Yolanda King Quotes

If we celebrate Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday at a time of presidential inaugurals, this is thanks to Ronald Reagan who created the holiday, and not to the Democratic Congress of the Carter years, which rejected it.

I was lucky, as many of my generation was, in having a man like Dr. King in our lives. He came at a time that we needed to take a long look at each other and see how similar we were.

The idea that America elected a black man to be its president forty years after it declined to allow Martin Luther King Jr. to stand on a balcony without getting shot still maintains its power to awe and inspire.

I want to play Martin Luther King. That is absolutely a role and a character who is important to the landscape of the world that I really want to play.

As a civil rights leader, Mrs. King's vision of racial peace and nonviolent social change was a fortifying staple in advancing the civil rights movement.

I realized that my grandfather walked with Martin Luther King forty years ago. That was his dream. And in his little way, he helped us get closer to where we are today.

When I was 15 years old and in the tenth grade, I heard of Martin Luther King, Jr. Three years later, when I was 18, I met Dr. King and we became friends. Two years after that I became very involved in the civil rights movement. I was in college at that time. As I got more and more involved, I saw politics as a means of bringing about change.

I hope that the opening of the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial will be a life-altering experience that inspires every American to rededicate themselves to the fulfillment of Dr. King's dream.

I was born after the Civil Rights Movement. I never saw Martin Luther King alive.

The ideals and principles for which Dr King fought have never been forgotten and are as relevant today as they were 40 years ago.

I am really enjoying the new Martin Luther King Jr stamp - just think about all those white bigots, licking the backside of a black man.

All Americans owe a debt of gratitude to Dr. King for his bravery and commitment to civil rights and nonviolence that changed this nation - and world - for the better.

I was a child when the March on Washington led by Martin Luther King occurred, and I wanted to hear what was going on. I wanted to be a part of it. I wanted to contribute in the best way I possibly could.

If Rosa Parks had not refused to move to the back of the bus, you and I might never have heard of Dr. Martin Luther King.

We wouldn't be as far along as a country if we didn't take on some of Martin Luther King's ways that he instilled in us.

These young people have to know that Dr. King and others made it possible for them to do their Hip Hopping.

Reading the Martin Luther King story, that little comic book, set me on the path that I'm on today.

We should understand the impact that Malcolm had on the whole of American society.

Maya Angelou was the voice of three generations. Her poetry spanned our journey, chronicled our hearts and documented our struggles as we moved from the orations of Martin Luther King to the presidency of Barack Obama.

I think if people really read Martin Luther King, Jr., then they would begin to understand what he really represented.

My black hero is and always will be Martin Luther King, not just because of the strength of his oratory but because his vision was very much the reality that I'd come to take for granted.

If it hadn't been for that march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge on Bloody Sunday, there would be no Barack Obama as President of the United States of America.

I grew up reading Martin Luther King and Malcolm X.

My work has always been rooted in nonviolence, as espoused by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

I think if people really read Martin Luther King, Jr., then they would begin to understand what he really represented. The philosophy that he developed, of course, he was greatly influenced by Gandhi and Jesus Christ.