... if you're poor and ignorant, with a child, you're a slave. Meaning that you're never going to get out of it. These women are in bondage to a kind of slavery that the 13th Amendment just didn't deal with. The old master provided food, clothing and health care to the slaves because he wanted them to get up and go to work in the morning. And so on welfare: you get food, clothing and shelter--you get survival, but you can't really do anything else. You can't control your life.
Joycelyn EldersAs long as I was in Washington I never met anybody that I thought was good enough, who knew enough, or who loved enough to make sexual decisions for anybody else.
Joycelyn EldersWho is the NRA anyway? They are usually middle-income people who only think of themselves, who want to have no government, really, except self-rule by themselves. I think that little cracks are starting to emerge in the NRA armor.
Joycelyn EldersI always say my God will take care of me. If it's my time I'll go, and if it's not I won't. I feel that He really has a lot of important things for me to do. And He's going to make sure that I'm here to do them.
Joycelyn EldersJudge Thomas was a man who had used the system to get where he wanted to be, but then felt that everyone else should pull themselves up by their own bootstraps.
Joycelyn EldersHomicide, often involving guns, is a disease that is the leading cause of death for young black men, and the second-leading cause of death for all people aged fifteen to twenty-four. That makes it the leading health issue, particularly when guns are used in combination with drugs and alcohol. And the statistics show that is most often the case.
Joycelyn Elders