Quotes · Skopia

22 quotes

The thirteenth amendment secured them freedom; the fourteenth amendment due process of law, protection of property, and the pursuit of happiness; and the fifteenth amendment attempted to secure the negro against any deprivation of the privilege to vote because he was a negro. The thirteenth and fourteenth amendments have been generally enforced and have secured the objects for which they are intended. While the fifteenth amendment has not been generally observed in the past, it ought to be observed.

William Howard Taft

Inaugural Address of William Howard Taft · 1909

★ 1.0

Speech · Political speech

We have talked long enough in this country about equal rights. We have talked for one hundred years or more. It is time now to write the next chapter, and to write it in the books of law.

Lyndon B. Johnson

1963

★ 1.9

Speech · Political speech

Under our institutions there was no middle ground for the negro race between slavery and equal citizenship. There can be no permanent disfranchised peasantry in the United States.

James A. Garfield

Inaugural Address of James A. Garfield · 1881

★ 1.9

Speech · Political speech

No man can be fully free while his neighbor is not. To go forward at all is to go forward together. This means black and white together, as one nation, not two. The laws have caught up with our conscience. What remains is to give life to what is in the law: to ensure at last that as all are born equal in dignity before God, all are born equal in dignity before man.

Richard Nixon

First Inaugural Address of Richard Nixon · 1969

★ 1.9

Interview

Maybe you can't override prejudice overnight, but the Emancipation Proclamation was issued in 1863, ninety-odd years ago. I believe in gradualism. I also believe that ninety-odd years is pretty gradual.

Thurgood Marshall

1987

★ 1.9

Speech · Political speech

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. Grant

Second Inaugural Address of Ulysses S. Grant · 1873

★ 2.0

Speech · Political speech

We are not fighting for integration, nor are we fighting for separation. We are fighting for recognition as human beings. We are fighting for...human rights.

Malcolm X

1964

★ 2.0

Political literature

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall...abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

James Madison

1789

★ 2.1

Speech

Judicial decrees may not change the heart, but they can restrain the heartless.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

The Ethical Demands for Integration · 1962

★ 2.1

Autobiography and memoir

People always say that I didn't give up my seat because I was tired, but that isn't true... No. The only tired I was was tired of giving in.

Rosa Parks

1992

★ 2.2

Essay

What, then, does the Negro want? His answer is very simple. He wants only what all Americans want. He wants opportunity to make real what the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and the Bill of Rights say, what the Four Freedoms establish. While he knows these ideals are open to no man completely, he wants only his equal chance to obtain them.

Mary McLeod Bethune

1944

★ 3.5

Political speech

By a plan known only to Providence, the stolen sons and daughters of Africa helped to awaken the conscience of America. The very people traded into slavery helped set America free. My nation's journey toward justice has not been easy, and it is not over. The racial bigotry fed by slavery did not end with slavery or with segregation. And many of the issues that still trouble America have roots in the bitter experience of other times. But however long the journey, our destination is set: liberty and justice for all.

George W. Bush

2003

★ 3.6

Open letter · Letter

The Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Councillor or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Letter from Birmingham Jail · 1963

★ 3.9

Open letter · Letter

"Wait" has almost always meant "Never."

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Letter from Birmingham Jail · 1963

★ 4.0

Supreme Court opinion · Legal opinion · Legal writing

To separate them from others of similar age and qualifications solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone... We conclude that, in the field of public education, the doctrine of "separate but equal" has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.

Earl Warren

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka · 1954

★ 5.3

Speech

Like anybody, I would like to live a long life; longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the promised land. And I'm happy tonight, I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

I See the Promised Land · 1968

★ 5.4

Government action is not the whole answer to the present crisis, but it is an important partial answer. Morals cannot be legislated, but behavior can be regulated. The law cannot make an employer love me, but it can keep him from refusing to hire me because of the color of my skin.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

1958

★ 6.2

Speech · Political speech

Segregation now, segregation tomorrow and segregation forever!

George Wallace

1963

★ 6.9

Song

I was born by the river In a little tent And just like the river I've been runnin' ever since It's been a long, a long time comin' But I know a change gon' come.

Sam Cooke

A Change Is Gonna Come · 1964

★ 7.0

Sermon

We shall overcome because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

1968

★ 7.1

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