a double victory

To our most bitter opponents we say: "We shall match your capacity to inflict suffering by our capacity to endure suffering. We shall meet your physical force with soul force Do to us what you will, and we shall continue to love you. We cannot in all good conscience obey your unjust laws, because noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good. Throw us in jail, and we shall still love you Send your hooded perpetrators of violence into our community at the midnight hour and beat us and leave us half dead, and we shall still love you. But be ye assured that we will wear you down by our capacity to suffer. One day we shall win freedom, but not only for ourselves. We shall so appeal to your heart and conscience that we shall win you in the process, and our victory will be a double victory." 

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Strength to Love by Martin Luther King, Jr. Harper & Row. 1963. Fortress Press Gift Edition 2010. p. 50, 51

hate multiplies hate

Why should we love our enemies?... Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction. So when Jesus says "Love your enemies," he is setting forth a profound and ultimately inescapable admonition. Have we not come to such an impasse in the modern world that we must love our enemies - or else? The chain reaction of evil - hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars - must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation. 

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Strength to Love by Martin Luther King, Jr. Harper & Row. 1963. Fortress Press Gift Edition 2010. p. 47

the principle of love

At the center of nonviolence stands the principle of love. The nonviolent resister would contend that in the struggle for human dignity, the oppressed people of the world must not succumb to the temptation of becoming bitter or indulging in hate campaigns. To retaliate in kind would do nothing but intensify the existence of hate in the universe. Along the way of life, someone must have sense enough and morality enough to cut off the chain of hate. This can only be done by projecting the ethic of love to the center of our lives. 

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Strength to Love by Martin Luther King, Jr. Harper & Row. 1963. Fortress Press Gift Edition 2010. p. xi

the aftermath of violence

Noncooperation and nonviolent resistance were means of stirring and awakening moral truths in one's opponents, of evoking the humanity that, Martin believed, existed in each of us. The means, therefore, had to be consistent with the ends. And the end, as Martin conceived it, was greater than any of its parts, greater than any single issue. "The end is redemption and reconciliation," he believed. "The aftermath of nonviolence is the creation of the Beloved Community, while the aftermath of violence is tragic bitterness."

Coretta Scott King

Strength to Love by Martin Luther King, Jr. Harper & Row. 1963. Fortress Press Gift Edition 2010. p. x

wait until the prayer is over

Every one of them (the Free African Society) had suffered in one way or another at the hands of whites, some of them in appalling ways. Two of the elders, Absalom Jones and Richard Allen, had once been worshipers at St. George Methodist Church, a congregation composed of both whites and blacks. The blacks had actually helped erect the church building, and Allen was a preacher popular among all members.

Then one day as Jones knelt in prayer at the altar, white trustees grabbed him and ordered him to sit in the back of the church. Jones was a large man and strong enough to shake off his attackers, but he did not respond to his mishandling with force of his own. In a calm voice, he told the trustees, “Wait until the prayer is over, and I will trouble you no more.” Black parishioners then walked out of St. George’s, and Jones and Allen each established a separate church of his own.


An American Plague: The True and Terrifying Story of the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793 by Jim Murphy. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2003. p.49, 50