Martin Luther King, Jr.

Martin Luther King, Jr., did not come preaching something new. He came shouting something we already knew: "You have said in your own Declaration of Independence that we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all are created equal, and I insist that you either live by your own constitution or appear bafflingly inconsistent." And we killed him, because King told us what we already knew. He preached our sermon. Others have preached to us, but King preached for us.

I don't suppose we have ever again gathered under one roof such an assembly of wise and noble people as created our Constitution and declared that all people are created and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights. But they abridged their consciousness to the presence of half a million black people who claim the same rights.

Huck Finn saw an accident down at the riverside, and a white lady asked him if anybody had gotten hurt down there. He says, "No, Ma'am; nobody got hurt. Just a couple niggers got killed." She said, "Oh, that's good. A person could get hurt in an accident like that." Abridged her consciousness.