Yes, if you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice. Say that I was a drum major for peace. I was a drum major for righteousness. And all of the other shallow things will not matter. I won't have any money to leave behind. I won't have the fine and luxurious things of life to leave behind. But I just want to leave a committed life behind. And that's all I want to say.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of dedicating one's life to values like justice and peace over material possessions.
In this quote, Martin Luther King, Jr. reflects on his legacy, expressing that while he may not leave behind wealth or material goods, he hopes to be remembered as a passionate advocate for justice, peace, and righteousness. He stresses that the commitment to these ideals is far more significant than any material success, highlighting the importance of living a life true to one's principles and values.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech about social justice movements.
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.
I was tremendously fortunate to be alive and a lawyer, working at a university so I had more flexible hours, when the women's movement was coming alive and when it became possible to argue successfully for a view of the equal protection clause that included women.
I think this country would be much better off if we did not have capital punishment.... We cannot ignore the fact that in recent years a disturbing number of inmates on death row have been exonerated.
While mass incarceration is a national crisis, it was built locally.
If I were attorney general in Kansas in 1953, I would not have defended a Kansas statute that put in place separate-but-equal facilities.
Ferguson and St. Louis County are not the first places that we have become engaged to ensure fair and equitable policing, and they will not be the last. The Department of Justice will continue to work tirelessly to ensure that the Constitution has meaning for all communities.
We ask justice, we ask equality, we ask that all the civil and political rights that belong to citizens of the United States, be guaranteed to us and our daughters forever.
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