Shirley Chisholm Quotes

I, with millions of other Americans, have the same dream Martin Luther King Jr. had; when I wake up I wish some of the things I dreamt would be true. I wish that little black and white boys and girls would hold hands without being shocked at their nearness to each other and say in a natural way, "we have overcome.

I have a dream that one day little black boys and girls will be holding hands with little white boys and girls.

Let us stop saying 'white Americans' and 'colored Americans,' let us try once and for all saying... Americans. Let human beings be equal on Earth as in Heaven.

If we Americans are to survive it will have to be because we choose and elect and defend to be first of all Americans; to present to the world one homogeneous and unbroken front, whether of white Americans or black ones or purple or blue or green.

There's one race on this planet. It's called the human race. We're all the same. To me, there is absolutely nothing that has color to do with it.

It will be helpful in our mutual objective to allow every man in America to look his neighbor in the face and see a man - not a color.

My flock is black, my flock is white. One has got to say to our people, "I love you. I care for you, enormously." And when I care about black liberation, it is because I care about white liberation.

The idea of racial inferiority or superiority is foreign to me. I can't feel inferior or superior to another man because of race, or in any way antagonistic to him. I judge by the individual, not by his race, and have always done so. I would rather have one of my children marry into a good family of any race than into a bad family of any other race.

What's good for Blacks is good for all of America.

There is no scriptural basis for segregation. The ground at the foot of the cross is level, and it touches my heart when I see whites standing shoulder to shoulder with blacks at the cross.

Until justice is blind to color, until education is unaware of race, until opportunity is unconcerned with the color of men's skins, emancipation will be a proclamation but not a fact.

I never had that thing about being black. If the whole world was like that, maybe there would be more harmony and love.

In my Philly neighborhood, black and white kids hung together without even thinking about it. The spirit of Martin Luther King was alive and well.

Until blacks and whites see each other as brother and sister, we will not have parity. It's very clear.

Welcome to post-racial America. I'm the face of post-racial America.

My black brothers and sisters - of all religious beliefs, or of no religious beliefs - we all have in common the greatest binding tie we could have. We are all black people!

There is not a liberal America and a conservative America - there is the United States of America. There is not a black America and a white America and latino America and asian America - there's the United States of America.

I see the face of a child. He lives in a great city. He is black. Or he is white. He is Mexican, Italian, Polish. None of that matters. What matters, he's an American child.

And my point was one I think that you'd agree with, which is there's no room in America for a black racist, a Latino racist, or a white racist, or an Asian racist, or a Native American racist. Now, we're either color blind or we're not color blind.

One of the most special things about the city of New Orleans is how diverse a people we really are. There's been a new generation of individuals that have all grown up together, so I don't really see myself as a White mayor. I've never seen New Orleans as a Black city.

Races didn't bother the Americans. They were something a lot better than any race. They were a People. They were the first self-constituted, self-declared, self-created People in the history of the world.

Forget our special grievances and close ranks shoulder to shoulder with our white fellow-citizens.

They shall forever be a part of the United States.

The American idea is a free church in a free state, and a free and unsectarian public school in every ward and every village with its door wide open to children of all races and every creed.

Everything works harmoniously now. Even the small planters (Spanish) are giving in their adhesion to the present disposition of affairs, going so far, in some cases, as to send their own children to ask admittance into this school. I have now some half-dozen of the small planters who come to my night-school, where they recite on the same benches with the freedmen. This I consider progress