"Give us the ballot, and we will no longer have to worry the federal government about our basic rights. Give us the ballot and we will no longer plead to the federal government for passage of an anti-lynching law; we will by the power of our vote write the law on the statute books of the South and bring an end to the dastardly acts of the hooded perpetrators of violence. Give us the ballot, and we will transform the salient misdeeds of bloodthirsty mobs into the calculated good deeds of orderly citizens. Give us the ballot, and we will fill our legislative halls with men of goodwill and send to the sacred halls of Congress men who will not sign a "Southern Manifesto" because of their devotion to the manifesto of justice. Give us the ballot, and we will place judges on the benches of the south who will do justly and love mercy , and we will place at the head of the southern states governors who have felt not only the tang of the human, but the glow of the Divine. Give us the ballot, and we will quietly and nonviolently, without rancor or bitterness, implement the Supreme Court's decision of May seventeenth, 1954."
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Activists from the United StatesSpiritual teachersCivil rights activistsAnti-apartheid activistsAnti-racism activists
Original Language: English
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https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King_Jr.
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Martin Luther King Jr.
pastor, preacher, civil rights advocate
1929 – 1968 · United States
523 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Martin Luther King Jr. →
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