... and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today -- my own government.

- Martin Luther King, Jr., from his speech, "Beyond Vietnam", delivered at Riverside Church, New York, NY, April 4, 1967

I am concerned that, at the end of it all, there will only be more Americans killed; more of our treasure spilled out; and because of the bitterness and hatred on every side of this war, more hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese slaughtered; so that they may say, as Tacitus said of Rome: "They made a desert and called it peace."

- Robert F. Kennedy, from a speech during his Presidential campaign,

March 18, 1968

It’s racism. Racism practiced by America. Racism which involves a war against the dark-skinned people in Asia, another form of racism involving a war against the dark-skinned people in the Congo ... as it involves a war against the dark-skinned people in Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and Rochester, New York.

- Malcolm X, from an address delivered in the Corn Hill Methodist Church, Rochester, NY, February 16, 1965

Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.

- John F. Kennedy, from remarks on the first anniversary of the Alliance for Progress, March 13, 1962

The Afro-Asian revolution of nationalism, the revolt against colonialism, the determination of people to control their national destinies … in my opinion the tragic failure of both Republican and Democratic administrations since World War II to comprehend the nature of this revolution, and its potentialities for good and evil, has reaped a bitter harvest today—and it is by rights and by  necessity a major foreign policy campaign issue that has nothing to do with anti-communism.

- John F. Kennedy, from a speech given during the Stevenson campaign, 1956

"We must face the fact that the United States is neither omnipotent nor omniscient, that we are only 6% of the world's population, that we cannot impose our will upon the other 94% of mankind, that we cannot right every wrong or reverse each adversity, and that therefore there cannot be an American solution to every world problem."

– John F. Kennedy, from an address at the University of Washington, Seattle, November 16, 1961