African Americans Quotes

I admit freely enough that, by careful breeding, supervision of environment and education, extending over many generations, it might be possible to make an appreciable improvement in the stock of the American negro, for example, but I must maintain that this enterprise would be a ridiculous waste of energy, for there is a high-caste white […]

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.

The black has learned the capital lesson that property is necessary to self-respect, that he will never get anywhere so long as he is poor. Once he is secure in that department he will take up the business of getting back his plain constitutional rights.

The good neighbor looks beyond the external accidents and discerns those inner qualities that make all men human and, therefore, brothers.

What, ladies and gentlemen, in hell or out of it, are we to do with the Ethiop? Who shall answer the thunderous demands of the emerging coon? For emerging he is, both quantitatively and qualitatively, and there will come a morn, believe me or not, when those with ears to hear and hides to feel […]

The old law about “an eye for an eye” leaves everybody blind.

One of the things that makes a Negro unpleasant to white folk is the fact that he suffers from their injustice. He is thus a standing rebuke to them, and they try to put him out of their minds. The easiest way to do so is to insist that he keep his place.

The hope of a secure and livable world lies with disciplined nonconformists who are dedicated to justice, peace and brotherhood.

I think the Negro people should feel secure enough by now to face a reasonable ridicule without terror. I am unalterably opposed to all efforts to put down free speech, whatever the excuse.

The word “wait” has been a tranquilizing Thalidomide, giving birth to an ill-formed infant of frustration. Only by following the cause of tender-heartedness can man matriculate into the university of eternal life. Segregation is the adultery of an illicit intercourse between injustice and immorality, and it cannot be cured by the Vaseline of gradualism.