“Remaining Awake During a Revolution”

Martin Luther King gave a speech with that title on October 29, 1967 at Grinnell College in Iowa. 

A quote from that speech, echoing a theme that also appears in several other sermons and addresses by the civil rights leader, is the coda of a recent Time cover story on Warren Buffett.

The profile says that Buffett’s first wife, Susie, made him more socially conscious. Among other things, she took her husband to hear King speak at Grinnell College.

“It may be true that the law cannot change the heart but it can restrain the heartless,” Time says King told the audience.

Says Buffett at the end of the Time cover story:

“It’s like Martin Luther King said. We aren’t trying to change the heart. We’re trying to restrain the heartless. Isn’t that what government is all about?”

Grinnell’s website says copyright issues prevent it from placing the text of King’s speech online. 

It commends this sermon at the National Cathedral in Washington D.C. from March 31, 1968 titled “Remaining Awake During a Great Revolution.”

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