“This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality.”
1960s, I Have A Dream (1963)
Context: It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. And those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. And there will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights.
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Martin Luther King, Jr. 658
American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Ci… 1929–1968Related quotes
As quoted in His Brother's Blood: Speeches and Writings, 1838–64 https://books.google.com/books?id=qMEv8DNXVbIC&pg=PA239 (2004), edited by William Frederick Moore and Jane Ann Moore, p. 239
1860s, Speech (October 1860)
“Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this sun of York.”
Richard, Act I, scene i.
Variant: Now is the winter of our discontent.
Source: Richard III (1592–3)
“No spring, nor summer beauty hath such grace,
As I have seen in one autumnal face.”
No. 9, The Autumnal, line 1
Elegies
Source: The Complete Poetry and Selected Prose
“Autumn grows old: he, like some simple one,
In Summer's castaway is strangely clad”
Autumn.
“The issue of equal rights for American Negroes”
1960s, The American Promise (1965)
Context: In our time we have come to live with moments of great crisis. Our lives have been marked with debate about great issues; issues of war and peace, issues of prosperity and depression. But rarely in any time does an issue lay bare the secret heart of America itself. Rarely are we met with a challenge, not to our growth or abundance, our welfare or our security, but rather to the values and the purposes and the meaning of our beloved Nation. The issue of equal rights for American Negroes is such an issue. And should we defeat every enemy, should we double our wealth and conquer the stars, and still be unequal to this issue, then we will have failed as a people and as a nation. For with a country as with a person, "What is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?".
