It is no longer a choice between violence and nonviolence
It is no longer a choice, my friends, between violence and nonviolence. It is either nonviolence or nonexistence. And the alternative to disarmament, the alternative to a greater suspension of nuclear tests, the alternative to strengthening the United Nations and thereby disarming the whole world, may well be a civilization plunged into the abyss of annihilation, and our earthly habitat would be transformed into an inferno that even the mind of Dante could not imagine."
- Source : Speech, Delivered at the National Cathedral, Washington, D.C, USA
- Publication date : 31st March 1968 (Speech), 9th April 1968 (US Congressional Record)
- Topics : Awakening , Conflict prevention , Civilized society , Discernment , Nonviolence , Violence , War
Baptist Pastor and politically active Afro-American militant. His non-violent combat for the civic rights of Afro-Americans, for peace and against poverty catalysed a step-change in racial relations and laws in the USA.
Nobel Peace Prize 1964.