You see, the Jericho road is a dangerous road…. The question is not: if I stop to help this man in need, what will happen to me? The question is: if I don’t stop to help the sanitation workers, what will happen to them?

—Martin Luther King, Memphis, April 3, 1968

I choose to identify with the underprivileged. I choose to identify with the poor. I choose to give my life for the hungry. I choose to give my life for those who have been left out of the sunlight of opportunity…seeing life as a long and desolate corridor with no exit sign. This is the way I’m going. If it means suffering a little bit, I’m going that way…. If it means dying for them, I’m going that way.

—Martin Luther King, “The Good Samaritan,” Chicago, August 28, 1966