From neighborhood to brotherhood

The world in which we live is geographically one.
The great challenge now is to make it one in terms of brotherhood.

Now it is true that the geographic togetherness of our world
has been brought into being, to a large extent,
through modern man's scientific ingenuity.
Modern man, through his scientific genius,
has been able to dwarf distance and place time in chains.

Yes, we've been able to carve highways through the stratosphere,
and our jet planes have compressed into minutes
distances that once took weeks and months.
And so this is a small world from a geographical point of view.

What we are facing today is the fact that through our scientific
and technological genius we've made of this world a neighborhood.

And now through our moral and ethical commitment
we must make of it a brotherhood.
We must all learn to live together as brothers -
or we will all perish together as fools.

This is the great issue facing us today.
No individual can live alone; no nation can live alone.
We are tied together.

        The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., June 1965
        Commencement Address, Oberlin College