hotels.com

Tag: Why We Can’t Wait

MLK Jr. on Civil Disobedience in “Why We Can’t Wait”

“One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that ‘an unjust law is no law at all.'” p.93

“An unjust law is a code that a numerical or power majority group compels a minority group to obey but does not make binding on itself. This is difference made legal … A just law is a code that a majority compels a minority to follow and that it is willing to follow itself. This is sameness made legal.” p.94

“One who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty.” p.95

We did not hesitate to call our movement an army. But it was a special army, with no supplies but its sincerity, no uniform but its determination, no arsenal except its faith, no currency but its conscience. It was an army that would move but not maul. It was an army that would sing but not slay. It was an army that would flank but not falter. It was an army to storm bastions of hatred, to lay siege to the fortress of segregation, to surround symbols of discrimination. It was an army whose allegiance was to God and whose strategy and intelligence were the eloquently simple dictates of conscience.

– Martin Luther King Jr in Why We Can’t Wait