Seeing the light in darkness
Only when it is dark enough, can you see the stars.
This quote is taken from the following passage:
(...) I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough, can you see the stars. And I see God working in this period of the twentieth century in a way that men, in some strange way, are responding — something is happening in our world. The masses of people are rising up. And wherever they are assembled today, whether they are in Johannesburg, South Africa; Nairobi, Kenya: Accra, Ghana; New York City; Atlanta, Georgia; Jackson, Mississippi; or Memphis, Tennessee — the cry is always the same — ‘We want to be free.”
Background
Martin Luther King attributed the image of being able to see the stars but in darkness to Charles A. Beard (historian, 1909), who himself had attributed it to Thomas Carlyle (Past and Present, 1843).
- Source : “I’ve been to the Mountaintop”, speech given in Memphis, Tennessee
- Publication date : April 3, 1963
KING Martin Luther Jr.
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.
