MLK

“A great people which had created a great civilization had become a nation of silent onlookers. They remain silent in the face of hate, in the face of brutality and in the face of mass murder...America must not become a nation of onlookers. America must not remain silent. Not merely black American, but all of America. It must speak up and act, from the president down to the humblest of us, and not for the sake of the Negro, but for the sake of the image, the idea and aspiration of America itself....If one is to heed the condemnation of his conscience, if one is to be guided by the unseen star, if one is to share the passion and action of our times, is the time not at hand to forsake the silence of the onlooker?” 

~Martin Luther King, April 21, 1965, to Association of the Bar of the City of New York.