There is no Negro problem. There is no Southern problem. There is no Northern problem. There is only an American problem. And we are met here tonight as Americans — not as Democrats or Republicans — we are met here as Americans to solve that problem.
This was the first nation in the history of the world to be founded with a purpose. The great phrases of that purpose still sound in every American heart, North and South: “All men are created equal” — “government by consent of the governed” — “give me liberty or give me death.” Well, those are not just clever words, or those are not just empty theories. In their name Americans have fought and died for two centuries, and tonight around the world they stand there as guardians of our liberty, risking their lives.
Those words are a promise to every citizen that he shall share in the dignity of man. This dignity cannot be found in a man’s possessions; it cannot be found in his power, or in his position. It really rests on his right to be treated as a man equal in opportunity to all others. It says that he shall share in freedom, he shall choose his leaders, educate his children, and provide for his family according to his ability and his merits as a human being.
To apply any other test — to deny a man his hopes because of his color or race, his religion or the place of his birth — is not only to do injustice, it is to deny America and to dishonor the dead who gave their lives for American freedom.Lyndon B. Johnson (1908-1973) American politician, educator, US President (1963-69)
Speech (1965-03-15), “The American Promise,” Joint Session of Congress [07:41]
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Quotations about:
black
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Hey, you know something people?
I’m not black
but there’s a whole lots a times
I wish I could say I’m not white.Frank Zappa (1940-1993) American singer-songwriter
“Trouble Every Day” (1965)
(Source)
Zappa wrote the song during the Watts Riots of August 1966. It was released (as "Trouble Comin' Every Day") by Zappa's group, "The Mothers of Invention," on their debut album, Freak Out! in 1966.
Being a star has made it possible for me to get insulted in places where the average Negro could never hope to go and get insulted.
Sammy Davis, Jr. (1925-1990) American singer, dancer, actor, comedian
Yes I Can, Part 3, ch. 3 (1965)
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At the root of the American Negro problem is the necessity of the American White man to find a way of living with the Negro in order to be able to live with himself.
James Baldwin (1924-1987) American novelist, playwright, activist
“Stranger in a Village,” Harper’s Magazine (Oct 1953)
(Source)
Reprinted in Notes of a Native Son (1955).
To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time.
James Baldwin (1924-1987) American novelist, playwright, activist
In “The Negro After Watts,” Time (27 Aug 1965)
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Article placed in the Congressional Record by Robert Byrd (24 Aug 1965).
We must not seek to use our emerging freedom and our growing power to do the same thing to the white minority that has been done to us for so many centuries. Our aim must never be to defeat or humiliate the white man. We must not become victimized with a philosophy of black supremacy. God is not interested merely in freeing black men and brown men and yellow men, but God is interested in freeing the whole human race.
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman, civil rights leader, social activist, preacher
“Give Us the Ballot,” Speech, Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom, Washington, DC (1957)
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White Americans must recognize that justice for black people cannot be achieved without radical changes in the structure of our society. The comfortable, entrenched, the privileged cannot continue to tremble at the prospect of change of the status quo. There is no separate white path to power and fulfillment, short of social disaster, that does not share power with black aspirations for freedom and human dignity.
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman, civil rights leader, social activist, preacher
Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? (1967)
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In a sense we’ve come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the “unalienable Rights” of “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked “insufficient funds.”
But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so, we’ve come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.
I am America. I am the part you won’t recognize. But get used to me. Black, confident, cocky; my name, not yours; my religion, not yours; my goals, my own; get used to me.
Muhammad Ali (1942-2016) American boxer, activist [b. Cassius Clay]
Quoted in New York Times (21 Nov 1965)
