I went to jail 44 times. I've been beaten and left for dead on the side of the road fighting for freedom. . . . Yet Rosa Parks is better known in history than Ralph David Abernathy. Why is that?

I have suffered as much as Martin Luther King. Only I didn't get the bullet. And I would have taken the bullet if I could have.

You may be assured that we won't ever let your words die. Like the words of our Master, Jesus Christ, they will live in our minds and our hearts and in the souls of black men and white men, brown men and yellow men as long as time shall last.

Everything I learned about the Great Depression was from a college textbook.

I am not going to say I have been a saint. I have not been a perfect man. None is perfect but the Father, which is in Heaven.

I loved Martin Luther King more than a brother.

I went to jail 44 times. I've been beaten and left for dead on the side of the road fighting for freedom. . . . Yet Rosa Parks is better known in history than Ralph David Abernathy. Why is that?