I never thought about myself as an activist when we were coming along. I wasn't a joiner. You know, I love the people I love. I didn't care whether - they could be a Democrat, Republican, communist, you know, and anything but a racist.
Ruby DeeSpike Lee made such a difference in terms of black filmmakers, the subtleties - those authors, those writers who write from love, and those who write from that lofty position of superiority.I felt he took aspects of the black experience in America and held it up for us to see. He tried to put it in perspective. He did put it in perspective in his unique way.
Ruby DeeI don't want to have my children have to get dressed up to go out to say good morning and deserve to live among some other people. I want to be able to be free and take for granted that my neighbors like me and I like them.
Ruby DeeThat's what being young is all about. You have the courage and the daring to think that you can make a difference. You're not prone to measure your energies in time. You're not likely to live by equations.
Ruby DeeYou meet all kinds of people that help put life in perspective and turn the horror into some kind of lesson or avenue of awakening that lives with you all your days.
Ruby DeeYou just try to do everything that comes up. Get up an hour earlier, stay up an hour later, make the time. Then you look back and say, โWell, that was a neat piece of juggling there -- school, marriage, babies, career.โ The enthusiasms took me through the action, not the measuring of it or the reasonableness.
Ruby Dee