It is not heroin or cocaine that makes one an addict, it is the need to escape from a harsh reality. There are more television addicts, more baseball and football addicts, more movie addicts, and certainly more alcohol addicts in this country than there are narcotics addicts.

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.

I’d like them to say that Shirley Chisholm had guts. That’s how I’d like to be remembered.

As a black person I am no stranger to prejudice. But the truth is that in the political world I have been far more often discriminated against because I am a woman than because I am black.

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.

That's what's wrong with the country. There are too many 'good soldiers' accepting too many bad decisions.

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