Quotessence
Home / Books / Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story

Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story

Book by Martin Luther King Jr. · 8 quotes · African Americans, Blacks, Civil Rights

Filter quotes by topic

AllAfrican AmericansBlacksCivil RightsActivismNonviolenceSegregationRaceMontgomery Bus BoycottJusticeNonviolent ResistanceOrganizingRace RelationsViolenceLoveMontgomeryWhitesHateRacismEvilIntegration

Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story Quotes

“In my weekly remarks as president, I stressed that the use of violence in our struggle would be both impractical and immoral. To meet hate with retaliatory hate would do nothing but intensify the existence of evil in the universe. Hate begets hate; violence begets violence; toughness begets a greater toughness. We must meet the forces of hate with the power of love; we must meet physical force with soul force. Our aim must never be to defeat or humiliate the white man, but to win his friendship and understanding.”

LoveHateEvilRaceViolenceCivil RightsNonviolenceToughnessPassive ResistanceNonviolent Cooperation
Book:Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story
Create image

“A significant role, in this tense period of transition, is assigned to the moderates of the white South. Unfortunately today, the leadership of the white South is by and large in the hands of close-minded extremists. These persons gain prominence and power by the dissemination of false ideas, and by appealing to the deepest fears and hates within the human mind. But they do not speak for the South; of that I am convinced. They speak only for a willful and vocal minority.”

AmericaHateRaceLiesSouthCivil RightsRace RelationsWhitesAmerican SouthWhite Moderates
Book:Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story
Create image

“A second way that oppressed people sometimes deal with oppression is to resort to physical violence and corroding hatred. Violence often brings about momentary results. Nations have frequently won their independence in battle. But in spite of temporary victories, violence never brings permanent peace. It solves no social problem; it merely creates new and more complicated ones. Violence as a way of achieving racial justice is both impractical and immoral. It is impractical because it is a descending spiral ending in destruction for all. The old law of an eye for an eye leaves everybody blind. It is immoral because it seeks to humiliate the opponent rather than win his understanding; it seeks to annihilate rather than to convert. Violence is immoral because it thrives on hatred rather than love. It destroys community and makes brotherhood impossible. It leaves society in monologue rather than dialogue. Violence ends by defeating itself. It creates bitterness in the survivors and brutality in the destroyers.”

LoveHateViolenceHatredCivil RightsOppressionBrotherhoodOppressedHumiliationRacial Justice
Book:Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story
Create image

“A fifth point concerning nonviolent resistance is that it avoids not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. The nonviolent resister not only refuses to shoot his opponent but he also refuses to hate him. At the center of nonviolence stands the principle of love. The nonviolent resister would contend that in the struggle for human dignity, the oppressed people of the world must not succumb to the temptation of becoming bitter or indulging in hate campaigns. To retaliate in kind would do nothing but intensify the existence of hate in the universe. Along the way of life, someone must have sense enough and morality enough to cut off the chain of hate. This can only be done by projecting the ethic of love to the center of our lives.”

LoveHateActivismBitternessNonviolenceNonviolent ResistanceOrganizing
Book:Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story
Create image