This afternoon we gather in the quiet of this sanctuary to pay our last
tribute of respect to these beautiful children of God....
They are the martyred heroines of a holy crusade for freedom and human dignity. And so this afternoon in a real sense they have something to say to each of us in their death.
They have something to say to every minister of the gospel who has remained silent
behind the safe security of stained-glass windows.They have something to say to every politician [Audience:] (Yeah) who has fed his constituents with the stale
bread of hatred and the spoiled meat of racism.They have something to say to a federal government that has compromised with the undemocratic practices of southern Dixiecrats (Yeah) and the blatant hypocrisy of right-wing northern Republicans. (Speak)
They have something to say to every Negro (Yeah) who has
passively accepted the evil system of segregation and who has stood on the
sidelines in a mighty struggle for justice.They say to each of us, black and white alike, that we must substitute courage for caution.
They say to us that we must be concerned not merely about who murdered them, but about the system, the way of life, the philosophy which produced the murderers. Their death says to us that we must work passionately and unrelentingly for the realization of the American dream [...]
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