Most Americans have never seen the ignorance, degradation, hunger, sickness, and futility in which many other Americans live...They won't become involved in economic or political change until something brings the seriousness of the situation home to them.

Laws will not eliminate prejudice from the hearts of human beings. But that is no reason to allow prejudice to continue to be enshrined in our laws - to perpetuate injustice through inaction.

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

Congress seems drugged and inert most of the time... its idea of meeting a problem is to hold hearings or, in extreme cases, to appoint a commission.

Some members of Congress are among the best actors in the world.

America has the laws and the material resources it takes to insure justice for all its people. What it lacks is the heart, the humanity.

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.