To the contrary, the government they devised was defective from the start, requiring several amendments, a civil war and momentous social transformation to attain the system of constitutional government, and its respect for the individual freedoms and human rights, we hold as fundamental today.

To protest against injustice is the foundation of all our American democracy.

[It is] a historic step toward eliminating the shameful practice of racial discrimination in the selection of juries.

Sometimes history takes things into its own hands.

Lawlessness is lawlessness. Anarchy is anarchy is anarchy. Neither race nor color nor frustration is an excuse for either lawlessness or anarchy.

[T]he Constitution was a product of its times. [Progressive]

Today's Constitution is a realistic document of freedom only because of several corrective amendments. Those amendments speak to a sense of decency and fairness that I and other Blacks cherish.