Be as bold as the first man or [woman] to eat an oyster.

My God, what do we want? What does any human being want?

I am not antiwhite, because I understand that white people, like black ones, are victims of a racist society. They are products of their time and place.

As things are now, no one can tell to whom members of Congress are responsible, except that it does not often appear to be to the people. Everyone else is represented in Washington by a rich and powerful lobby, it seems. But there is no lobby for the people.

Service is the rent that you pay for room on this earth.

When I die, I want to be remembered as a woman who lived in the twentieth century and who dared to be a catalyst of change. I don't want to be remembered as the first black woman who went to Congress. And I don't even want to be remembered as the first woman who happened to be black to make a bid for the Presidency I want to be remembered as a woman who fought for change in the twentieth century. That's what I want.

Racism is so universal in this country, so widespread and deepseated, that it is invisible because it is so normal.