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MLK Jr. on Non-Violence in “Why We Can’t Wait”

“Like their predecessors, the Negro was willing to risk martyrdom in order to move and stir the social conscience of his community and the nation. Instead of submitting to surreptitious cruelty in thousands of dark jail cells and on countless shadowed street corners, he would force his oppressor to commit his brutality openly – in the light of day – with the rest of the world looking on.” p.31
“(Non-violence) enabled him to transmute hatred into constructive energy.” p.32
“(Militant extremists) cannot solve the problem because they seek to overcome a negative situation with negative means.” p.37
“Nonviolence demands that the means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek … It is wrong to use immoral means to attain moral ends.” p.110
“Man was born into barbarism when killing his fellow man was a normal condition of existence. He became endowed with a conscience. And be bad now reached a day when violence toward another human being must become as abhorrent as eating another’s flesh.” p.191

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