Lessons On Nonviolence From Martin Luther King Jr.

Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day! Here are a few of his writings and teachings on non-violence, sourced from TheKingCenter.org

-TheKingCenter.org website writes that Agape "was central to Dr. King’s theology and philosophy of nonviolent social change" and it appears in many of his speeches and writings. His teachings on this helped to motivate people to "engage in militant, transformative direct action by accepting suffering without retaliation and returning good for evil"
The excerpt below on love and agape is from a speech at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, which can be found in audio and PDF form here: www.dennyburk.com/mlk-at-south…

"You know there are three words in the Greek language for love. There is the word eros, and eros is a sort of aesthetic love. Plato talks about it a great deal in his Dialogue, the yearning of the soul for the realm of the divine. It has come to us to be sort of a romantic love. So in this sense we all know about eros. We have read about it in the beauties of literature; we have experienced it in our own lives. Then the Greek language talks about philos which is another level of love, so to speak. This is friendship. This is the sort of reciprocal love. On this level we love because we are loved. It is intimate affection between personal friends. We love those people that we like. Then the Greek language comes out with another word, calls it agape. Agape is more than aesthetic or romantic love. Agape is more than friendship. Agape is understanding, creative, redemptive good will for all men. It is an over-flowing love that seeks nothing in return. Theologians would say that it is the love of God operating in the human heart. And so when one rises to love at this point, he loves men not because he likes them, not because their ways appeal to him; but he loves every man because God loves him. He rises to the point that he is able to love the person who does the evil deed, while hating the deed that the person does, I think that this is what Jesus meant when he said, "Love your enemies," and I am so happy that he didn't say, "Like your enemies," because it is difficult to like some people. It is difficult to like what some people are doing to us. It is difficult to like somebody who bombs your home or somebody who Is threatening your children. It is difficult to like them, but Jesus says, "Love them," And love greater than like. Like is sentimental and affectionate, but love is understanding, creative, redemptive good will for all men. And I believe that this is the type of love that must guide us through this period of transition. And with this we will be able to enter the new age with the proper attitude. We will not seek to rise from a position of disadvantage to one of advantage, thus subverting justice. We will not seek to substitute one tyranny for another."

These following excerpts are from The King Center website at www.thekingcenter.org/
Nonviolence: The Only Road to Freedom
By Martin Luther King Jr.

Whole article here: teachingamericanhistory.org/li…

Selected quotes from the article:
“I am convinced that for practical as well as moral reasons, nonviolence offers the only road to freedom for my people. Violence as a strategy for social change in America is nonexistent. All the sound and fury seems but the posturing of cowards whose bold talk produces no action and signifies nothing.”

“It is always amusing to me when a Negro man says that he can’t demonstrate with us because if someone hit him he would fight back. Here is a man whose children are being plagued by rats and roaches, whose wife is robbed daily at overpriced ghetto food stores, who himself is working for about two-thirds the pay of a white person doing a similar job and with similar skills, and in spite of all this daily suffering it takes someone spitting on him and calling him a nigger to make him want to fight.
Conditions are such for Negroes in America that all Negroes ought to be fighting aggressively. It is as ridiculous for a Negro to raise the question of self-defense in relation to nonviolence as it is for a soldier on the battlefield to say his is not going to take any risks. He is there because he believes that the freedom of his country is worth the risk of his life. The same is true of the nonviolent demonstrator. He sees the misery of his people so clearly that he volunteers to suffer in their behalf and put an end to their plight.

Furthermore, it is extremely dangerous to organize a movement around self-defense. The line between defensive violence and aggressive or retaliatory violence is a fine line indeed. When violence is tolerated even as a means of self-defense there is a grave danger that in the fervor of emotion the main fight will be lost over the question of self-defense.”

“Our position depends a lot on more than political power, however. It depends on our ability to marshal moral power as well. As soon as we lose the moral offensive, we are left with only our ten percent of the power of the nation.”

