The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr. by Martin Luther King, Jr.,...

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Clayborne Carson has created a book that remarkably approximates a self-portrait of Martin Luther King Jr. Delving into all aspects of this man's life, the work covers his boyhood, his education, and his emergence as a leader. From his relationships with his wife and children, to his dealings... read more

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“In my own life and the life of a person who is seeking to be strong, you combine in your character antitheses stronger marked.”
“As a young man with most of my life ahead of me, I decided early to give my life to something eternal and absolute. Not to these little gods that are here today and gone tomorrow. But to God who is the same yesterday, today, and forever.”
“...there is nothing more majestic than the determined courage of individuals willing to suffer and sacrifice for their freedom and dignity.”
“We'd better decide now if we are going to be fearless men or scared boys.”
E. D. Nixon
“Where there is true unity, every effort to disunite only serves to strengthen the unity.”
“Disappointment, sorrow and despair are born at midnight, but morning follows.”
“To believe in nonviolence does not mean that violence will not be inflicted upon you. The believer in nonviolence is the person who will willingly allow himself to be the victim of violence but will never inflict violence upon another.”
“A social movement that only moves people is merely a revolt. A movement that changes both people and institutions is a revolution.”
“Man's inhumanity to man is not only perpetrated by the vitriolic actions of those who are bad. It is also perpetrated by the vitiating inaction of those who are good.”
“Death comes to every individual. There is an amazing democracy about death. It is not an aristocracy for some of the people, but a democracy for all of the people. Kings die and beggars die; rich men die and poor man die; old people die and young people die; death comes to the innocent and it comes to the guilty. Death is the irreducible common denominator of all men.”
“Occasionally in life there are those moments of unutterable fulfillment which cannot be completely explained by those symbols called words. Their meaning can only be articulated by the inaudible language of the heart.”
“Racial injustice around the world. Poverty. War. When man solves these three great problems he will have squared his moral progress with his scientific progress. And, more importantly,he will have learned the practical art of living in harmony.”
“Genuine peace is not the absence of tension, but the presence of justice.”
“What insane logic it is to condemn the robbed man because his possession of money precipitates the evil act of robbery. Society must condemn the robber and never the robbed. What insane logic it is to condemn Socrates because his philosophical delving precipitated the evil act of making him drink the hemlock. What insane logic it is to condemn Jesus Christ because his love for God and Truth precipitated the evil act of his crucifixion. We must condemn those who are perpetuating the violence, and not those individuals who engage in the pursuit of their constitutional rights.”

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I became convinced that noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good.
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capitalism is always in danger of inspiring men to be more concerned about making a living than making a life. We are prone to judge success by the index of our salaries or the size of our automobiles, rather than by the quality of our service and relationship to humanity.
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It has been my conviction ever since reading Rauschenbusch that any religion that professes concern for the souls of men and is not equally concerned about the slums that damn them, the economic conditions that strangle them, and the social conditions that cripple them is a spiritually moribund religion only waiting for the day to be buried. It well has been said: “A religion that ends with the individual, ends.”
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“You must be willing to suffer the anger of the opponent, and yet not return anger. You must not become bitter. No matter how emotional your opponents are, you must be calm.”
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True pacifism is not unrealistic submission to evil power, as Niebuhr contends. It is rather a courageous confrontation of evil by the power of love, in the faith that it is better to be the recipient of violence than the inflicter of it, since the latter only multiplies the existence of violence and bitterness in the universe, while the former may develop a sense of shame in the opponent, and thereby bring about a transformation and change of heart.
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True nonviolent resistance is not unrealistic submission to evil power. It is rather a courageous confrontation of evil by the power of love, in the faith that it is better to be the recipient of violence than the inflicter of it, since the latter only multiplies the existence of violence and bitterness in the universe, while the former may develop a sense of shame in the opponent, and thereby bring about a transformation and change of heart.
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Ultimately, a genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus.
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Constructive ends can never give absolute moral justification to destructive means, because in the final analysis the end is preexistent in the means.
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Lamentably, it is an historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but, as Reinhold Neibuhr has reminded us, groups tend to be more immoral than individuals.
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I have always felt that ultimately along the way of life an individual must stand up and be counted and be willing to face the consequences whatever they are. And if he is filled with fear he cannot do it. My great prayer is always for God to save me from the paralysis of crippling fear, because I think when a person lives with the fears of the consequences for his personal life he can never do anything in terms of lifting the whole of humanity and solving many of the social problems which we confront in every age and every generation.
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First Sentence edit see section history

I was born in the late twenties on the verge of the Great Depression, which was to spread its disastrous arms into every corner of this nation for over a decade.

Table of Contents edit see section history

Editor's Preface
1 Early Years
2 Morehouse College
3 Crozer Seminary
4 Boston University
5 Coretta
6 Dexter Avenue Baptist Church
7 Montgomery Movement Begins
8 The Violence of Desperate Men
9 Desegregation at Last
10 The Expanding Struggle
11 Birth of a New Nation
12 Brush with Death
13 Pilgrimage to Nonviolence
14 The Sit-In Movement
15 Atlanta Arrest and Presidential Politics
16 The Albany Movement
17 The Birmingham Campaign
18 Letter from Birmingham Jail
19 Freedom Now!
20 March on Washinton
21 Death of Illusions
22 St. Augustine
23 The Mississippi Challenge
24 The Nobel Peace Prize
25 Malcolm X
26 Selma
27 Watts
28 Chicago Campaign
29 Black Power
30 Beyond Vietnam
31 The Poor People's Campaign
32 Unfulfilled Dreams
Editor's Acknowledgments
Source Notes
Index