Here are the top 18 Martin Luther King, Jr. Quotes About Racism
1. And what is it America has failed to hear?…It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice and humanity.
— Martin Luther King Jr.
2. Whites, it must frankly be said, are not putting in a similar mass effort to re-educate 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. The reality of substantial investment to assist Negroes into the twentieth century, adjusting to Negro neighbors and genuine school integration, is still a nightmare for all too many white Americans. — Martin Luther King Jr.
3. Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection. — Martin Luther King Jr.
4. Somebody told a lie one day. They couched it in language. They made everything black ugly and evil. Look in your dictionary and see the synonyms of the word “black.” It’s always something degrading, low, and sinister. Look at the word “white.” It’s always something pure, high, clean. Well, I wanna get the language right tonight. I wanna get the language right so that everybody here will cry out “Yes I’m black! I’m proud of it! I’m black and beautiful!” — Martin Luther King Jr.
5. The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just. — Martin Luther King Jr.
6. We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. — Martin Luther King Jr.
7. However difficult it is to hear, however shocking it is to hear, we’ve got to face the fact that America is a racist country. — Martin Luther King Jr.
8. Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity. — Martin Luther King Jr.
9. Will we be extremists for hate or for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice or for the extension of justice? — Martin Luther King Jr.
10. The majority of white Americans consider themselves sincerely committed to justice for the Negro. They believe that American society is essentially hospitable to fair play and to steady growth toward a middle-class Utopia embodying racial harmony. But unfortunately this is a fantasy of self-deception and comfortable vanity. — Martin Luther King Jr.
11. Many white Americans of good will have never connected bigotry with economic exploitation. They have deplored prejudice but tolerated or ignored economic injustice.
— Martin Luther King Jr.
12. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. — Martin Luther King Jr.
13. White Americans must recognize that justice for black people cannot be achieved without radical changes in the structure of our society. The comfortable, entrenched, the privileged cannot continue to tremble at the prospect of change of the status quo. — Martin Luther King Jr.
14. A riot is the language of the unheard. — Martin Luther King Jr.
15. It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can stop him from lynching me, and I think that’s pretty important. — Martin Luther King Jr.
16. We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. — Martin Luther King Jr.
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