Martin Luther King Jr. On the “White Moderate”

February 9, 2022February 9, 2022 Chase Dizzie

“I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice.”
– Martin Luther King – 1963

From the Birmingham jail, imprisoned for nonviolent demonstrations against segregation, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote this letter.

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