Stirring excerpts from the speeches and writings of Martin Luther King Jr.

Martin Luther King Jr.’s writings and speeches moved the country to a more just society. Here are some highlights.

The Montgomery, Ala., bus boycott, Dec. 5, 1955, King’s first major speech as a civil rights leader:

“There comes a time when people get tired. We are here this evening to say to those who have mistreated us so long that we are tired — tired of being segregated and humiliated; tired of being kicked about by the brutal feet of oppression. …

“We have no alternative but to protest. For many years, we have shown amazing patience. We have sometimes given our white brothers the feeling that we liked the way we were being treated. But we come here tonight to be saved, to be saved from the patience that makes us patient with anything less than freedom and justice. …

“If we protest courageously, and yet with dignity and Christian love, when the history books are written in the future, somebody will have to say, ‘There lived a race of people, of black people, of people who had the moral courage to stand up for their rights. And thereby they injected new meaning into the veins of history and civilization.’ ”

Excerpt from the essay “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” April 16, 1963

“We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have never yet engaged in a direct action movement that was ‘well-timed,’ according to the timetable of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word ‘Wait!’ It rings in the ear of every Negro with a piercing familiarity. This ‘Wait’ has almost always meant ‘Never’ ...

“We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God-given rights. 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. …

“A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. ... Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality. It gives the segregator a false sense of superiority, and the segregated a false sense of inferiority.

“(Segregation) ends up relegating persons to the status of things. So segregation is not only politically, economically and sociologically unsound, but it is morally wrong and sinful.”

‘I Have a Dream,’ Aug. 28, 1963, in Washington:

“I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.’

“I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today! I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and little black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and little white girls as sisters and brothers. …

“So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire; let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York; let freedom ring from the heights of the Alleghenies of Pennsylvania; let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado; let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California. But not only that, let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee; let freedom ring from every hill and molehill in Mississippi — from every mountainside, let freedom ring. And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: ‘Free at last. Free at last. Thank God Almighty, we are free at last.’ ”

Selma to Montgomery March for Voting Rights, March 25, 1965

“Today, I want to tell the city of Selma, today I want to say to the state of Alabama, today I want to say to the people of America and the nations of the world that we are not about to turn around. We are on the move now. Yes, we are on the move and no wave of racism can stop us. And the burning of our churches will not divert us. …

“We are on the move now. Like an idea whose time has come, not even the marching of mighty armies can stop us. We’re moving ahead to the land of freedom.

“Our aim must never be to defeat or humiliate the white man but to win his friendship and understanding. We must come to see that the end we seek is a society at peace with itself, a society that can live with its conscience. That will be a day not of the white man, not of the black man. That will be the day of man as man. …

“I must admit to you there are still some difficult days ahead. We are still in for a season for suffering. … (But) I come to say to you this afternoon, however difficult the moment, however frustrating the hour, it will not be long, because truth pressed to earth will rise again. How long? Not long, because no lie can live forever. How long? Not long, because you will reap what you sow. How long? Not long, because the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice. How long? Not long, because mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord, trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored. He has loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword. His truth is marching on. …

“Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him. Be jubilant, my feet. Our God is marching on. Glory, hallelujah! Glory, hallelujah! Glory, hallelujah!”

Memphis, April 3, 1968, the day before King’s death:

“I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn’t matter with me now. Because I’ve been to the mountaintop. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain, and I’ve looked over and I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you, but I want you to know that we as a people will get to the promised land. So I’m happy tonight. I’m not fearing any man.”

This story was originally published January 15, 2017 at 7:00 AM.