Whatever the white man has done, we have done, and often better.

Education is the great American adventure, the world's most colossal democratic experiment.

What does the Negro want? His answer is very simple. He wants only what all other Americans want. He wants opportunity to make real what the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and the Bill of Rights say, what the Four Freedoms establish. While he knows these ideals are open to no man completely, he wants only his equal chance to obtain them.

The drums of Africa still beat in my heart. They will not let me rest while there is a single Negro boy or girl without a chance to prove his worth.

If we have the courage and tenacity of our forebears, who stood firmly like a rock against the lash of slavery, we shall find a way to do for our day what they did for theirs.

The whole world opened to me when I learned to read.

There is a place in God's sun for the youth "farthest down" who has the vision, the determination, and the courage to reach it.