In 1963, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote the famous words: “Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.” He also wrote, from a cell in Birmingham Jail, “There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over and men [and women] are no longer willing to be plunged into an abyss of injustice where they experience the bleakness of corroding despair.”
He wrote these words after being criticized by white clergymen who published a letter in the Birmingham News following his arrest, entitled, White clergymen urge local negroes to withdraw from protests. The clergymen instead proposed the work of racial equality be done quietly, appealing to legal systems, and that the afflicted not disrupt the peace of the city with public demonstrations.