The Constitution they wrote was designed to protect the rights of white, male citizens. As there were no black Founding Fathers, there were no founding mothers - a great pity, on both counts. It is not too late to complete the work they left undone. Today, here, we should start to do so.

When morality comes up against profit, it is seldom that profit loses.

That I am a national figure because I was the first person in 192 years to be at once a congressman, black, and a woman proves, I would think, that our society is not yet either just or free.

Defeat should not be the source of discouragement, but a stimulus to keep plotting.

My God, what do we want? What does any human being want? Take away an accident of pigmentation of a thin layer of our outer skin and there is no difference between me and anyone else. All we want is for that trivial difference to make no difference.

Tremendous amounts of talent are lost to our society just because that talent wears a skirt.

As there were no black Founding Fathers, there were no founding mothers - a great pity, on both counts.