Our aim is to persuade. We adopt the means of non-violence because our end is a community at peace with itself. We will try to persuade with our words, but if our words fail, we will try to persuade with our acts. We will always be willing to talk and seek faircompromise, but we are ready to suffer when necessary and even risk our lives to become witnesses to the truth as we see it. … But if physical death is the price that a man must pay to free his children and his white brethren from a permanent death of the spirit, then nothing could be more redemptive. This is the type of soulforce that I am convinced will triumph over the physical force of the oppressor.
