Angela

“All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality. It gives the segregator a false sense of superiority and the segregated a false sense of inferiority. Segregation, to use the terminology of the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber, substitutes an “I-it” relationship for an “I-thou” relationship and ends up relegating persons to the status of things.”
― Bryan Loritts, Letters to a Birmingham Jail: A Response to the Words and Dreams of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

“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 Counciler 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; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”;”
― Bryan Loritts, Letters to a Birmingham Jail: A Response to the Words and Dreams of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

“Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue.”
― Bryan Loritts, Letters to a Birmingham Jail: A Response to the Words and Dreams of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

“Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.”
― Bryan Loritts, Letters to a Birmingham Jail: A Response to the Words and Dreams of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.