The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr.

by Martin Luther King Jr.

At home I addressed the crowd from my porch, where the mark of the bomb was clear. “We must not return violence under any condition. I know this is difficult advice to follow, especially since we have been the victims of no less than ten bombings. But this is the way of Christ; it is the way of the cross. We must somehow believe that unearned suffering is redemptive.”

O God, help me to see that where I stand today, I stand because others helped me to stand there and because the forces of history projected me there.”

If I demonstrated unusual calm during the recent attempt on my life, it was certainly not due to any extraordinary powers that I possess. Rather, it was due to the power of God working through me.

Throughout this struggle for racial justice I have constantly asked God to remove all bitterness from my heart and to give me the strength and courage to face any disaster that came my way. This constant prayer life and feeling of dependence on God have given me the feeling that I have divine companionship in the struggle.

I know no other way to explain it. It is the fact that in the midst of external tension, G...

The aftermath of nonviolence is the creation of the beloved community, so that when the battle is over, a new relationship comes into being between the oppressed and the oppressor.

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.

for a moment I was a bit shocked and peeved that I would be referred to as an untouchable…. I started thinking about the fact: twenty million of my brothers and sisters were still smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in an affluent society.

And I said to myself, “Yes, I am an untouchable, and every Negro in the United States of America is an untouchable.”

The first thing he did was to adopt an untouchable girl as his daughter.

He demonstrated in his own life that untouchability had to go.

Finally when Gandhi was about to breathe his last breath, and his body was all but gone, a group from the untouchables and a group from the Brahmin caste came to him and signed a statement saying that they would no longer adhere to the caste system.

The priest of the temple came to him and said, “Now the temples will be opened to the untouchables.” That afternoon, untouchables from all over India went into the temples and all of these thousands and millions of people put their arms around the Brahmins and people of other castes.

Hundreds of millions of people who had never touched each other for two thousand years were now singing and praising all together. This was a great contr...

The man who shot Gandhi only shot him into the hearts of humanity.

“Now he belongs to the ages.” The same thing could be said about Mahatma Gandhi now: He belongs to the ages.

if two applicants compete for entrance into a college or university, one of the applicants being an untouchable and the other of high caste, the school is required to accept the untouchable.

“But isn’t that discrimination?” “Well, it may be,” the prime minister answered. “But this is our way of atoning for the centuries of injustices we have inflicted upon these people.”

As a result of my visit to India, my understanding of nonviolence became greater and my commitment deeper.

Negroes had to be prepared to suffer, sacrifice, and even die to gain their goals. We could not rest until we had achieved the ideals of our democracy.

I prayed much over our Southern situation, and I came to the conclusion that we were in for a season of suffering.

Make a career of humanity. Commit yourself to the noble struggle for equal rights. You will make a greater person of yourself, a greater nation of your country, and a finer world to live in.

Our ultimate aim was not to defeat or humiliate the white man but to win his friendship and understanding.

In a real sense the “sit-in” represented more than a demand for service; it represented a demand for respect.

It must be made palpably clear that resistance and nonviolence are not in themselves good. There is another element that must be present in our struggle that then makes our resistance and nonviolence truly meaningful.

That element is reconciliation. Our ultimate end must be the creation of the beloved community.

I will choose jail rather than bail, even if it means remaining in jail a year or even ten years. Maybe it will take this type of self-suffering on the part of numerous Negroes to finally expose the moral defense of our white brothers who happen to be misguided and thusly awaken the dozing conscience of our community.

they later admitted in court that they had never fined or arrested anybody on a charge like that, and they really had nothing on the statute to reveal how long you had to be in Atlanta before changing your license. So it was obviously a case of persecution.

I know this whole experience is very difficult for you to adjust to, especially in your condition of pregnancy, but as I said to you yesterday this is the cross that we must bear for the freedom of our people. So I urge you to be strong in faith, and this will in turn strengthen me.

I have the faith to believe that this excessive suffering that is now coming to our family will in some little way serve to make Atlanta a better city, Georgia a better state, and America a better country.

That was the state prison some two hundred and twenty miles from Atlanta. On the way, they dealt with me just like I was some hardened criminal. They had me chained all the way down to my legs, and they tied my legs to something in the floor so there would be no way for me to escape.

That kind of mental anguish is worse than dying, riding for mile after mile, hungry and thirsty, bound and helpless, waiting and not knowing what you’re waiting for. And all over a traffic violation.

A new spirit was manifest in the Negro’s willingness to demonstrate in the streets of communities in which, by tradition, he was supposed to step aside when a white man strode toward him.

The Negroes of Albany suffered in quiet silence. The throbbing pain of segregation could be felt but not seen. It scarred Negroes in every experience of their lives.

They lived in segregation; they ate in segregation; they learned in segregation; they prayed and rode and worked and died in segregation.

And in silence. A corroding loss of self-respect rusted their moral fiber. Their discontent was turned inward on themselves. But an e...

So is the jail experience. It is life without the singing of a bird, without the sight of the sun, moon, and stars, without the felt presence of the fresh air. In short, it is life without the beauties of life; it is bare existence—cold, cruel, and degenerating.

They whispered to us that a group was planning to march to the city hall around noon. Around noon the group did march. They were led by C. K. Steele.

All were arrested—about fifty. They were first brought to the city jails. We heard them as they approached singing freedom songs. Naturally this was a big lift for us.

I told Dad to invite some preachers in to help him carry on the church, but he told me, “As long as you carry on in jail, I’ll carry on outside.”

Today was a big day for me, because my children—Yolanda, Martin Luther III, and Dexter—came to see me. I had not seen them for five weeks. We had about twenty-five minutes together. They certainly gave me a lift.

the church where their organization had been holding voting clinics and registration classes had been destroyed by fire and/or dynamite….

Our movement aroused the Negro to a spirited pitch in which more than 5 percent of the Negro population voluntarily went to jail. At the same time, about 95 percent of the Negro population boycotted buses, and shops where humiliation, not service, was offered.

The people of Albany had straightened their backs, and, as Gandhi had said, no one can ride on the back of a man unless it is bent.

If you wanted to visit a church attended by white people, you would not be welcome. For although your white fellow citizens would insist that they were Christians, they practiced segregation as rigidly in the house of God as they did in the theater.

Your race, constituting two-fifths of the city’s population, would have made up one-eighth of its voting strength.

The ultimate tragedy of Birmingham was not the brutality of the bad people, but the silence of the good people.

We did not hesitate to call our movement an army. It was a special army, with no supplies but its sincerity, no uniform but its determination, no arsenal except its faith, no currency but its conscience.

Somehow God gave me the power to transform the resentments, the suspicions, the fears, and the misunderstanding I found that week into faith and enthusiasm.