If integration is to be a reality, the Negro must struggle for it. And so the Negro must continue to work through legislation; he must continue to work to double the number of registered voters, so that he political climate can be changed; he must continue to work through the courts, and get the law clarified and the Constitution clear on this issue.

Large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice, equality, and humanity.

Equality is not only a matter of quantity but of quality; not merely of mathematics and geometry, but of psychology.

What the Negro wants -- and will not stop until he gets -- is absolute and unqualified freedom and equality here in this land of his birth, and not in Africa or in some imaginary state.

We, the disinherited of this land, we who have been oppressed so long, are tired of going through the long night of captivity. And now we are reaching out for the daybreak of freedom and justice and equality.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality.