Racism is man’s gravest threat to man—the maximum hatred for a minimum reason.
—Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907–72) American Jewish Rabbi
In all manifestations of racism from the mildest to the most severe, what is being denied is the possibility that the racializers and the racialized can coexist in the same society, except perhaps on the basis of domination and subordination.
—George M. Fredrickson (1934–2008) American Historian, Professor
The worst mistake I made was that stupid, suburban prejudice of anti-Semitism.
—Ezra Pound (1885-1972) American Poet, Translator, Critic
A child born to a Black mother in a state like Mississippi has exactly the same rights as a white baby born to the wealthiest person in the United States. It’s not true, but I challenge anyone to say it is not a goal worth working for.
—Thurgood Marshall (1908–93) American Jurist
In order to get beyond racism, we must first take account of race. There is no other way. And in order to treat some persons equally, we must treat them differently.
—Harry A. Blackmun (1908–99) American Jurist, Justice
Our true nationality is mankind.
—H. G. Wells (1866–1946) English Novelist, Historian, Social Thinker
I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed. Out of the hard and unusual struggle through which he is compelled to pass, he gets a strength, a confidence, that one misses whose pathway is comparatively smooth by reason of birth and race.
—Booker T. Washington (1856–1915) African-American Educationist
I am black: I am the incarnation of a complete fusion with the world, an intuitive understanding of the earth, an abandonment of my ego in the heart of the cosmos, and no white man, no matter how intelligent he may be, can ever understand Louis Armstrong and the music of the Congo.
—Frantz Fanon (1925–61) French-Martinique Psychoanalyst, Philosopher
Where do you think I’d be next week if I didn’t know how to shout and holler and make the public take notice? I’d be poor and I’d probably be down in my home town, washing windows or running an elevator and saying
—Muhammad Ali (1942–2016) American Sportsperson
I graduated pretty quickly. When I was eleven or twelve a close friend of the family got lynched. I guess he was about forty years old, married, and we used to play with his kids. I remember the Saturday night a bunch of white men beat him to death at the Decatur fairgrounds because he sassed back a white woman. They just left him dead on the ground. Everyone in town knew it but never said a word in public. I went down and saw his bloody clothes. They left those clothes on a fence for about a year. Every Negro in town was supposed to get the message from those clothes and I can see those clothes now in my mind’s eye…. But nothing was said in public. No sermons in church. No news. No protest. It was as though this man just dissolved except for the bloody clothes…. Just before I went into the Army I began wondering how long I could stand it. I used to watch the Saturday night sport of white men trying to run down a Negro with their car, or white gangs coming through town to beat up a Negro.
—Medgar Evers (1925–63) American Civil Rights Activist
The white man’s happiness cannot be purchased by the black man’s misery.
—Frederick Douglass (1817–95) American Abolitionist, Author, Editor, Diplomat, Leader
The first who attracts the eye, the first in enlightenment, in power and in happiness, is the white man, the European, man par excellence; below him appear the Negro and the Indian. These two unfortunate races have neither birth, nor face, nor language, nor mores in common; only their misfortunes look alike. Both occupy an equally inferior position in the country that they inhabit; both experience the effects of tyranny; and if their miseries are different, they can accuse the same author for them.
—Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–59) French Historian, Political Scientist
It is incontestable and deplorable that Negroes have committed crimes; but they are derivative crimes. They are born of the greater crimes of the white society.
—Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–68) American Civil Rights Leader, Clergyman
At the heart of racism is the religious assertion that God made a creative mistake when He brought some people into being
—Frederick Hertz (1878–1964) Austrian Sociologist, Historian
I am not ashamed to use the word class. I will also plead guilty to another charge. The charge is that people belonging to my class think they’re better than other people. You’re damn right we’re better. We’re better because we do not shirk our obligations either to ourselves or to others. . . .we live by our lights, we die by our lights, and whoever the high gods may be, we’ll look them in the eye without apology.
—Walker Percy (1916–90) American Novelist
The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color-line—the relation of the darker to the lighter races of men in Asia and Africa, in America and the islands of the sea. It was a phase of this problem that caused the Civil War.
—W. E. B. Du Bois (1868–1963) American Sociologist, Social Reformer
In the racial picture things will never be as they once were. History has reached a turning point, here and over the world.
—Medgar Evers (1925–63) American Civil Rights Activist
There is a class of colored people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Having learned that they are able to make a living out of their troubles, they have grown into the settled habit of advertising their wrongs-partly because they want sympathy and partly because it pays. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs.
—Booker T. Washington (1856–1915) African-American Educationist
There aren’t too many people ready to die for racism. They’ll kill for racism but they won’t die for racism.
—Florynce Kennedy (1916–2000) American Lawyer, Activist, Author
Racism rests upon and functions as a kind of seesaw: the persecutor rises by debasing and inferiorizing his victim.
—Albert Memmi (1920–2020) Tunisian Novelist, Essayist
When we’re unemployed, we’re called lazy; when the whites are unemployed it’s called a depression.
—Jesse Jackson (b.1941) American Civil Rights Leader, Minister
And so this is Xmas for black and for white, for yellow and red, let’s stop all the fight.
—John Lennon (1940–80) British Singer, Songwriter, Musician, Activist
Be nice to whites, they need you to rediscover their humanity.
—Desmond Tutu (b.1931) South African Clergyman
Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgment Seat;
But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,
When two strong men stand face to face,
tho’ they come from the ends of the earth!
—Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) British Writer, Poet, Novelist, Short Story Author
I do not think white America is committed to granting equality to the American Negro… this is a passionately racist country; it will continue to be so in the foreseeable future.
—Susan Sontag (1933–2004) American Writer, Philosopher
When a black Jacksonian looks about his home community, he sees a city of over 150,000, of which 40% is Negro, in which there is not a single Negro policeman or policewoman, school crossing guard, or fireman.
—Medgar Evers (1925–63) American Civil Rights Activist
The modern definition of ‘racist’ is someone who is winning an argument with a liberal.
—Peter Brimelow (b.1947) British-American Journalist
I am fifty-two years of age. I am a bishop in the Anglican Church, and a few people might be constrained to say that I was reasonably responsible. In the land of my birth I cannot vote, whereas a young person of eighteen can vote. And why? Because he or she possesses that wonderful biological attribute—a white skin.
—Desmond Tutu (b.1931) South African Clergyman
Until the philosophy which holds one race superior and another inferior is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned, everywhere is war and until there are no longer first-class and second-class citizens of any nation, until the color of a man’s skin is of no more significance than the color of his eyes. And until the basic human rights are equally guaranteed to all without regard to race, there is war. And until that day, the dream of lasting peace, world citizenship, rule of international morality, will remain but a fleeting illusion to be pursued, but never attained… now everywhere is war.
—Haile Selassie
Collective fear stimulates herd instinct, and tends to produce ferocity toward those who are not regarded as members of the herd.
—Bertrand A. Russell (1872–1970) British Philosopher, Mathematician, Social Critic
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