Sitting in the Oval Office, beneath a painting of George Washington, with a bust of Martin Luther King Jr. over his right shoulder and a bust of Abraham Lincoln over his left shoulder, Obama told ‘National Journal’ that the country’s economic woes are deep and endemic.
We forgot that Martin Luther King, Jr. changed his discourse toward the end of his life because he understood that the real fundamental problem of this country was not just race, it was class. It was the economical situation of not only poor blacks but also the poor white part of the population and everything in between.
Martin Luther King, Jr. didn’t carry just a piece of cloth to symbolize his belief in racial equality; he carried the American flag.
I grew up in Ohio, where civil-rights accomplishments had already begun to accelerate before Martin Luther King appeared. In hindsight, we know that many people, black and white, were instrumental in changing the Jim Crow status quo on all levels.
My black hero is and always will be Martin Luther King, not just because of the strength of his oratory but because his vision was very much the reality that I’d come to take for granted.
I admire people who have fought for change: Martin Luther King Jr., Harriet Tubman, Abraham Lincoln. I’m dead serious when I say that – those are my heroes. I also like Ben Affleck.
I don’t remember when I didn’t know about Martin Luther King.
You supposed to be able to do anything in this world. That’s what Martin Luther King told me.
President Obama’s achievements and failures must be evaluated by comparison to those chief executives who have come before him and not be measured against the prophetically moral voice of Martin Luther King Jr.
The heroes of my childhood were Martin Luther King Jr. and John F. Kennedy… but I was inspired by the ideals of our 40th president and became a Republican.
I grew up in the sixties watching B.B. King and Tito Puente and Miles Davis and Coltrane, everybody, Marvin Gaye, Jimi. And at the same time, with my left eye I was watching Dolores Huerta, Cesar Chavez, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Mother Teresa.
I’d love to talk with Martin Luther King, just to hear his voice up close and be with someone who had such faith. He had such power.
I have very purposely never signed up with commercial lecture agencies as most, I think, prominent historical authors do because, to me, that’s a contradiction of who I believe I am given my absorption of the teaching of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Great American leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. worshipped God just as our Founding Fathers did. We must never forget this important aspect of our heritage or use it as a political bargaining chip.
We talk about how hard it is now. But if we look back at the ’60s, we actually had a president that was assassinated. We had riots, we had Vietnam, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, the FBI, and the Black Panther war. There was so much happening at the time where it felt like America was coming apart at the seams.
On March 7, 1965, some 600 civil rights activists marched in Selma, Alabama, demanding an end to racial discrimination. The demonstration was led by now-Rep. John Lewis and Hosea Williams, who worked with my father, Martin Luther King Jr.
I have been inspired by Martin Luther King and how he inspired a movement. I have learned that a cause must be organic; if it is to have an impact it must belong to those who join the movement and not those who lead it.
I’m the Ali of today. I’m the Marvin Gaye of today. I’m the Bob Marley of today. I’m the Martin Luther King, or all the other greats that have come before us. And a lot of people are starting to realise that now.
Martin Luther King took us to the mountain top: I want to take us to the bank.
My work has always been rooted in nonviolence, as espoused by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
The United States is a country founded on the ideal of freedom and equality, values later underlined by key historical figures like Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King.
The assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert F. Kennedy led directly to the passage of a historic law, the Gun Control Act of 1968.
Thank God we have the example of Martin Luther King, Jr. People need role models. They need to see examples of people in peoples’ lives, and that’s why it’s so important not just to commemorate his life, but to study and try to live by the principles of that life.
When your heart speaks to you about what you need to do to sustain life on this planet, listen to it, make a difference, and be an inspiration for generations to come. Be inspired by people like Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Christopher Reeve, Albert Schweitzer, Helen Keller, and many others.
Inaugural speeches are supposed to be huge and stirring. Presidents haul our heroes onstage, from George Washington to Martin Luther King Jr. George W. Bush brought the Liberty Bell. They use history to make greatness and achievements seem like something you can just take down from the shelf.
I kind of struggled as a 10-year-old to make out what it meant that Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy were killed within two months of each other. I think I was 14 when Watergate happened and a president was impeached. So between my birth and age 14, I just saw a lot of turmoil.
Martin Luther King was a misguided leader. He worked to be recognized as the leader of black America when what black America needs isn’t a leader, it is education.
It was the understanding of the power of perception that allowed the Martin Luther King, Jr. generations to stay true to the strategy of non-violence, refusing to retaliate when every emotional instinct would justify them doing so.
Now, Martin Luther King Jr. was a bridge builder, not a wall builder.
A calling is you feel – you look out and see the need – maybe it’s the need for the poor, to help poor people. Maybe it’s the need to get involved in the race problem, as Martin Luther King was – felt called.
Martin Luther King Jr., recognized bias when he saw it, knew what he was talking about.
The NAACP was not a black-run, black-originated organization. It was run by 21 white, socialist, atheist, Marxist Democrats. It was the antithesis of Rev. Martin Luther King Sr.’s community at that time, which was capitalist, Christian, very pro-life, and pro-America.
In my Philly neighborhood, black and white kids hung together without even thinking about it. The spirit of Martin Luther King was alive and well.
Martin Luther King Jr. could have argued that separate water fountains were too expensive, a waste of money. He would have been right about that. But cost was beside the point.
In 1999, I was in St. Louis with Martin Luther King III as we led protests against the state’s failure to hire minority contractors for highway construction projects. We went at dawn on a summer day with over a thousand people and performed acts of civil disobedience.
If the dream of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is to live, our babies must live. Our mothers must choose life. If we refuse to answer the cry of mercy from the unborn, and ignore the suffering of the mothers, then we are signing our own death warrants.
I was very much a part of the civil rights era, so, of course, my fantasy was to marry some outstanding black gentleman, a leader – someone like Martin Luther King who was doing something for black people.
A lot of these things in this world were only a dream for Martin Luther King. Not a one-term, but a two-term African-American president. And this is a terrible country? That was a dream for Martin Luther King.
The most influential people in my life are deceased. These include my parents, George Dunne, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., my minister in college.
We’re trained to see the world in terms of charismatic organizations and charismatic people. That’s who we look to for leadership and change, for transformation. We’re awaiting the next J.F.K., the next Martin Luther King, the next Gandhi, the next Nelson Mandela.
Black women fought for the right to vote during the suffrage movement and fought again during the civil rights movement. The rote narrative in the press of the civil rights movement is truncated with the briefest of histories of men like Martin Luther King Jr., Jesse Jackson, or John Lewis.
If Martin Luther King came back, he’d say we need another civil rights movement built on class not race.
Maya Angelou was the voice of three generations. Her poetry spanned our journey, chronicled our hearts and documented our struggles as we moved from the orations of Martin Luther King to the presidency of Barack Obama.
Some people criticize the faithful for getting involved in politics, but it’s important to remember that down through the centuries, people motivated by their faith have done many important things. Martin Luther King Jr. – motivated by his faith – brought about an end to segregation in our country.
Martin Luther King, Jr. tried to live his life serving others.
Truth can be a matter of perspective, but I also think there’s a truth that exists, that there are laws to the universe the way Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King believed.
What created democracy was Thomas Paine and Shays’ Rebellion, the suffragists and the abolitionists and on down through the populists and the labor movement, including the Wobblies. Tough, in your face people… Mother Jones, Woody Guthrie… Martin Luther King and Caesar Chavez. And now it’s down to us.
