Double victory

To our most bitter opponents we say:
"We shall match your capacity to inflict suffering
by our capacity to endure suffering.
We shall meet your physical force with soul force.
Do to us what you will, and we shall continue to love you.
We cannot in all good conscience obey your unjust laws
because noncooperation with evil is as much
a moral obligation as is cooperation with good.
Throw us in jail and we shall still love you.
Bomb our homes and threaten our children,
and we shall still love you.
Send your hooded perpetrators of violence
into our community at the midnight hour
and beat us and leave us half dead, and we shall still love you.
But be ye assured that we will wear you down by our capacity to suffer.
One day we shall win freedom but not only for ourselves.
We shall so appeal to your heart and conscience
that we shall win you in the process
and our victory will be a double victory."

                  Martin Luther King, Jr., Loving Your Enemies