The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward the goal of political independence, and we still creep at horse-and-buggy pace toward the gaining of a cup of coffee at a lunch counter.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the rapid progress of nations toward independence compared to the slow progress in civil rights.
Martin Luther King Jr. contrasts the swift advancements of Asian and African nations in achieving political independence with the sluggish pace of progress in the United States regarding civil rights for African Americans. He emphasizes the urgency and necessity for immediate action and change in the fight for equality and justice.
In practice
During a civil rights rally to inspire activists.
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.
Revolution does not insure progress. You may overturn thrones, but what proof that anything better will grow upon the soil?
Great cultural changes begin in affectation and end in routine.
Progress is the attraction that moves humanity.
I must accommodate my history to the hour: I may presently change, not only by fortune, but also by intention.
There is no force so powerful as an idea whose time has come.
If you feel that strongly about something, you have an obligation to try and change my mind.
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