Ruby Bridges Quotes

The idea that America elected a black man to be its president forty years after it declined to allow Martin Luther King Jr. to stand on a balcony without getting shot still maintains its power to awe and inspire.

I saw my father preach in Madison Square Garden, and I was a little embarrassed, I think, the first time I heard him preach. That's my father up there, and I kind of slid down in my chair.

In the United States, the Supreme Court's decision of 1954, outlawing segregation in school systems, was greeted with mixed feelings of hope and skepticism by African-Americans.

Being on the cover of a magazine with my son is the best thing ever. It took me 18 years to get my first cover, he gets one at 8 months.

I love New York. I first came here with my Mom when I was in 9th grade. I took the subway for the first time and the doors closed between me and my Mom, and I was so scared. I could see her through the window and I didn't know what to do. I got off at the next stop and she caught up to me, but I couldn't stop crying.

My earliest memory is seeing Michael Jackson in Melbourne with my sister when I was about ten. I still have this souvenir stick with a glove that would light up and make a peace sign in a bunch of different colors. I'm so happy my mom didn't throw that out.

In the summer of 1964, my sister and I went to South Ballston, Virginia, to stay with my aunt and her kids. They passed the civil rights bill that summer; my cousins were so happy because now they could swim in the pool.

Being a mom is really the greatest role in my life.

Brown versus the Board of Education is no longer the white person's problem.

One of the roles I hold really close to my heart is a small 'under-five' role I did on 'The Young and the Restless.' I think I did about four episodes and it meant so much to me, simply because it was my mom's all-time favorite soap.

For some people, home is family and their mom's house or their girl or whatever, and I have those experiences as well, but the biggest thing for me is Chicago.

It was mother's day. A lot of policemen were at home with their mothers.

If you decide to walk into the schools with the little colored kids, take me along, Daddy. God bless you.

Katherine Johnson actually integrated the public university in West Virginia. And Mary Jackson had to petition state courts to be allowed to attend an all-white college to get the qualifications needed to become an engineer. At every turn, these women were involved in the Second World War, the Cold War, the civil rights movement.

I was the first black child to desegregate the all-white William Frantz Elementary School in Louisiana in 1960.

Being dragged off that bus was worth it just to see Barack Obama become president, because so many others gave their lives and didn't get to see it, and I thank God for letting me see it.

If you will protest courageously, and yet with dignity and Christian love, when the history books are written in future generations, the historians will have to pause and say, "There lived a great people-a black people-who injected new meaning and dignity into the veins of civilization.

I never thought my granny, somebody that was born down South, who witnessed America when it was segregated, would see, in her lifetime, an African-American in office as the President of the United States. It's major, it's a real historic day.

A revolution is bloody, but America is in a unique position. She's the only country in history in a position actually to become involved in a bloodless revolution. The Russian revolution was bloody, Chinese revolution was bloody, French revolution was bloody, Cuban revolution was bloody, and there was nothing more bloody then the American Revolution. But today this country can become involved in a revolution that won't take bloodshed. All she's got to do is give the black man in this country everything that's due him, everything.

Without Coretta Scott King, there would not have been a Martin Luther King, Jr. in the way that we know him.

But something stirred across the country because of what happened in Selma, Alabama, because some folks were willing to march across a bridge. And so they [my parents] got together, Barack Obama Jr. was born. So don't tell me I don't have a claim on Selma, Alabama. Don't tell me I'm not coming home when I come to Selma, Alabama.

It's a good time for black people to be alive.

Abraham Lincoln freed the black man. In many ways, Dr. King freed the white man. How did he accomplish this tremendous feat? Where others - white and black - preached hatred, he taught the principles of love and nonviolence.

In the U.S., African- Americans, no matter what we do - when we sit in, when we freedom ride, when we kneel in, whatever it is, the initial response from the public tends to be overwhelmingly negative, because basically we're kind of raining on folks' parades. As time goes on, the Muhammad Ali's and all the people that raised those issues, they then become heroes later when people reflect on the courage they showed and the issues that they raised. And Donald Trump is in danger of being a more and more reviled figure as the years go on.

I never followed a band, I never followed a - nothing. I think maybe it's because my mom and dad were not like that, and it was just me and mom and dad. We were very close; we spent a lot of time just together, just enjoying each other's company.