“It is a cruel jest to say to a bootless man that he should lift himself up by his own bootstraps. It is even worse to tell a man to lift himself up by his own bootstraps when somebody is standing on the boot….I had to tell him finally that nobody else in this country has lifted themselves by their own bootstraps alone, so why expect the black man to do it?” ― Martin Luther King Jr., All Labor Has Dignity
“It is a cruel jest to say to a bootless man that he should lift himself up by his own bootstraps. It is even worse to tell a man to lift himself up by his own bootstraps when somebody is standing on the boot….I had to tell him finally that nobody else in this country has lifted themselves by their own bootstraps alone, so why expect the black man to do it?”
― Martin Luther King Jr., All Labor Has Dignity