MLK Day 2010: I Have A Dream & Letter From Birmingham Quotes

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I Have A Dream_

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Today is Dr.Martin Luther King, Jr Day (MLK Day) in the US, honoring the birth of civil rights activist Martin Luther King, Jr. Below you'll find the "I Have a Dream" speech text, as well as several quotes from Dr. King, including an excerpt from Letter From A Birmingham Jail Also, find video of MLK's last speech before his assassination, video of news reports surrounding his death, video of Robert F Kennedy announcing the death of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.  and President Obama's speech at a Baptist Church on Sunday, 

"Almost always, the creative dedicated minority has made the world better."

"At the center of non-violence stands the principle of love. "

"A right delayed is a right denied. "

"Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can't ride you unless your back is bent. "

"I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. "

Letter From A Birmingham Jail

The I Have A Dream speech gets a lot of attention but the lesser known but compelling Letter From A Birmingham Jail is also worth a read

"... I am in Birmingham because injustice is here. Just as the prophets of the eighth century B.C. left their villages and carried their "thus saith the Lord" far beyond the boundaries of their home towns, and just as the Apostle Paul left his village of Tarsus and carried the gospel of Jesus Christ to the far corners of the Greco Roman world, so am I compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my own home town. Like Paul, I must constantly respond to the Macedonian call for aid.

Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial "outside agitator" idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds.

You deplore the demonstrations taking place in Birmingham. But your statement, I am sorry to say, fails to express a similar concern for the conditions that brought about the demonstrations. I am sure that none of you would want to rest content with the superficial kind of social analysis that deals merely with effects and does not grapple with underlying causes. It is unfortunate that demonstrations are taking place in Birmingham, but it is even more unfortunate that the city's white power structure left the Negro community with no alternative.

In any nonviolent campaign there are four basic steps: collection of the facts to determine whether injustices exist; negotiation; self purification; and direct action. We have gone through all these steps in Birmingham. There can be no gainsaying the fact that racial injustice engulfs this community. Birmingham is probably the most thoroughly segregated city in the United States. Its ugly record of brutality is widely known. Negroes have experienced grossly unjust treatment in the courts. There have been more unsolved bombings of Negro homes and churches in Birmingham than in any other city in the nation. These are the hard, brutal facts of the case. On the basis of these conditions, Negro leaders sought to negotiate with the city fathers. But the latter consistently refused to engage in good faith negotiation."