Quotessence
Home / Books / Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?

Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?

Book by Martin Luther King Jr. · 4 quotes · Blacks, African Americans, Whites

Filter quotes by topic

AllBlacksAfrican AmericansWhitesRaceRacismRace RelationsChangeCivil RightsJusticePovertyAmericaPowerWealthCivil Rights MovementEqualityActivismEconomicsPeaceBacklashBitterness

Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? Quotes

“The question now is, do we have the morality and courage required to live together as brothers and not be afraid? One of the most persistent ambiguities we face is that everybody talks about peace as a goal, but among the wielders of power peace is practically nobody’s business. Many men cry “Peace! Peace!” but they refuse to do the things that make for peace. The large power blocs talk passionately of pursuing peace while expanding defense budgets that already bulge, enlarging already awesome armies and devising ever more devastating weapons. Call the roll of those who sing the glad tidings of peace and one’s ears will be surprised by the responding sounds. The heads of all the nations issue clarion calls for peace, yet they come to the peace table accompanied by bands of brigands each bearing unsheathed swords.”

WarPeacePowerBrotherhoodWorld PeaceMilitarism
Book:Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?
Create image

“This is the great new problem of mankind. We have inherited a large house, a great “world house” in which we have to live together—black and white, Easterner and Westerner, Gentile and Jew, Catholic and Protestant, Muslim and Hindu—a family unduly separated in ideas, culture and interest, who, because we can never again live apart, must learn somehow to live with each other in peace. However deeply American Negroes are caught in the struggle to be at last at home in our homeland of the United States, we cannot ignore the larger world house in which we are also dwellers. Equality with whites will not solve the problems of either whites or Negroes if it means equality in a world society stricken by poverty and in a universe doomed to extinction by war.”

AmericaPeaceCommunityEqualityBrotherhoodWorld PeaceAfrican AmericansBlacksInternational RelationsWorld Community
Book:Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?
Create image

“It is understandable that the white community should fear the outbreak of riots. They are indefensible as weapons of struggle, and Negroes must sympathize with whites who feel menaced by them. Indeed, Negroes are themselves no less menaced, and those living in the ghetto always suffer most directly from the destructive turbulence of a riot. Yet the average white person also has a responsibility. He has to resist the impulse to seize upon the rioter as the exclusive villain. He has to rise up with indignation against his own municipal, state and national governments to demand that the necessary reforms be instituted which alone will protect him. If he reserves his resentment only for the Negro, he will be the victim by allowing those who have the greatest culpability to evade responsibility. Social justice and progress are the absolute guarantors of riot prevention. There is no other answer. Constructive social change will bring certain tranquility; evasions will merely encourage turmoil. Negroes hold only one key to the double lock of peaceful change. The other is in the hands of the white community.”

PeaceJusticeResponsibilityCivil RightsReformAfrican AmericansBlacksWhitesRiotsUprisings
Book:Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?
Create image