“Cowardice asks the question – is it safe?
Expediency asks the question – is it politic?
Vanity asks the question – is it popular?
But conscience asks the question – is it right?
And there comes a time when one must take a position
that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular;
but one must take it because it is right.”
Partial transcript: MLK, Jr.: “A man of conscience can never be a consensus leader. He doesn’t take a stand in order to search for consensus… he’s ultimately a molder of consensus, and I’ve always said that the ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and moments of convenience, but where he stands in moments of challenge and moments of controversy.”; Ron Paul: ”Maybe we oughta consider a Golden Rule in foreign policy… don’t do to other nations what we don’t want to have them do to us. We endlessly bomb these countries, and then we wonder why they get upset with us? And yet it continues on and on. It’s warmongering… they’re building up for another war against Iran and people can’t wait to get in another war. This country doesn’t need another war… we need to quit the ones we’re in… we need to save the money, and bring our troops home.”
Powerful words spoken by my hero, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in St. Augustine, Florida in 1964…
Speaker: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Partial transcript: “It’s difficult advice and in some quarters it isn’t too popular to say it…Let us recognize that violence is not the answer. I must say to you tonight that violence is impractical…We have another method that is much more powerful and much more effective than the weapon of violence…Hate isn’t our weapon either…I am not talking now about a weak love. It would be nonsense to urge oppressed people to love their oppressors in an affectionate sense–I’m not talking about that. Too many people confuse the meaning of love when they go to criticizing the love ethic…I am talking about a love that is so strong that it becomes a demanding love. I’m talking about a love that is so strong that it organizes itself into a mass movement and says somehow ‘I am my brother’s keeper, and he is so wrong that I am willing to suffer and die if necessary to get him right and to see that he’s on the wrong road’.”
In the audio clip below, James Corbett introduces an excerpt from Martin Luther King, Jr.‘s acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize, in which King declares that “right temporarily defeated is stronger than evil triumphant“.
Although not included in the audio clip itself, I found the following excerpt from his speech to be equally compelling:
“Therefore, I must ask why this prize is awarded to a movement which is beleaguered and committed to unrelenting struggle; to a movement which has not won the very peace and brotherhood which is the essence of the Nobel Prize. After contemplation, I conclude that this award which I receive on behalf of that movement is a profound recognition that nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral question of our time–the need for man to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to violence and oppression. Civilization and violence are antithetical concepts.”
“Negroes of the United States, following the people of India, have demonstrated that nonviolence is not sterile passivity, but a powerful moral force which makes for social transformation. Sooner or later all the people of the world will have to discover a way to live together in peace, and thereby transform this pending cosmic elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. If this is to be achieved, man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.”
- Martin Luther King, Jr. (Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech – Dec. 10, 1964)
Show:The Corbett Report
Full Podcast: Episode #108 – Peace Prizes for Warmongers
Date: 11/15/09
Host: James Corbett Biography:Martin Luther King, Jr. Speech: Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech Date: December 10, 1964 Location: Oslo, Norway Excerpt: “I refuse to accept the cynical notion that nation after nation must spiral down a militaristic stairway into the hell of nuclear annihilation. I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right temporarily defeated is stronger than evil triumphant.”
Here’s one more clip from Martin Luther King, Jr.‘s speech “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence“, delivered on April 4th, 1967.
I also came across a separate MLK, Jr. quote that I found quite remarkable… and quite biblical. It’s from the book “Strength to Love“, which is a collection of classic sermons preached by Dr. King:
“To our most bitter opponents we say: ‘We shall match your capacity to inflict suffering by our capacity to endure suffering. We shall meet your physical force with soul force. Do to us what you will, and we shall continue to love you.’…. Jesus is eternally right. History is replete with the bleached bones of nations that refused to listen to him. May we in the twentieth century hear and follow his words before it is too late. May we solemnly realize that we shall never be true sons of the heavenly Father until we love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us.”
- Martin Luther King, Jr., “Loving your Enemies”
[Part 3 of a 3-Part series]
Biography:Martin Luther King, Jr. Speech: Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence Date: April 4, 1967 Location: Riverside Church, New York City Excerpt: “This is a calling that takes me beyond national allegiances, but even if it were not present I would yet have to live with the meaning of my commitment to the ministry of Jesus Christ. To me the relationship of this ministry to the making of peace is so obvious that I sometimes marvel at those who ask me why I’m speaking against the war. Could it be that they do not know that the good news was meant for all men — for Communist and capitalist, for their children and ours, for black and for white, for revolutionary and conservative? Have they forgotten that my ministry is in obedience to the One who loved his enemies so fully that he died for them? What then can I say to the Vietcong or to Castro or to Mao as a faithful minister of this One? Can I threaten them with death or must I not share with them my life?”
Here’s another clip from Martin Luther King, Jr.‘s speech “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence“, delivered at Riverside Church in New York City on April 4th, 1967.
[Part 2 of a 3-Part series]
Biography:Martin Luther King, Jr. Speech: Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence Date: April 4, 1967 Location: Riverside Church, New York City Excerpt: “As I have walked among the desperate, rejected, and angry young men, I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems. I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action. But they ask — and rightly so — what about Vietnam? They ask if our own nation wasn’t using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today — my own government. For the sake of those boys, for the sake of this government, for the sake of the hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent.”
Biography:Martin Luther King, Jr. Speech: Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence Date: April 4, 1967 Location: Riverside Church, New York City Excerpt: “A time comes when silence is betrayal. And that time has come for us in relation to Vietnam. The truth of these words is beyond doubt, but the mission to which they call us is a most difficult one. Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government’s policy, especially in time of war. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within one’s own bosom and in the surrounding world. Moreover, when the issues at hand seem as perplexed as they often do in the case of this dreadful conflict, we are always on the verge of being mesmerized by uncertainty; but we must move on. And some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak. We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak.”
James Corbett discusses the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the nonviolent, grass-roots effort that propelled Martin Luther King, Jr. and the civil rights movement into the public consciousness.
Show:The Corbett Report
Full Podcast: Episode #107 – Lessons in Resistance: Non-compliance
Date: 11/8/09
Host: James Corbett Topics: Rosa Parks lost her case and was convicted of violating the segregated seating laws; Black leaders formed the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) as an extension of the Montgomery Bus Boycott and elected Martin Luther King, Jr. as its president; King gave a speech at a church that sparked the black residents’ collective outrage into a grass-roots movement that sustained the boycott; The bus boycott followed King’s credo of nonviolent resistance; On February 1st, 1956, the MIA filed a federal suit against bus segregation in the names of 4 black women; In June a federal court ruled segregated seating unconstitutional–it was appealed to the Supreme Court, which upheld the ruling; On December 20th, 1956, when the federal ruling took effect, an integrated group of bus boycott supporters (including King) rode the city buses; The Montgomery Bus Boycott had implications that reached far beyond the desegregation of public buses; The protest propelled the civil rights movement into national consciousness, and Martin Luther King, Jr. into the public eye; In the words of King: “We have gained a new sense of dignity and destiny. We have discovered a new and powerful weapon… nonviolent resistance.”
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