Give us the ballot, and we will no longer have to worry the federal government about our basic rights. Give us the ballot and we will no longer plead… - Martin Luther King Jr.
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Give us the ballot, and we will no longer have to worry the federal government about our basic rights. Give us the ballot and we will no longer plead to the federal government for passage of an anti-lynching law; we will by the power of our vote write the law on the statute books of the South and bring an end to the dastardly acts of the hooded perpetrators of violence. Give us the ballot, and we will transform the salient misdeeds of bloodthirsty mobs into the calculated good deeds of orderly citizens. Give us the ballot, and we will fill our legislative halls with men of goodwill and send to the sacred halls of Congress men who will not sign a "Southern Manifesto" because of their devotion to the manifesto of justice. Give us the ballot, and we will place judges on the benches of the south who will do justly and love mercy , and we will place at the head of the southern states governors who have felt not only the tang of the human, but the glow of the Divine. Give us the ballot, and we will quietly and nonviolently, without rancor or bitterness, implement the Supreme Court's decision of May seventeenth, 1954.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (15 January 1929 – 4 April 1968) was an American Baptist minister, civil rights activist, and recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize of 1964. He was the husband of Coretta Scott King, and father of Yolanda King and Martin Luther King III.
Biography information from
Wikiquote·
Portrait adapted from
Wikimedia Commons, Yoichi Okamoto (Public domain / CC0)
Also Known As
Birth Name:
Michael King Jr.
Alternative Names:
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Martin Luther King
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Michael King
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Dr. King
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M. L. King
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M.L. King
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ML King
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MLK
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Martin Luther King Junior
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Michael King Junior
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Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
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The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
I think we have been in the mountain of moral and ethical relativism long enough. To dwell in this mountain has become something of a fad these days, so we have come to believe that morality is a matter of group consensus. We attempt to discover what is right by taking a sort of gallup poll of the majority opinion. Everybody is doing it, so it must be all right, and therefore we are caught in the clutches of conformity... In a sense, we are no longer concerned about the ten commandments-they are not too important. Everybody is busy, as I have said so often, trying to obey the eleventh commandment: "Thou shalt not get caught." And so, according to this view, it is all right to lie with a bit of finesse. It's all right to exploit, but be a dignified exploiter. It's all right to even hate, but dress your hate up into garments of love and make it appear that you are loving when you are actually hating. This type of moral and ethical relativism is sapping the very life's blood of the moral and spiritual life of our nation and our world. And I am convinced that if we are to be a great nation, and if we are to solve the problems of the world we must come out of this mountain. We have been in it too long. For if man fails to reorientate his life around moral and ethical values he may well destroy himself by the misuse of his own instrument.
Unless you have found something in life to live for that is more important to you than your own life, you will always be a slave. For all another man needs to do is threaten to take your life to get you to do his bidding.
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We must remember that intelligence is not enough. Intelligence plus character-that is the goal of true education. The complete education gives one not only power of concentration, but worthy objectives upon which to concentrate.
