“People ask me,” said Niebuhr, “since I am such a strong anti-pacifist, how I can have this admiration for a pacifist? Well, I have a simple answer…King’s doctrine of nonviolent resistance is not pacifism. Pacifism of really the classical kind is where you are concerned about your own purity and not responsibility. And the great ethical divide is between people who want to be pure and those who want to be responsible. And I think King has shown this difference.”
