No Name in the Street

I'm reading James Baldwin's No Name in the Street. On the most basic level, it is the story of his life, but more so than that it's a history of the African-American struggle throughout the 60's and early 70's. Baldwin is an candidly eloquent, lucid, critically-thinking writer. I'm only half way through the book, but it's already one of my favorite books.

Anyway, I keep finding passages in this book that really transcend the 60's and 70's. I'd like to share one passage I found particularly relevant (share thoughts/comments below):

Force does not work the way its advocates seem to think it does. It does not, for example, reveal to the victim the strength of his adversary. On the contrary, it reveals the weakness, even the panic of his adversary, and this revelation invests the victim with patience. Furthermore, it is ultimately fatal to create too many victims. The victor can do nothing with these victims, for they do not belong to him, but - to the victims. They belong to the people he is fighting. The people know this. and as inexorable as the roll call - the honor roll - of victims expands, so does their will become inexorable: they resolve that these dead, their brethren, shall not have died in vain. When this point is reached, however long the battle may go on, the victor can never be the victor: on the contrary, all his energies, his entire life, are bound up in a terror he cannot articulate, a mystery he cannot read, a battle he cannot win - he has simply become the prisoner of the people he thought to cow, chain, or murder into submission.