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

... 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

"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

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