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Quotes about race

99 quotes from 54 people

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The blood, sweat, tears, and suffering of Black people are the foundations of the wealth and power of the United States of America. We were forced to build America, and if forced to, we will tear it down.
Huey P. Newton1942–1989“In Defense of Self-defense” I (June 20, 1967)
- America
Sometimes, I feel discriminated against, but it does not make me angry. It merely astonishes me.
Zora Neale Hurston1891–1960“How It Feels to Be Colored Me” (1928)
- Anger
Everything that divides men, everything that specifies, separates or pens them, is a sin against humanity.
José Martí1853–1895My Race (1893)
The soul, equal and eternal, emanates from bodies of different shapes and colors. Whoever foments and spreads antagonism and hate between the races, sins against humanity.
José Martí1853–1895Our America (1891)
The one place where a man ought to get a square deal is in a courtroom, be he any color of the rainbow, but people have a way of carrying their resentments right into a jury box.
Harper Lee1926–2016To Kill a Mockingbird (1960), Pt. 2, Ch. 23 (Atticus Finch)
- Justice
Prisons do not disappear problems, they disappear human beings. And the practice of disappearing vast numbers of people from poor, immigrant and racially marginalized communities has literally become big business.
Angela Davisborn 1944“Masked Racism” (1998)
- Justice
The effects of the late civil strife have been to free the slave and make him a citizen. Yet he is not possessed of the civil rights which citizenship should carry with it. This is wrong, and should be corrected.
Ulysses S. Grant1822–1885Second Inaugural Address (1873)
- Slavery
George Bush doesn’t care about black people.
Kanye Westborn 1977Live on NBC’s A Concert for Hurricane Relief (2 September 2005)
- Presidency
As a nation, we began by declaring that “all men are created equal.” We now practically read it “all men are created equal, except negroes.” When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read “all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and catholics.”
Abraham Lincoln1809–1865Letter to Joshua F. Speed (24 August 1855)
- America
- Slavery
The present difficulty, in bringing all parts of the United States to a happy unity and love of country grows out of the prejudice to color. The prejudice is a senseless one, but it exists.
Ulysses S. Grant1822–1885Memorandum: Reasons why Santo Domingo should be annexed to the United States (1869-1870?)
- America
Presidents and Congresses, laws and lawsuits can open the doors to the polling places and open the doors to the wondrous rewards which await the wise use of the ballot. But only the individual Negro, and all others who have been denied the right to vote, can really walk through those doors, and can use that right, and can transform the vote into an instrument of justice and fulfillment.
Lyndon B. Johnson1908–1973Remarks on signing the Voting Rights Act (6 August 1965)
- Voting
This civil rights program about which you have heard so much is a farce and a sham; an effort to set up a police state in the guise of liberty. I am opposed to that program. I fought it in the Congress.
Lyndon B. Johnson1908–1973Speech in Austin, Texas (22 May 1948), as quoted in Quotations from Chairman LBJ (1968)
- Politics
Justice means a man’s hope should not be limited by the color of his skin.
Lyndon B. Johnson1908–1973State of the Union Address (1966)
- Justice
Let us close the springs of racial poison. Let us pray for wise and understanding hearts. Let us lay aside irrelevant differences and make our Nation whole.
Lyndon B. Johnson1908–1973Civil Rights Bill signing speech (1964)
- America
A colored man is precisely as much entitled to submit his candidacy in a party primary, as is any other citizen. The decision must be made by the constituents to whom he offers himself, and by nobody else.
Calvin Coolidge1872–1933Letter to Charles F. Gardner (1924)
- Politics