First, there is a way of looking at this from the perspective of the Civil Rights Movement. As King led this movement, he was aware of the fact that there would be setbacks. There was no way that the white leaders in the South would simply give African Americans the rights they wanted. It was also unlikely that everything the movement did would work just as it was supposed to. There would be disappointments along the way. Hopefully, though, these disappointments would be short-lived; they would be “finite.” Therefore, people should not lose hope in the idea that they would eventually win their ultimate (“infinite”) goals.