“I knew that however bad the Republican party was, the Democratic party was much worse. The elements of which the Republican party was composed gave better ground for the ultimate hope of success of the colored man’s cause than those of the Democratic party.”
“I recognize the Republican party as the sheet anchor of the colored man’s political hopes and the ark of his safety.”
“[I]n regard to the colored people, there is always more that is benevolent, I perceive, than just, manifested towards us. What I ask for the negro is not benevolence, not pity, not sympathy, but simply justice. The American people have always been anxious to know what they shall do with us. … I have had but one answer from the beginning. Do nothing with us! Your doing with us has already played the mischief with us. Do nothing with us! If the apples will not remain on the tree of their own strength, if they are worm-eaten at the core, if they are early ripe and disposed to fall, let them fall! … And if the negro cannot stand on his own legs, let him fall also. All I ask is, give him a chance to stand on his own legs! Let him alone! … [Y]our interference is doing him positive injury.”
“If my theory of relativity is proven successful, Germany will claim me as a German and France will declare that I am a citizen of the world. Should my theory prove untrue, France will say that I am a German and Germany will declare that I am a Jew.”
“Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate, than that these people are to be free; nor is it certain that the two races, equally free, cannot live in the same government. Nature, habit, opinion have drawn indelible lines of distinction between them.”
“I realize that I’m black, but I like to be viewed as a person, and this is everybody’s wish.”
“In my judgement, the slogan ‘black power’ and what has been associated with it has set the civil rights movement back considerably in the United States over the period of the last several months.”
“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal.’ … I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
“I do not understand that because I do not want a negro woman for a slave I must necessarily want her for a wife. My understanding is that I can just let her alone.”
“In one generation we have moved from denying a black man service at a lunch counter to elevating one to the highest military office in the nation, and to being a serious contender for the presidency. / This is a magnificent country and I am proud to be one of its sons.”
“Racism is not the black community’s only problem. Slavery and segregation are not the only explanation for the scourge of premature pregnancy and premature death. In the next stage of the civil-rights struggle, the true heroes will be those who focus inward as well as outward, who don’t just make demands on the government but how demand discipline and responsibility from themselves and their children. Continuing to foster self-reliance and self-regard is just as important in combating racism in others.”
“It was my good fortune at Santiago to serve beside colored troops. A man who is good enough to shed his blood for the country is good enough to be given a square deal afterward. More than that no man is entitled to, and less than that no man shall have.”
“In all things that are purely social we [black and white] can be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress.”
“No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem.”
“Not only do I pray for it, on the score of human dignity, but I can clearly foresee that nothing but the rooting out of slavery can perpetuate the existence of our union, by consolidating it in a common bond of principle.”
“History is not going to be kind to liberals. With their mindless programs, they’ve managed to do to Black Americans what slavery, Reconstruction, and rank racism found impossible: destroy their family and work ethic.”
“White is ugly when it oppresses blacks—and so is black ugly when black people exploit other blacks. No race has a monopoly on vice or virtue, and the worth of an individual is not related to the color of his skin.”