“The Negro has no room to make any substantial compromises because his store of advantages is too small. He must press unrelentingly for quality, integrated education or his whole drive for freedom will be undermined by the absence of a most vital and indispensable element -- learning.”

I think that Dr. Martin Luther King junior's quote has a lot to do with African-Americans an the civil rights movement. This quote had a great inpact on the society of the time and described how, in order to have more freedoms, you most obtain the element of knowledge. As seen in today's society, people with more knowledge, seem to have more freedoms in life.

i think that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's quote is telling many people that African-Americans didn't have as many rights as all people in the United States.

if you aren't smart enough to back up your cause than every thing you done will be wasted

I think what Dr. Martin Luther King Jr meant by that is without education, you cant get any where in life. Education is the key to sucess if you dont have anything you always have your education to fall back on. Thats what I think that saying means.

I think this saying means do something with your life dont waste it away on petty stuff.Life is to short for unimportant things.

"Life is tough, it's tougher when you're stupid ~ John Wayne". - Since we can't rely on the Dept. of Education to actually teach, we must take responsibility on ourselves to teach and correct as part of raising our children. The State sure as hell won't do it.

At face value, I am hesitant to agree but when take with his other quotes, I do. Education he defines as father, mother, child is his definition. Education is an and should be an individual thing. If one wants to learn, they will. They will also learn what they choose to. Even in this dumb-ed down educational system. Learning ends only because that individual chose so. Education under any system shows freedom. It just might require more determination or blood shed.

If we become learned and intellectual who will they have to fight their wars - also, unemployment is good for the military - the more we are dumbed down the more fodder they have for their corporate masters.

I understand the sentiment, and yes education is important for ALL Americans, particularly about how to be free and responsible. However, in my own experience as a youth, black kids were bussed in from the ghettos to my elementary school instead of improving the schools in their own neighborhoods. As a result, the quality of education dropped significantly, and we all got a steady dose of how badly the blacks had been discriminated against -- so much so, that I wanted to be black, too! I think that was a mistake as my children attended an elementary school in a Caribbean country in which they were the minority white students. There was never any animosity between whites and blacks there, and all the children were 'color-blind' -- the issue of racism was never brought up, and frankly all these kids were quite brilliant. (It was also British education, so naturally, they were far ahead of their American counterparts.) While we may be equal in rights, we are not equal in skills, interests, experiences, etc. nor do we need to be. In my travels, some of the smartest kids in America I have met were blacks going to school in their own predominantly black neighborhood, so let's put this integration thing to bed. Now that's 'progress.'

Dr. King expresses so lucidly complex truths!

You cannot be educated if you are not permitted to travel, be with other people, etcetera. Dr. King knew as did Thurgood Marshall that a people who are walled off from others either by force or de facto cannot be educated. It was no different in this regard for blacks in America than it was for children in totalitarian countries. That Archer considers the British caste system and education as superior to US is repugnant. Many know that people born in England are trained to know of their position in life and they are to accept it and not to change or improve it.

Waffler's arguments consistently show he is a Tory through-and-through. British and Canadian elementary education standards are MUCH higher than the US. Perhaps HE should get out more. America has been dumbed down on purpose -- Waffler is a perfect example of that. Ghettos do indeed wall off those within -- I am not for them either. Come on over to NYC and you will see the lowest human conditions for those in government housing. This 'welfare' does not raise responsibile citizens -- quite the opposite. Freeing oneself from slavery starts with rejecting dependency and freeing the mind from the lies of victimhood. It is called 'waking up.'