We know that there are many things wrong in the white world, but there are many things wrong in the black world too. We can't keep on blaming the white man. There are things we must do for ourselves.

Address to a black congregation in St. Louis, published in "The Dangerous Road Before Martin Luther King", Harper's magazine (February 1961); quoted by James Baldwin, in "Highroad to Destiny," a chapter in Martin Luther King, Jr.: A Profile, edited by C. Eric Lincoln (1993), p. 97