Quotes to Challenge and Inspire
- “If you want to go quickly, go alone; If you want to go far, go together” African Proverb .
- “The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next” Abraham Lincoln
- “I would like to be remembered as a person who wanted to be free… so other people could be free” Rosa Parks
- “Everybody understands what White power is…because they own the bank, they have all the commerical power in the community, but they only have (power) it at the expense of that Black brother that is deaf, dumb and blind.” Minister Franklin Florence.
- “I leave you hope. The Negro’s growth will be great in the years to come. Yesterday our ancestors endured the degradation of slavery, yet they retained their dignity. Today, we direct our strength toward winning a more abundant and secure life. Tomorrow, a new Negro, unhindered by race taboos and shackles, will benefit from more than 330 years of ceaseless struggle. Theirs will be a better world. This I believe with all my heart.” Mary McLeod Bethune
- “It’s not a question any longer of trying to find ‘solutions’ so that our lives can go on as they are, but of accepting and preparing ourselves for the possibility of losing what we are holding on to, so that we are fully available for what is to come.” ~ Pablo Servigne, Raphaël Stevens, & Gauthier Chapelle.
- “I believe race is too heavy a burden to carry into the 21st century. It’s time to lay it down. We all came here in different ships, but now we’re all in the same boat.” – John Lewis
- “I am a feminist and what that means to me is much the same as the meaning of the fact that I am Black: it means that I must undertake to love myself and to respect myself as though my very life depends upon self-love and self-respect.” ~June Jordan
- “I merged those two works Black and feminist because I was surrounderd by Black women who were very tough and who always assumed they had to work and rear children and manage homes.” ~ Toni Morrison
- “Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.” Harriet Tubman, Abolistionist and Political Activist.
- “The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them.” Ida B. Wells-Barnett; 1862-1931; American investigative journalist, educator and civil rights leader.
- “I cannot help wondering sometimes what I might have become and might have done if I had lived in a country which had not circumscribed and handicapped me on account of my race, that had allowed me to reach any height I was able to attain; Mary Church Terrell, 9/23/1863-7/24/1954; Co-founder of National Association of Colored Women and NAACP.
- “Either the United States will destroy ignorance or ignorance will destroy the United States.”; W.E.B. DuBois 1868-1963; Sociolgist, Historian, Editor and Co-founder of NAACP.
- “You’re not to be so blind with patriotism that you can’t face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who does it or says it.”; Malcolm X; May 19, 1925 – February 21, 1965; Muslim minister and human rights activist.
- “Love yourself, appreciate yourself, see the good in you…and respect yourself.”; Betty Shabazz; May 28, 1934 – June 1997; American educator and civil rights advocate.
- “Never forget that justice is what love looks like in public”; Cornel West, June 3, 1953 – Present; American educator, philospher and political activist.
- “Jails and prisons are designed to break human beings, to convert the population into specimens in a zoo – obedient to our keepers, but dangerous to each other…”; Angela Davis, January 26, 1979 – Present; American political activist, scholar and author.
- “The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.” (Ralph Waldo Emerson)
- “Juneteenth has never been a celebration of victory or an acceptance of the way things are. It’s a celebration of progress. It’s an affirmation that despite the most painful parts of our history, change is possible – and there is still so much work to do…”, Barack O’Bama, 44th President of the United States from 2009 – 2017, born August 4, 1961 – Present.
- “Poverty is the parent of crime and revolution. Poverty will either make a person take what they don’t have from someone who might have a little more than they do or it will make a person rebel against the current of the system, the present state of their life, and …” Aristotle, 384 BC – 322 BC, Greek Philosopher and scientist.
- “If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing the ground. They want rain without thunder and lighting. They want an ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.” Frederick Douglass; American social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer and statesman, born around February, 1818 – February 20, 1885.
- “We have fought for America with all her imperfections, not so much for what she is, but for what we know she can be.” Mary McLeod Bethune, July 10, 1875 – May 18, 1955, American educator, philanthropist, humanitarian, womanist, and civil rights activist.
- “Race is the one constant and central conflict in American history. No other issue has caused such ferocious internal divisions – in the past or in the present.” Robert Putnam, January 9, 1941 – present, eminent American political scientist (born in Rochester, NY).
- “Everyone can be great because everyone can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace, a soul generated by love.”” Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968.
- “The problem is whether the American people have honesty enough, loyalty enough, honor enough, patriotism enough to live up to their own Constitution.” Frederick Douglass; American social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer and statesman, born around February, 1818 – February 20, 1885.
- “The child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth.” African Proverb .
- “To white folks saying, “I’m sorry,” or “Not me.” Your apologies don’t change hearts. Self-flagellation doesn’t bend the arc. Defensiveness doesn’t keep us safe. Let action be your words.” Rev.Dr. Jacqui Lewis.
- “Hate is too great a burden to bear. It injures the hater more than it injures the hated“, Coretta Scott King, Civil Rights activist, icon and author , April 27, 1927 – January 30, 2006.