We who in engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive.
Interpretation
Nonviolent action reveals existing social tensions rather than creating them.
This quote by Martin Luther King, Jr. highlights the role of nonviolent direct action in exposing the underlying conflicts and injustices present in society. By engaging in peaceful protests and demonstrations, activists draw attention to issues that may be ignored or suppressed, making it clear that the tensions they spotlight are not new creations but rather exacerbations of existing disparities.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech about the importance of peaceful protests.
This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice and love.
Music is the best consolation for a despaired man
We must meet the forces of hate with the power of love.
We may have all come on different ships, but we're in the same boat now.
Israel... is one of the great outpost of democracy in the world
One of the greatest casualties of the war in Vietnam is the Great Society... shot down on the battlefield of Vietnam.
What is a rebel? A man who says no.
But every time the workers come out in the only way they know to protest against conditions which are unbearable the strong hand of the law is allowed to press down heavily upon us.
Those who rebelled against totalitarian rule and those who simply managed to remain themselves and think freely, were all persecuted. We should not forget any of those who paid for our present freedom in one way or another.
There is a great stir about colored men getting their rights, but not a word about the colored women; and if colored men get their rights, and not colored women theirs, you see, the colored men will be masters over the women, and it will be just as bad as it was before.
I'm not proud of killing, of being responsible for the death of a single person. I never will be.
I do oppose_x000D_ _x000D_ My patience to his fury, and am arm'd_x000D_ _x000D_ To suffer, with a quietness of spirit,_x000D_ _x000D_ The very tyranny and rage of his.
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