Martin Luther King, Jr. Quotes About Oppression
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The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.
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You know, my friends, there comes a time when people get tired of being trampled over by the iron feet of oppression. There comes a time, my friends, when people get tired of being plunged across the abyss of humiliation, where they experience the bleakness of nagging despair. There comes a time when people get tired of being pushed out of the glittering sunlight of life’s July and left standing amid the piercing chill of an alpine November.
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Some people are so worn down by the yoke of oppression that they give up.
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I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, sons of former slaves and sons of former slave-owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day, even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into a oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by content of their character. I have a dream today!
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I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
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A second way that oppressed people sometimes deal with oppression is to resort to physical violence and corroding hatred.
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Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.
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There is such a thing as the freedom of exhaustion. Some people are so worn down by the yoke of oppression that they give up. [...] The oppressed must never allow the conscience of the oppressor to slumber. [...] To accept injustice or segregation passively is to say to the oppressor that his actions are morally right.
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Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time: the need for man to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to oppression and violence. Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.
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Often the oppressor goes along unaware of the evil involved in his oppression so long as the oppressed accepts it.
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You know, my friends, there comes a time when people get tired of being trampled over by the iron feet of oppression.
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Martin Luther King, Jr.
- Born: January 15, 1929
- Died: April 4, 1968
- Occupation: Civil rights activist