last speech of mlk ultimate measure of a man

Augustine that ‘an unjust law is no law at all.’ From his “I Have A Dream” speech, 1963 Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws.

One may well ask: ‘How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?’ The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, “Wait.” But…when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of “nobodiness”–then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. From “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”, 1963 It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true. Hate destroys a man’s sense of values and his objectivity. Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted. Success, recognition, and conformity are the bywords of the modern world where everyone seems to crave the anesthetizing security of being identified with the majority. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction….The chain reaction of evil–hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars–must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation. Hate cannot drive out hate only love can do that. The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.ĭarkness cannot drive out darkness only light can do that.

We must combine the toughness of the serpent and the softness of the dove, a tough mind and a tender heart. We have guided missiles and misguided men. Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. If a man hasn’t discovered something that he will die for, he isn’t fit to live.

Last speech of mlk ultimate measure of a man