Eagles’ Carson Wentz Debuts New Armband Showing Powerful MLK Quote

Carson Wentz has been fighting back against social injustice for months. Now he’s (literally) wearing his emotions on his sleeve.

Wentz — self-admittedly, “no longer a kid from North Dakota” — showed off a picture (via AO1 Foundation) of a new black armband featuring a famous quote attributed to legendary civil rights activist Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. reading: “Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

Powerful words, ones that come mere days after the Eagles quarterback promised to lead the conversation around racial inequality.

“I went to high school [in North Dakota], I think I had just a couple black classmates. And it’s something that was so foreign to me,” Wentz told reporters last week on a Zoom call. “And so now really, this offseason, I took a real look into showing empathy and understanding what has it been like to be a black man in this world, in this country, and not just in today’s world, but going back 400 years to now, and how we got to this point.

“And so it’s been, being educated a lot, and looking at it through a different lens for me and a lot of things I’ve learned and, by no means that I have all the answers or I have it all figured out, but it’s really heavy on my heart and a lot of guys hearts in this locker room for sure.”

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Quoting MLK, Wentz Searching for ‘Real Change’

The quote was part of MLK’s famed “Loving Your Enemies” sermon delivered on Nov. 17, 1957 at Dexter Baptist Church in Alabama. He wrote it while in jail for non-violent protesting, drawing on words and imagery from the Gospel of Matthew.

Wentz, of course, is a deeply religious man and often quotes the bible himself. Here is the full excerpt from MLK’s speech:

“The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate…Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

“I can’t really put my finger on one thing right now,” Wentz told reporters about fighting social injustice. “We have a committee meeting coming up here, and we’re going to talk through a lot of the things. But it is something that we want to see real change and I know the NBA and everyone’s using their platform to create that change. And some fans might not like it, but at the end of the day there’s a hurting community, and we want to reach out and respond to that hurt.”

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