Excerpt from "Where Do We Go from Here?," a speech delivered at the annual convention of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Atlanta, Georgia, August 16, 1967.
Reprinted from A Call to Conscience: The Landmark Speeches of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., 2001.

"We must no longer be ashamed of being black. The job of arousing manhood within a people that have been taught for so many centuries that they are nobody is not easy.…"

Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968) was by far the best known of all the 1960s civil rights leaders. Hundreds of thousands of civil rights activists at rallies across the country and millions watching his speeches on the three television networks found inspiration in his words. King's opinions either gave people encouragement to forge ahead or stirred them up to fight against the coming change.

Martin Luther King Jr. was born Michael...