I believe that a child going without an education is a crime.

I do not expect the white media to create positive black male images.

You definitely want your kids to understand their heritage, but I don’t want my kids to just focus on being black. They are people. I don’t want them to judge other people or to be judged. I want them to be good people, so good people will treat them accordingly. I preach that to my kids and everything else falls into place.

There’s not an American in this country free until every one of us is free.

All men are by nature equal, made all of the same earth by one Workman; and however we deceive ourselves, as dear unto God is the poor peasant as the mighty prince.

There is no question that liberals do an impressive job of expressing concern for blacks. But do the intentions expressed in their words match the actual consequences of their deeds?

I think we must get rid of slavery, or we must get rid of freedom.

I detest racialism, because I regard it as a barbaric thing, whether it comes from a black man or a white man.

I personally have always been in favor of people who are gay being permitted to marry legally – and I still feel that way.

George Bush doesn’t care about black people.

A black person grows up in this country – and in many places – knowing that racism will be as familiar as salt to the tongue. Also, it can be as dangerous as too much salt. I think that you must struggle for betterment for yourself and for everyone.

Those who ‚abjure‘ violence can do so only because others are committing violence on their behalf.

It would make everything I worked for meaningless if baseball is integrated but political parties were segregated.

Slavery takes hold of few, but many take hold of slavery.

The truth is, no one of us can be free until everybody is free.

If physical death is the price that I must pay to free my white brothers and sisters from a permanent death of the spirit, then nothing can be more redemptive.

I stand for anti-bigotry, anti-Semitism, and anti-racism.

I think organized labor is a necessary part of democracy. Organized labor is the only way to have fair distribution of wealth.

Violence as a way of achieving racial justice is both impractical and immoral. I am not unmindful of the fact that violence often brings about momentary results. Nations have frequently won their independence in battle. But in spite of temporary victories, violence never brings permanent peace.

Those who invest in South Africa should not think they are doing us a favor; they are here for what they get out of our cheap and abundant labor, and they should know that they are buttressing one of the most vicious systems.

The fact is that ours is the first generation that can look disease and extreme poverty in the eye, look across the ocean to Africa, and say this, and mean it. We do not have to stand for this. A whole continent written off – we do not have to stand for this.

The vote is the most powerful instrument ever devised by man for breaking down injustice and destroying the terrible walls which imprison men because they are different from other men.

Black Power is giving power to people who have not had power to determine their destiny.

Our Declaration of Independence was held sacred by all and thought to include all; but now, to aid in making the bondage of the Negro universal and eternal, it is assailed, sneered at, construed, hawked at, and torn, till, if its framers could rise from their graves, they could not at all recognize it.

The ideals and principles for which Dr King fought have never been forgotten and are as relevant today as they were 40 years ago.

Income inequity has to be addressed.

I am a strong believer that without justice, there is no peace. No lasting peace, anyway.

‚Whole Women’s Health‘ made it very clear that poor women were no longer going to be left out.

The man who could go to Africa and rob her of her children, and then sell them into interminable bondage, with no other motive than that which is furnished by dollars and cents, is so much worse than the most depraved murderer that he can never receive pardon at my hand.

The former colonies, in Latin America in particular, have a better chance than ever before to overcome centuries of subjugation, violence and foreign intervention, which they have so far survived as dependencies with islands of luxury in a sea of misery.

I had had a continuing smoldering fury about the treatment of Jews in Germany.

What is black empowerment when it seems to benefit not the vast majority but an elite that tends to be recycled?

Justice and power must be brought together, so that whatever is just may be powerful, and whatever is powerful may be just.

All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.

I’ve been fighting with Acorn, alongside Acorn, on issues you care about, my entire career.

If you’re white and you’re wrong, then you’re wrong; if you’re black and you’re wrong, you’re wrong. People are people. Black, blue, pink, green – God make no rules about color; only society make rules where my people suffer, and that why we must have redemption and redemption now.

If I were a Negro, I’d be fighting, as Martin Luther King fought, for human recognition and justice. I’d rather go down with my flag flying. If you’re weak or crippled, or you can’t speak out or fight back in some way, then people don’t hesitate to treat you badly.

Hating people because of their color is wrong. And it doesn’t matter which color does the hating. It’s just plain wrong.

There is no scriptural basis for segregation.

We don’t want to promote any system that treats the fact that an individual is LGBT as a personality disorder. And anything that perpetuates that perception is harmful – not only to that member of the community but the entire community.

I should like to know if, taking this old Declaration of Independence, which declares that all men are equal upon principle, you begin making exceptions to it, where will you stop? If one man says it does not mean a Negro, why not another say it does not mean some other man?

You can’t put democracy and freedom back into a box.

Reproductive choice has to be straightened out. There will never be a woman of means without choice anymore. That just seems to me so obvious. The states that changed their abortion laws before Roe are not going to change back. So we have a policy that only affects poor women, and it can never be otherwise.

If you’re low-income in the United States, you have a higher chance of going to jail than you do of getting a four-year degree. And that doesn’t seem entirely fair.

In the white community, the path to a more perfect union means acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination – and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past – are real and must be addressed.

Discrimination is a hellhound that gnaws at Negroes in every waking moment of their lives to remind them that the lie of their inferiority is accepted as truth in the society dominating them.

If I had been white with the things I did, they never would have allowed me to get out of baseball.

Africa is a continent in flames. And deep down, if we really accepted that Africans were equal to us, we would all do more to put the fire out. We’re standing around with watering cans, when what we really need is the fire brigade.

It’s always going to be a fight for anyone who isn’t an older white man. I want to fight for anyone who doesn’t have a fight.

The battle for women’s rights has been largely won.

When the rich wage war, it’s the poor who die.

If you want to appeal to everyone, you can’t do a world tour and expect black people to show up at every date – when you’re in Australia, when you’re in Dubai, when you’re in Indonesia.

I hate the way they portray us in the media. If you see a black family it says they’re looting, if you see a white family it says they’re looking for food.

Peace and justice are two sides of the same coin.

What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?

A riot is the language of the unheard.

In the summer of 1966, I went to Mississippi to be in the heart of the civil-rights movement, helping people who had been thrown off the farms or taken off the welfare roles for registering to vote. While working there, I met the civil-rights lawyer I later married – we became an interracial couple.

Discrimination has a lot of layers that make it tough for minorities to get a leg up.

White people just don’t want their slaves to be free. That’s the whole thing.

I think the self-burning itself on practice of non-violence. These people, you see, they easily use bomb explosive, more casualty people. But they didn’t do that. Only sacrifice their own life. So this also is part of practice of non-violence.

Unrestrained liberalism only makes the strong stronger and the weak weaker and excludes the most excluded.