Willie Mays Quotes

One of the triumphs of the Civil Rights Movement is that when you travel through the South today, you do not feel overwhelmed by a residue of grievance and hate.

Unless we bring in blacks as full partners, my country won’t be fit for my grandchildren.

In Russia I felt for the first time like a full human being. No color prejudice like in Mississippi, no color prejudice like in Washington. It was the first time I felt like a human being.

I made a lot of friends at school, and they were all Africans. I could have felt very different. I didn't feel different, I didn't notice the color of their skin, I didn't notice the color of my skin and I have remembered that all my life.

The really important victory of the civil rights movement was that it made racism unpopular, whereas a generation ago at the turn of the last century, you had to embrace racism to get elected to anything.

Irishmen and Irishwomen! treat the colored people as your equals, as brethren.

Genius draws no color line.

It's time to get past our racial differences. We owe it to our children to help them keep their clean start.

If one black man aided by a bevy of good, decent, dedicated, and open liberal-minded whites and Jews can succeed in prevailing over a group of white racists by making them look like the ignorant fools that they are truly are, imagine what a nation of like-minded individuals can accomplish.

I remember as a boy when the conversation on civil rights was won in the South. I remember a time when one of my friends made a racist joke and another said, 'Hey man, we don't go for that anymore.'

We beg you to save young America from the blight of race prejudice. Do not bind the children within the narrow circles of your own lives.

Race prejudice can't be talked down, it must be lived down.

I don't think because I hang out with enough black people, I'm gonna turn black. What kind of rationalization is that? I'm just friends with people that I like. I don't care what skin color you are.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

My belief system is that you laugh at racism, and that's how it goes away.

I've never bothered about my color. I never had that thing about being black. If the whole world was like that, maybe there would be more harmony and love. Maybe. I don't have a problem with being black in a white country or being with my people.

In closing I wish to say that while I was sorely beset by a number of white riders in my racing days, I have also enjoyed the friendship of countless thousands of white men whom I class as among my closest friends.

The Negro has been here in America since 1619, a total of 344 years. He is not going anywhere else; this country is his home. He wants to do his part to help make his city, state, and nation a better place for everyone, regardless of color and race.

It demonstrates to his simple mind in the most positive manner that we have no prejudice against him on account of his race, and that while he behaves himself he will be treated the same as a white man.

We can never completely fulfill the promise of this treasured republic if we are blinded by color.

I hope that people will finally come to realize that there is only one 'race' - the human race - and that we are all members of it.

We would like to get to a point in our society where people really are colorblind and this message would not have to be told anymore. Unfortunately, we're not there yet.

Believing that no one is better than the other. You know I grew up in the South. My senior year there was a very big racial tension.

I dream of a post-racial society that is not categorized by the color of their skin.

It doesn't matter how long my hair is or what colour my skin is or whether I'm a woman or a man.