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Quotes from Emancipation Proclamation Centennial Address — Martin Luther King Jr.

1929–1968 United States

← All quotes by Martin Luther King Jr.

4 quotes

All tyrants, past, present and future, are powerless to bury the truths in these declarations, no matter how extensive their legions, how vast their power and how malignant their evil.

Emancipation Proclamation Centennial Address (1962)

There is but one way to commemorate the Emancipation Proclamation. That is to make its declarations of freedom real; to reach back to the origins of our nation when our message of equality electrified an unfree world, and reaffirm democracy by deeds as bold and daring as the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation.

Emancipation Proclamation Centennial Address (1962)

When Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation it was not the act of an opportunistic politician issuing a hollow pronouncement to placate a pressure group. Our truly great presidents were tortured deep in their hearts by the race question.

Emancipation Proclamation Centennial Address (1962)

Beyond the war years the grim and tortured struggle of Negroes to win their own freedom is an epic of battle against frightful odds. If we have failed to do enough, it was not the will for freedom that was weak, but the forces against us which were too strong.

Emancipation Proclamation Centennial Address (1962)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Martin Luther King Jr. (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.