of the voters.
