“Garment of Destiny”

Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Dexter Avenue Baptist Church Sermon, November 1957 Montgomery, Alabama


“More than anything else we’ve gotta learn to love. In America the white man must love the black man and the black man must love the white man because we are all tied together in a single garment of destiny.

…You see, you never solve the problem of tyranny by substituting a new tyranny. The doctrine of black supremacy is as evil as the doctrine of white supremacy. God is not interested merely in the freedom of black men and brown men and yellow men, but God is interested in the freedom of the whole human race. The creation of a society where all men will live together as brothers and every man will respect the dignity and the worth of human personality and the one way that every man will be able to do this is to remember that one word that Jesus talked about so often. That is the word love.” 

Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial
(courtesy of National Park Service)