John Oliver Killens Quotes

I look forward confidently to the day when all who work for a living will be one with no thought to their separateness as Negroes, Jews, Italians or any other distinctions. This will be the day when we bring into full realization the American dream -- a dream yet unfulfilled.

The Girl Scouts are a force for desegregation.

I am not in favor of caste, nor separation of the brotherhood of mankind, and would as willingly live among white men as Black, if I had equal possession and enjoyment of privileges, but I shall never be reconciled living among them subservient to their will.

In some perfect world where human nature is less messy and history less fraught, any and all people who had ever suffered discrimination would find common cause, gathering together under one big anti-bigotry banner.

At the end of the day, if millions of people come together and say, we are not going to be a xenophobic society, we are not going to be throwing millions of Latinos out of this country, we are not going to be a racist society, we're not going to be a sexist society, we will prevail.

I want a better world, I want love and harmony amongst people no matter what color you are, what race or what background you come from or sexual orientation.

To divide along the lines of section or caste or creed is un-American.

Too small is our world to allow discrimination, bigotry and intolerance to thrive in any corner of it, let alone in the United States of America.

Brown v. Board helped unite us all, and gave us all great pride knowing we all are truly E Pluribus Unum - one people out of many.

The legal battle against segregation is won, but the community battle goes on.

Desegregation is a joke.

The Supreme Court is having a hard time integrating schools. What chance do I have to integrate audiences?

The white and colored people of this country [can] be blended into a common nationality…

I was raised in a desegregated neighborhood.

It's what the people wanted at the time, but the country could not be half-segregated and half-integrated, just as it could not be half-slave and half-free back in the 1800s.

Once my school was integrated, and I was there with white kids and a few black kids, it really didn't matter to us what we looked like.

C'mon everybody, yeah, this is your life I'm talking about a revolution we gotta organize We don't need no segregation, we don't need no race New age revelation, I think we got a case. I'm OK as long as u are here with me Sexuality is all we ever need.

"Not being virulently and overtly racist against black people" and "treating gay people like human beings" are necessary conditions of greatness.

We can't let people drive wedges between us... because there's only one human race.

Gay people exist. There's nothing we can do in public policy that makes more of us exist, or less of us exist. And you guys have been arguing for a generation that public policy ought to essentially demean gay people as a way of expressing disapproval of the fact that we exist, but you don't make any less of us exist. You just are arguing in favor of more discrimination, and more discrimination doesn't make straight people's lives any better.

No matter what race we are, what ethnic background, sexual orientation, or what views we may have, we are all human. Unfortunately, not all humans see it that way.

For pragmatic reasons, for lessening of violence and for allowing people to live better lives, I think that the march forward for GLBTQ+ rights is a worthwhile one. But for me, hopefully the frontier is alliance-making across all the social issues, whereby people can get over whatever prejudices they're holding in order to keep their eyes on making livable lives for people in all states of vulnerability, no matter what their gender, sexuality, race, class, origin, whatever.

Ethical and cultural desegregation. It is a contradiction in terms to scream race pride and equality while at the same time spurning Negro teachers and self-association.

When people travel here from across the country, they shed jealousies and politics and prejudices. The mighty climb down. The humble are elevated.

The world and man are identical. This is why racism is the most stupid thing in the world.