Read this passage: Taccept this award today with an abiding faith in America
and an audacious faith in the future of mankind. I refuse to
accept despair as the final response to the ambiguities of
history. I refuse to accept the idea that the "isness" of
man's present nature makes him morally incapable of
reaching up for the eternal "oughtness" that forever
confronts him. I refuse to accept the idea that man is mere
flotsam and jetsam in the river of life, unable to influence
the unfolding events which surround him. I refuse to
accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the
starless midnight of racism and war that the bright
daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a
reality.
- Martin Luther King Jr., Nobel Prize acceptance speech,
1964