My father was a slave and my people died to build this country and I am going to stay here and have a part of it just like you.

Artists are the gate keepers of truth. We are civilization’s radical voice.

We must join with the tens of millions all over the world who see in peace our most sacred responsibility.

The patter of their feet as they walk through Jim Crow barriers to attend school is the thunder of the marching men of Joshua, and the world rocks beneath their tread.

Through my singing and acting and speaking, I want to make freedom ring. Maybe I can touch people's hearts better than I can their minds, with the common struggle of the common man.

We ask for nothing that is not ours by right, and herein lies the great moral power of our demand.

This is our home and this is our country. Beneath its soil lie bones of our fathers; for it some of them fought, bled, and died. Here we were born and here we will stay.