Principle over Privilege
“I must honestly confess that I go through those moments of disappointment when I have to recognize the fact that there aren’t enough white persons in our country who are willing to cherish democratic principles over privilege.”
— Martin Luther King, Jr., Anaheim, 1968
“We were partially liberated and then reënslaved.” Although black people had been fighting for freedom “for more than a hundred years,” the only thing that was “explicitly certain is that the struggle for it will endure.”
— Martin Luther King, Jr., Carnegie Hall, 1968
“Perhaps even more than the death itself, the manner of his death has forced me into a judgment concerning human life and human beings which I have always been reluctant to make,” [James Baldwin] wrote. “Incontestably, alas, most people are not, in action, worth very much; and yet, every human being is an unprecedented miracle. One tries to treat them as the miracles they are, while trying to protect oneself against the disasters they’ve become.”
All of these, from Eddie S. Glaude, Jr.’s piece The History That James Baldwin Wanted America to See at The New Yorker.