race relations quotes

Until blacks and whites see each other as brother and sister, we will not have parity. It’s very clear.

As far as I knew white women were never lonely, except in books. White men adored them, Black men desired them and Black women worked for them.

Sabotage did not involve loss of life, and it offered the best hope for future race relations. Bitterness would be kept to a minimum and, if the policy bore fruit, democratic government could become a reality.

The Negro needs the white man to free him from his fears. The white man needs the Negro to free him from his guilt.

I came across few whites as a boy at Qunu. The local magistrate, of course, was white, as was the nearest shopkeeper. Occasionally, white travelers or policemen passed through our area. These whites appeared as grand as gods to me, and I was aware that they were to be treated with a mixture of fear and respect.

I want to be the white man’s brother, not his brother-in-law.

Yup, the whole birther movement was racist.

Yeah, I did see where the people dissing me were coming from. But, it’s like, anything that happened in the past between black and white, I can’t really speak on it, because I wasn’t there. I don’t feel like me being born the color I am makes me any less of a person.

For goodness sake, will they hear, will white people hear what we are trying to say? Please, all we are asking you to do is to recognize that we are humans, too.

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.

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.

The only thing that white people have that black people need, or should want, is power-and no one holds power forever.

Education is indoctrination if you’re white – subjugation if you’re black.

I cannot salute the flag; I know that I am a black man in a white world. In 1972, in 1947, at my birth in 1919, I know that I never had it made.

To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time.

The reason people think it’s important to be white is that they think it’s important not to be black.

The country has come a long way in race relations, but the pendulum swings so far back. Everyone wants to be so sensitive.

I’m very proud to be black, but black is not all I am. That’s my cultural historical background, my genetic makeup, but it’s not all of who I am nor is it the basis from which I answer every question.

No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem.

The trouble with our people is as soon as they got out of slavery they didn’t want to give the white man nothing else. But the fact is, you got to give em something. Either your money, your land, your woman or your ass.

We do not want the men of another color for our brothers-in-law, but we do want them for our brothers.

You know, one race will not be a survivor if the other one dies, and that’s something that we should think about.