“The power of the nonviolent march is indeed a mystery. It is always surprising that a few hundred Negroes marching can produce such a reaction across the nation. When marches are carefully organized around well-defined issues, they represent the power with Victor Hugo phrased as the most powerful force in the world, "an idea whose time has come." Marching feet announce that time has come for a given idea. When the idea is a sound one, the cause is a just one, and the demonstration a righteous one, change will be forthcoming. But if any of these conditions are not present, the power for change is missing also. A thousand people demonstrating for the right to use heroin would have little effect. By the same token, a group of ten thousand marching in anger against a police station and cussing out the chief of police will do very little to bring respect, dignity and unbiased law enforcement. Such a demonstration would only produce fear and bring about an addition of forces to the station and more oppressive methods by the police.”


The Power of Nonviolence
By Martin Luther King Jr.

Whole article here: teachingamericanhistory.org/li…

Selected quotes from the article:
“…the nonviolent resister does not seek to humiliate or defeat the opponent but to win his friendship and understanding.”

“The end of violence or the aftermath of violence is bitterness. The aftermath of nonviolence is reconciliation and the creation of a beloved community”

“nonviolent resistance is also an internal matter. It not only avoids external violence or external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. And so at the center of our movement stood the philosophy of love. The attitude that the only way to ultimately change humanity and make for the society that we all long for is to keep love at the center of our lives.”

“(Agape) is an overflowing love which seeks nothing in return. And when you come to love on this level you begin to love men not because they are likeable, not because they do things that attract us, but because God loves them and here we love the person who does the evil deed while hating the deed that the person does. It is the type of love that stands at the center of the movement that we are trying to carry on in the Southland—agape”

“I am quite aware of the fact that there are persons who believe firmly in nonviolence who do not believe in a personal God, but I think every person who believes in nonviolent resistance believes somehow that the universe in some form is on the side of justice. That there is something unfolding in the universe whether one speaks of it as a unconscious process, or whether one speaks of it as some unmoved mover, or whether someone speaks of it as a personal God. There is something in the universe that unfolds for justice and so in Montgomery we felt somehow that as we struggled we had cosmic companionship. And this was one of the things that kept the people together, the belief that the universe is on the side of justice.”

“Agape says you must go on with wise restraint and calm reasonableness but you must keep moving.”

“I never intend to adjust myself to segregation and discrimination. I never intend to adjust myself to mob rule. I never intend to adjust myself to the tragic effects of the methods of physical violence and to tragic militarism. I call upon you to be maladjusted to such things. I call upon you to be as maladjusted to such things.”

Martin Luther King Jr.’s Principals of Nonviolence (copied below) and Steps of Nonviolence -a handy bulleted list- www.cpt.org/files/PW%20-%20Pri… :

1. Nonviolence is a way of life for courageous people.
- It is active nonviolent resistance to evil.
- It is assertive spiritually, mentally, and emotionally.
- It is always persuading the opponent of the justice of your cause.
2. Nonviolence seeks to win friendship and understanding.
- The end result of nonviolence is redemption and reconciliation.
- The purpose of nonviolence is the creation of the Beloved Community.
3. Nonviolence seeks to defeat injustice, not people.
- Nonviolence holds that evildoers are also victims.
4. Nonviolence holds that voluntary suffering can educate and
transform.
- Nonviolence willingly accepts the consequences of its acts.
- Nonviolence accepts suffering without retaliation.
- Nonviolence accepts violence if necessary, but will never inflict it.
- Unearned suffering is redemptive and  has  tremendous educational and
transforming possibilities.
- Suffering can have the power to convert the enemy when reason fails.
5. Nonviolence chooses love instead of hate.
- Nonviolence resists violence of the spirit as well as of the body.
- Nonviolent love gives willingly, knowing that the return might be hostility.
- Nonviolent love is active, not passive.
- Nonviolent love does not sink to the level of the hater.
- Love for the enemy is how we demonstrate love for ourselves.
- Love restores community and resists injustice.
- Nonviolence recognizes the fact that all life is interrelated.
6. Nonviolence believes that the universe is on the side of justice.
- The nonviolent resister has deep faith that justice will eventually win.



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