My parents taught me that racial prejudice is a sin, one that robs the world of great minds and talents.

I deplored a system that made it more profitable not to work than to work. I wanted to help change all that.

America is the only country in the world that classifies as Negro any person who has one drop of African blood in his or her veins.

To stand still is to regress.

I spent many years working for voting rights, but we still see sophisticated efforts, led by white officials, to disenfranchise black voters in local and national elections.

Labels applied to people of any race are inherently offensive.

You can't say the negro left the Republican party; the negro feels he was evicted from the Republican party.