Daniel Patrick Moynihan Quotes

Be nice to the whites, they need you to rediscover their humanity.

Negro members shall be treated as white members

Race has no place in American life or law.

During the canvass in the State of Mississippi, I traveled into different parts of that state, and this is the doctrine that I everywhere uttered: that while I was in favor of building up the colored race, I was not in favor of tearing down the white race.

I've never tried to run away from my race. I was born a black man. You know that in your bones as soon as you are able to understand this country... My approach to life about race is, I don't see the difference between black people and white people.

Accordingly, one race is neither superior nor inferior to another.

Our leader will not be a white man with a Black heart, nor a Black man with a white heart, but a Black man with a Black heart.

Few whites are ready to actively promote civil rights for blacks.

The people of the North owe to the colored race a deep obligation that is no easy matter to fulfill.

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

I don't believe in blanket statements on race.

If white America is ready to extend complete democratic rights to colored people, there will be no race, no racial tension and no racial prejudice on either side, but we can be sure that any movement 'back to normalcy' in race relations will be bitterly resisted by colored people. It is now up to white America to make its choice...

A race-transcendent politics is most likely to succeed when the white community takes responsibility for overcoming its racism, not when the black community decides to forget it.

The price of the liberation of the whites is the liberation of the Blacks.

The relation between the white and colored people of this country is the great, paramount, imperative, and all-commanding question for this age and nation to solve

I don't know that white people need to be 'allies' so much as understand that any black struggle in America is ultimately a struggle for the large country. 'Ally' presumes a kind of distance that I am not sure exists.

It is impossible to struggle for civil rights, equal rights for blacks, without including whites. Because equal rights, fair play, justice, are all like the air: we all have it, or none of us has it. That is the truth of it.

At the end of the day, if you're not against racism, you're racist.

I am not antiwhite, because I understand that white people, like black ones, are victims of a racist society. They are products of their time and place.

The ultimate solution to the race problem lies in the willingness of men to obey the unenforceable.

I think there is a commitment on the part of the White House to racial justice in this country, and no ambiguity.

The Negro who experiences bitter and agonizing circumstances as a result of some ungodly white person is tempted to look upon all white persons as evil, if he fails to look beyond his circumstances. But the minute he looks beyond his circumstances and sees the whole of the situation, he discovers that some of the most implacable and vehement advocates of racial equality are consecrated white persons.

I am thankful, however, that some of our white brothers have grasped the meaning of this social revolution and committed themselves to it. They are still all too small in quantity, but they are big in quality.

I believe that we have to be so race-conscious in this day and age.

I am not prejudiced against the Negro. When I was governor, I did more to help the Negroes in our State than any previous Governor, and I think you can find Negro leaders in the State who will attest to this fact.