I accept the Nobel Prize for peace.

At a moment when 22 million Negroe of the United States of America are engaged in a creative battle to end the long night of racial injustice.

I accept this award on behalf of a civil rights movement, which is moving with determination and a majestic scorn for risk and danger, to establish a reign of freedom and a rule of justice.

I am mindful that only yesterday in Birmingham, Alabama, our children, crying ou for brotherhood, were answered with fire hoses snarling dogs and even death.

I am mindful that only yesterday in Philadelphia, Mississippi, young people seeking to secure the right to vote were brutalized and murdered.

And only yesterday more than 40 houses of worship in the state of Mississippi alone were bombed or burned because they offered a sanctuary to those who would not accept segregation.

I'm mindful that debilitating and grinding poverty afflicts my people and chains them to the lowest rung of the economic ladder.

Therefore, I must ask why thi prize is awarded to a movement which is beleaguered and committed to unrelenting struggle, to a movement which has not wo the very peace and brotherhood which is the essence of the Nobel Prize.

After contemplation, I conclude that this award, which I receive on behalf of that movement, is a profound recognitio that nonviolence is the answer to the crucial politica and moral question of our time, the need for man to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to violence and oppression.

Civilization and violence are antithetical concepts.

Negroes of the United States following the people of India, have demonstrate that nonviolence is not sterile passivity, but a powerful moral force which makes for social transformation.

Sooner or later, all the people of the world will have to discover a way to live together in peace and thereby transform this pending cosmic energy into creative some a brotherhood.

If this is to be achieved, man must evolve for all human conflict, a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation.

The foundation of such a method is love.

The torturous road, which is led from Montgomery, Alabama, bears witness to this truth.

This is a road over which millions of Negroes are travelin to find a new sense of dignity.

The same road has opened for all Americans.

A new era of progress and hope.

It has led to a new civil rights bill.

And it will, I'm convinced, be widened and lengthene into a superhighway of justice as Negro and white men in increasing numbers create alliances to overcome their common problems.

I accept this award today.

With an abiding faith in America and an audacious faith in the future of mankind, I refuse to accept despair as the final response to the beauties of history.

I refuse to accept that the idea that the essence of man's present nature makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the eternal ordinance that forever confronts him.

I refuse to accept that.

The idea that man is mere flotsam and jetsam in the river of life, unable to influence the unfolding events which surround him.

I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racis and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality.

I refuse to accep the cynical notion that nation after nation must spiral down a militaristic stairway into the hell of thermonuclear destruction.

I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality.

This is why.

Right.

Temporarily defeated is stil stronger than evil triumphant.

I believe that even amid today's mortar bursts and winding bullets, there is still hope for a brighter tomorrow.

I believe that wounded justice, lying prostrate on the blood flowing streets of our nations, can be lifted from this dust of shame to reign supreme among the children of men.

I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds and dignity, equality and freedom for their spirits.

I believe that what self-centered men have torn dow and other centered can build up.

I still believe that one day mankind will bow before the authors of God and be crowned triumphant over war and bloodshed, and nonviolent, redemptive goo will proclaim the rule of land.

And the lion and the lamb shall lie down together.

And every man shall sit on.

There's owned by and fig tree.

And none shall be afraid.

I still believe that we shall overcome.

This faith can give us courage to fac the uncertainties of the future.

And we'll give our tired feet new strength as we continue our forward stride toward the sea of freedom.

When our days become dreary.

With low hovering clouds.

And our nights become darker than thousand midnight, we will know that we are living in a creative turmoil of a genuine civilization.

Struggling to be born.

May I come as a trustee inspired with renewed dedication to humanity.

I accept this prize on behalf of all men who love peace and brotherhood.

I say I come the truste for in the depths of my heart.

I'm aware that this prize is much more than an honor to me personally, Every time I take a flight, I'm always mindful of the many people who mak a successful journey possible.

The known pilots and the unknown ground crew.

So you honor the dedicated pilots of our struggle who have sat at the controls as a freedom movement soared into orbit.

You honor the ground crew without whose labor and sacrifices the jet flights to freedom could never have left the Earth.

Yet when years have rolled past.

And when the blazing light of truth is focused on this marvelous age in which we live, men and women will know.

And the children will be taught.

That we have a finer land, a better people, a more noble civilization, because these humble children of God were willing to suffer for righteousness sake.

I think Alfred Nobel would know what I mean when I say that I accept this award in the spirit of the curator of some precious heirloom which he holds in trust for its true owners.

All those who.

Beauty is truth and truth.

Beauty in whose eyes the beauty of genuine brotherhood and peace is more preciou than diamonds or silver or gold.