Sometimes, I am also identified as a civil rights leader or a human rights activist. I would also like to be thought of as a complex, three-dimensional, flesh-and-blood human being with a rich storehouse of experiences, much like everyone else, yet unique in my own way, much like everyone else.
— Coretta Scott King
The greatness of a community is most accurately measured by the compassionate actions of its members.
Just be what you are. And I try to be my best self and be what I am and knowing what I am and be satisfied with that. And if people don't know it, maybe they'll eventually know it.
Martin Luther King, Jr. tried to live his life serving others.
My story is a freedom song from within my soul. It is a guide to discovery, a vision of how even the worst pain and heartaches can be channeled into human monuments, impenetrable and everlasting.
When fear rushed in, I learned how to hear my heart racing but refused to allow my feelings to sway me. That resilience came from my family. It flowed through our bloodline.
During the bus boycott, I was tested by fire, and I came to understand that I was not a breakable crystal figurine.
On Thanksgiving Night, 1942, when I was fifteen years old, white racists burned our house to the ground.
Marrying Martin and the movement perfected my journey of discovery, soothed my yearning to pour out the values and vision within my soul.
Like Gandhi, my husband had struggled with the issue of materialism.
A vote for George Wallace is a vote for the past and oppression.
While not a panacea for the nation's illegal immigration problems, employer sanctions are one necessary means of stopping the exploitation of vulnerable workers and the undercutting of American jobs and living standards.
You cannot have peaceful means - peaceful means will have to be used to bring about peaceful ends. If you use destructive means, you're going to bring about destructive ends.
I think that... discrimination in the job market is a very important area where work needs to be done.
Revenge and retaliation always perpetuate the cycle of anger, fear and violence.
I always knew that I was called to do something. I didn't know what, but I finally rationalized after I met Martin - and it took a lot of praying to discover this - that this was probably what God had called me to do: to marry him.
Our Congress passes laws which subsidize corporation farms, oil companies, airlines, and houses for suburbia. But when they turn their attention to the poor, they suddenly become concerned about balancing the budget and cut back on the funds for Head Start, Medicare, and mental health appropriations.
Something is wrong that we have to feed so many. Why should there be poverty with all of our science and technology? There is no deficit in human resources - it is a deficit in human will.
The failure to invest in youth reflects a lack of compassion and a colossal failure of common sense.
I am scared that if Ronald Reagan gets into office, we are going to see more of the Ku Klux Klan and a resurgence of the Nazi Party.
To abandon affirmative action is to say there is nothing more to be done about discrimination.
Knowing what I know now, if I could have chosen parents, I would have chosen exactly the ones God selected for me.
Wherever there was injustice, war, discrimination against women, gays and the disadvantaged, I did my best to show up and exert moral persuasion.
My story is a freedom song of struggle. It is about finding one's purpose, how to overcome fear and to stand up for causes bigger than one's self.
Justice is never advanced in the taking of a human life.
I believe that women know if their husbands are unfaithful. They feel it.
We should not forget that in the '60s, George Wallace's motto was 'segregation forever,' and that he did nothing to deter bombings and other acts of violence and, by his actions, condoned them.
You have to have people who prick the consciences of the nation.
A constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage is a form of gay bashing and it would do nothing to protect traditional marriages.
If you use weapons of war to bring about peace, you're going to have more war and destruction.
I don't see how you can separate human rights and the rights of all people, no matter what their sexual orientation is.
Nonviolence is the only credible response to the violence we're seeing around the world.
Thank God we have the example of Martin Luther King, Jr. People need role models. They need to see examples of people in peoples' lives, and that's why it's so important not just to commemorate his life, but to study and try to live by the principles of that life.
It is plain that we don't care about our poor people except to exploit them as cheap labor and victimize them through excessive rents and consumer prices.
People don't ever have to starve to death; there are solutions. We have failed if we can't eradicate hunger in Africa and Ethiopia.
Non-violence is a permanent attitude we bring to the breakfast table and bring to bed at night.
My professional and personal roots in Alabama are deep and lasting.
Scandal sells books; fidelity does not.
Before I was married to Martin and became a King, I was a proud Scott, shaped by my mother's discernment and my father's strength.
What most did not understand then was that I was not only married to the man I loved, but I was also married to the movement that I loved.
I can't help but believe that at some time in the not-too-distant future, there is going to be another movement to change these systemic conditions of poverty, injustice, and violence in people's lives. That is where we've got to go, and it is going to be a struggle.
As one whose husband and mother-in-law have died the victims of murder and assassination, I stand firmly and unequivocally opposed to the death penalty for those convicted of capital offenses... An evil deed is not redeemed by an evil deed of retaliation.
I suppose I experienced the personal dilemma that baffles every working woman. What happens when you are expected to be Superwoman, to perform a dozen conflicting tasks at the same time?
I feel George Wallace symbolizes something in the past which America has rejected.
Nonviolence would work today, it would work 2,000 years from now, it would work 5,000 years from now.
Gay and lesbian people have families, and their families should have legal protection, whether by marriage or civil union.
In the area of economic justice, we still have a long way to go. We have too many people who are discriminated against just because they happen to be black or they happen to be a woman or some other minority.
We can prevent many people from becoming terrorists by truly listening to people who feel they've been treated unjustly and responding to their concerns with a sense of justice and compassion.
Nelson Mandela sat in a South African prison for 27 years. He was nonviolent. He negotiated his way out of jail. His honor and suffering of 27 years in a South African prison is really ultimately what brought about the freedom of South Africa. That is nonviolence.
I think if people really read Martin Luther King, Jr., then they would begin to understand what he really represented.
