Our nation was born in genocide when it embraced the doctrine that the original American, the Indian, was an inferior race. ... We are perhaps the only nation which tried as a matter of national policy to wipe out its indigenous population. Moreover, we elevated that tragic experience into a noble crusade. Indeed, even today we have not permitted ourselves to reject or to feel remorse for this shameful episode.
Interpretation
This quote reflects on the dark history of America's treatment of Native Americans, emphasizing a need for acknowledgment and remorse.
In this quote, Martin Luther King, Jr. addresses the horrific legacy of genocide against Native Americans, stating that the United States was founded upon the belief of racial superiority that justified the extermination of indigenous peoples. He underscores the hypocrisy of glorifying this brutal chapter as a noble endeavor and highlights the ongoing refusal to confront and regret this shameful history, urging a critical reflection on the past and its implications for present and future generations.
In practice
This quote can be used in a discussion about racial injustices in history classes.
This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice and love.
Music is the best consolation for a despaired man
We must meet the forces of hate with the power of love.
We may have all come on different ships, but we're in the same boat now.
Israel... is one of the great outpost of democracy in the world
One of the greatest casualties of the war in Vietnam is the Great Society... shot down on the battlefield of Vietnam.
Like the attack on Pearl Harbor, another hinge event in American history, 9/11 was a great tactical victory for America's enemies. But in both these cases, the tactical success of the attacks was not matched by strategic victories. Quite the reverse.
Open your refrigerator door, and you summon forth more light than the total amount enjoyed by most households in the 18th century. The world at night, for much of history, was a very dark place indeed.
Arab civilizations had been of an abstract nature, moral and intellectual rather than applied; and their lack of public spirit made their excellent private qualities futile. They were fortunate in their epoch: Europe had fallen barbarous; and the memory of Greek and Latin learning was fading from men's minds.
[B]inary opposites fit nicely the formulation of history as written, but they do little to capture the messy, inchoate reality of history as lived.
I mourn for the stake which was lost at Richmond more deeply than I rejoice over that which was saved at Waterloo.
War is a crucial, deeply ingrained part of human history. It has to be understood.
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