Lyndon B. Johnson on race

If one morning I walked on top of the water across the Potomac River, the headline that afternoon would read: ‘President Can’t Swim.’

Being president is like being a jackass in a hailstorm. There’s nothing to do but stand there and take it.

It’s probably better to have him inside the tent pissing out, than outside the tent pissing in.

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.

Martin Luther King Jr.1929–1968I Have a Dream (1963)

Violence as a way of achieving racial justice is both impractical and immoral. It is impractical because it is a descending spiral ending in destruction for all. It is immoral because it seeks to humiliate the opponent rather than win his understanding; it seeks to annihilate rather than to convert. Violence is immoral because it thrives on hatred rather than love.

Martin Luther King Jr.1929–1968The Quest for Peace and Justice (1964)

Before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth, we were here. Before the pen of Jefferson etched across the pages of history the majestic words of the Declaration of Independence, we were here. If the inexpressible cruelties of slavery could not stop us, the opposition we now face will surely fail.

Martin Luther King Jr.1929–1968

• Slavery