“In short, over the last ten years the Negro decided to straighten his back up, realizing that a man cannot ride your back unless it is bent.”

— Martin Luther King, Jr.

1960s, Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? (1967)

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Martin Luther King, Jr. 658

American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Ci… 1929–1968

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“A man can't ride your back unless it's bent”

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Variant: A man can't ride your back unless it's bent.

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Adlai Stevenson (1900–1965) mid-20th-century Governor of Illinois and Ambassador to the UN

The 1957 Ford Almanac has the quote "It's too late to read the handwriting on the wall when your back's up against it", attributed to "Anon." The quote appeared in several variations afterwards, for instance in an essay by Meredith Thring in Nature Magazine in 1965. It began to be attributed without context to Stevenson in the 1970s. According to "Adlai Stevenson: His Life and Legacy" by Porter McKeever (p. 566), Stevenson made this remark "with increasing frequency in the final months of his life"; but Stevenson died in 1965 and this book does not give a precise reference. Absent better attestation, Stevenson either used the quote from elsewhere or the association with Stevenson is a mistake.
Misattributed