“A man who won’t die for something is not fit to live.” --Martin Luther King
This is Martin Luther King ‘s speech in Selma, Alabama in 1965. He delivered a dramatic speech urging his followers to face death if necessary at the start of the march. “A man dies when he refuses to stand up for what’s right,” says King.
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But if a man has not discovered something that he will die for, he isn’t fit to live.
Deep down in our non-violent creed is the conviction that there are some things so dear, some things so precious, some things so eternally true that they’re worth dying for. And if a man happens to be 36 years old as I happen to be, and some great truth stands before the door of his life—some great opportunity to stand up for that which is right and that which is just—and he refuses to stand up because he wants to live a little longer and he’s afraid his home will get bombed—or he’s afraid that he will lose his job, or he’s afraid that he will get shot or beat down by state troopers—he may go on and live until he’s 80. But he’s just as dead at 36 as he would be at 80 and the cessation of breathing in his life is merely the belated announcement of an earlier death of the spirit.
He died.
A man dies when he refuses to stand up for that which is right. A man dies when he refuses to stand up for justice. A man dies when he refuses to take a stand for that which is true.
So we’re going to stand up right here amid horses. We’re going to stand up right here in Alabama amid the billy clubs. We’re going to stand up right here in Alabama amid police dogs if they have them. We’re going to stand up amid tear gas. We’re going to stand up amid anything that they can muster up, letting the world know that we are determined to be free.