It is my hope that as the Negro plunges deeper into the quest for freedom and justice he will plunge even deeper into the philosophy of non-violence. The Negro all over the South must come to the point that he can say to his white brother: “We will match your capacity to inflict suffering with our capacity to endure suffering. We will meet your physical force with soul force. We will not hate you, but we will not obey your evil laws. We will soon wear you down by pure capacity to suffer.”
ATTRIBUTION:
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968), U.S. clergyman, civil rights leader. letter, Oct. 28, 1957. Quoted in Dictionary of Political Quotations, ed. Robert Stewart (1984).
