The white man’s happiness cannot be purchased by the black man’s misery.
—Frederick Douglass (1817–95) American Abolitionist, Author, Editor, Diplomat, Leader
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
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
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
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
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
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
If my theory of relativity is proven successful, Germany will claim me as a German and France will declare that I am a citizen of the world. Should my theory prove untrue, France will say that I am a German and Germany will declare that I am a Jew.
—Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born Physicist
Racism is man’s gravest threat to man—the maximum hatred for a minimum reason.
—Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907–72) American Jewish Rabbi
There are plenty of good reasons for fighting, I said, but no good reason ever to have without reservation, to imagine that God Almighty Himself hates with you, too. Where’s evil? It’s that large part of every man that wants to hate without limit, that wants to hate with God on its side. It’s that part of every man that finds all kinds of ugliness so attractive.
—Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) American Novelist, Short Story Writer
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
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
Racism does not limit itself to biology or economics or psychology or metaphysics; it attacks along many fronts and in many forms, deploying whatever is at hand, and even what is not, inventing when the need arises.
—Albert Memmi (1920–2020) Tunisian Novelist, Essayist
We can go on talking about racism and who treated whom badly, but what are you going to do about it? Are you going to wallow in that or are you going to create your own agenda?
—Judith Jamison (1943–2024) American Dancer, Choreographer, Director of Alvin Ailey
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
No human race is superior; no religious faith is inferior. All collective judgments are wrong. Only racists make them.
—Elie Wiesel (1928–2016) Romanian-American Writer, Professor, Activist
Let us all hope that the dark clouds of racial prejudice will soon pass away and the deep fog of misunderstanding will be lifted from our fear-drenched communities, and in some not too distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over our great nation with all their scintillating beauty.
—Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–68) American Civil Rights Leader, Clergyman
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
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
The worst mistake I made was that stupid, suburban prejudice of anti-Semitism.
—Ezra Pound (1885-1972) American Poet, Translator, Critic
Our true nationality is mankind.
—H. G. Wells (1866–1946) English Novelist, Historian, Social Thinker
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
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
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
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
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
As you grow older, you’ll see white men cheat black men every day of your life, but let me tell you something and don’t you forget it—whenever a white man does that to a black man, no matter who he is, how rich he is, or how fine a family he comes from, that white man is trash.
—Harper Lee (1926–2016) American Novelist
Be nice to whites, they need you to rediscover their humanity.
—Desmond Tutu (b.1931) South African Clergyman
Racism, in the first place, is a weapon used by the wealthy to increase the profits they bring in by paying Black workers less for their work.
—Angela Davis (b.1944) American Political Activist, Academic
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