Diversity Quotes - Page 27

• The time is past when Christians in America can take a long spoon and hand the gospel to the black man out the back door.

  Mordecai Wyatt Johnson

  Christian, Past, Men

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• A man is either free or he is not. There cannot be any apprenticeship for freedom.

  Amiri Baraka

  Freedom, Men, Justice

  Kulchur Spring 1962 "Tokenism"

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• Good poetry and successful revolution change our lives. And you cannot compose a good poem or wage a revolution without changing consciousness unless you attack the language that you share with your enemies and invent a language that you share with your allies.

  June Jordan

  Successful, Justice, Enemy

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• Good words will not give my people good health and stop them from dying. Good words will not get my people a home where they can live in peace and take care of themselves. I am tired of talk that comes to nothing. It makes my heart sick when I remember all the good words and broken promises.

  Chief Joseph

  Home, Tired, Heart

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• All men were made brothers. The earth is the mother of all people, and all people should have equal rights upon it. You might as well expect the rivers to run backward as that any man who was born free should be content when penned up and denied liberty to go where he pleases.

  Chief Joseph

  Mother, Running, Brother

  Lincoln Hall Speech in Washington D.C., January 14, 1879.

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• Suppose a white man should come to me and say, "Joseph, I like your horses. I want to buy them." I say to him, "No, my horses suit me; I will not sell them." Then he goes to my neighbor and says to him, "Joseph has some good horses. I want to buy them, but he refuses to sell." My neighbor answers, "Pay me the money and I will sell you Joseph's horses." The white man returns to me and says, "Joseph, I have bought your horses and you must let me have them." If we sold our lands to the government, this is the way they bought them.

  Chief Joseph

  I Like You, Horse, Native American

  Arguing against the right of the US Government to force his people to leave their lands, 1876.

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• We do not want churches because they will teach us to quarrel about God. We do not want to learn that. We may quarrel with men sometimes about things on this earth, but we never quarrel about the Great Spirit. We do not want to learn that.

  Chief Joseph

  Men, Justice, Church

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• Prejudice squints when it looks and lies when it talks.

  Laure Junot, Duchess of Abrantes

  Lying, Justice, Prejudice

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• Have therefore zeal to better thyself and then mayst thou have zeal to thy neighbor.

  Thomas a Kempis

  Justice, Neighbor, Zeal

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• We feel and weigh soon enough what we suffer from others: but how much others suffer from us, of this we take no heed.

  Thomas a Kempis

  Soon Enough, Justice, Suffering

  Thomas a Kempis (1913). “The Imitation of Christ”

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• In America there must be only citizens, not divided by grade, first and second, but citizens, east, west, north, and south.

  John F. Kennedy

  America, Justice, West

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• We shall be judged more by what we do at home than what we preach abroad.

  John F. Kennedy

  Inspirational, Home, Justice

  Kennedy, John F. (1964). “Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: John F. Kennedy, 1963”, p.15, Best Books on

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• Our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white-separate and unequal.

  Otto Kerner, Jr.

  Moving, Two, White

  Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders introduction (1968)

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• I have lived in the redness of the stones that mark a path through my blood; I am the descendant of a forgotten race, but I carry in my hands the remnants of their fire.

  Mohammed Khair-Eddine

  Blood, Hands, Fire

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• Most of us came here in chains and most of you came here to escape your chains. Your freedom was our slavery, and therein lies the bitter difference in the way we look at life.

  John Oliver Killens

  Lying, Differences, Justice

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• We have to undo the millions of little white lies that America told itself and the world about the American Black man.

  John Oliver Killens

  Lying, Men, White

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• We are not fighting for the right to be like you. We respect ourselves too much for that. When we advocate freedom, we mean freedom for us to be black, or brown, and you to be white, and yet live together in a free and equal society. This is the only way that integration can bring dignity for both of us.

  John Oliver Killens

  Mean, Fighting, White

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• What a tiresome place America would be if freedom meant we all had to think alike or be the same color or wear the same gray flannel suit! That road leads to the conformity of the graveyard!

  John Oliver Killens

  Thinking, Color, America

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• The Negro loves America enough to criticize her fundamentally. Most white Americans simply can't be bothered.

  John Oliver Killens

  White, America, Justice

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• Along with the fight to desegregate schools, we must desegregate the entire cultural statement of America, we must desegregate the minds of the American people or we will find that we have won the battle and lost the war.

  John Oliver Killens

  War, School, Fighting

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• Western man wrote "his" history as if it were the history of the entire human race.

  John Oliver Killens

  Men, Race, Justice

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• America must begin the struggle for democracy at home. The advocacy of free elections in Europe by American officials is hypocrisy when free elections are not held in great sections of America.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Struggle, Home, Europe

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• A society is always eager to cover misdeeds with a cloak of forgetfulness, but no society can fully repress an ugly past when the ravages persist into the present. America owes a debt of justice which it has only begun to pay.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Past, America, Justice

  "Where Do We Go from Here : Chaos or Community?". Book by Martin Luther King, Jr., p. 109, 1967.

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• We have deluded ourselves into believing the myth that capitalism grew and prospered out of the Protestant ethic of hard work and sacrifices. Capitalism was built on the exploitation of black slaves and continues to thrive on the exploitation of the poor, both black and white, both here and abroad.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Believe, Hard Work, Black And White

  "Secretary Zinke, we can't afford to ignore diversity" by Andre Perry, www.cnn.com. March 27, 2018.

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• All life is interrelated. The agony of the poor impoverishes the rich; the betterment of the poor enriches the rich. We are inevitably our brother's keeper because we are our brother's brother. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Brother, Agony, Justice

  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (2013). “"In a Single Garment of Destiny": A Global Vision of Justice”, p.88, Beacon Press

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