Paul Harris Quotes

What is our greatest enemy? Segregation.

I feel like we'll forever live in a country that's divided... Divided by race... Divided by love and hate.

To attempt to explain a system like segregation to a 6 year child is a very difficult thing.

When I was a child, it was segregated, and I couldn't go across a fence to certain parts of Gainesville.

What the apartheid system was really good at doing was convincing groups to hate one another.

I grew up in the southern United States in a city which at that time during the late '40's and early '50's was the most segregated city in the country, and in a sense learning how to oppose the status quo was a question of survival.

When growing up, I saw segregation. I saw racial discrimination. I saw those signs that said white men, colored men. White women, colored women. White waiting. And I didn't like it.

If we were to wake up some morning and find that everyone was the same race, creed and color, we would find some other causes for prejudice by noon.

Segregation was wrong when it was forced by white people, and I believe it is still wrong when it is requested by black people.

I know my destiny. I was born into animosity, bigotry and hatred. We had water for white folks, and water for coloured folks. White lines, black lines. I came from Beaufort in South Carolina, and it was tougher than Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi.

There is no scriptural basis for segregation.

There is no more apartheid in South Africa than in the United States.

People get bent out of shape about the fact that when I was a kid, you could not drink out of certain water fountains. Well, the water was the same.

Too often, systems of oppression turn those who are the targets of the oppression against one another.

The problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color-line.

At the end of the day, violence was the only weapon that would destroy apartheid.

As a child, I lived through and survived the segregated South. I sat at the back of the bus at a time when America wasn't yet as great as it could be.

Our differences - in race, sexual preference, economic - have always been used as distractions to keep us divided. We get so wrapped up in our own stories that we can't hear each other.

I grew up in the once segregated South. I experienced forced integration during my formative school years. I lived the sacrifices, burdens, and tears. I also lived the moments of understanding, of acknowledgment, of fellowship and success. I saw my parents and grandparents coming home beaten down - and some of my friends beaten up.

Whether it is tribalism, racism, xenophobia, or anti-Muslim backlash we're talking about, we spend so much time and energy fighting ways to divide ourselves from others.

Racism can be called our nation's own specific 'original sin.'

Segregation is a problem not just in my country but in every country.

Not unlike our country's history, my personal history was founded upon an unfortunate history of racial conflict between black and white.

Segregation is not humiliating but a benefit...

racism is alive and doing too well in America.