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.
When we advocate for violence against women to be eliminated on campuses, we say, 'Well, actually, it's not just on campuses we have to worry about.' We might have to worry about high schools. We might have to worry about police precincts and cars. We might have to worry about public housing.
As citizens, we all have an obligation to intervene and become involved - it's the citizen who changes things.
People of color have to do this work as a mater of everyday survival. And so long as they have to, who am I to act as if I have a choice in the matter? Especially when my future and that of my children in large part depends on the eradication of racism? There is no choice.
Let me not then die ingloriously and without a struggle, but let me first do some great thing that shall be told among men hereafter.
There is no such thing as defeat in non-violence.
Grab the broom of anger and drive off the beast of fear.
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