Jonathan Kozol Quotes

We cannot go on, as we have gone on for more than half a century, with one great section of our population … set off from the real contribution to solving national issues because of a division of race lines …

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

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.

Apartheid is alive and well and it lives in our schools, and I'm sad to say it lives in the halls of the State legislature.

Integration in the fields of education, housing, transportation and public accommodations will be of limited extent and duration so long as fundamental economic inequality along racial lines persist.

Apartheid cannot be reformed. It has to be eliminated.

Separate but equal is a fraud.

There is no scriptural basis for segregation.

Opportunity seems to be color-coded here in America

... if the United States is indeed the great melting pot, the Negro either didn't get in the pot or he didn't get melted down.

We insist that educationally and socially we maintain a segregated society …

And Justice for Some

Put simply, we must always remember that separate but equal is not equal.

Our nation is moving towards two societies, one black, one white—separate and unequal.

It’s a sordid business this divvying us up by race.

I cannot possibly believe that I have it made while so many black brothers and sisters are hungry, inadequately housed, insufficiently clothed, denied their dignity as they live in slums or barely exist on welfare.

Civil rights in this country is unfinished business, and racism is alive and well.

If there is inequality, and that equates with colour, then I'm going to deal with it.

The same way I'm not afraid of calling out systemic discrimination, I'm also not afraid of calling out inequality and the fact that inequality is growing in society and that affects everybody, regardless of race.

I think it's gonna take a sincere empathy and compassion for people of all races, to really reflect and process on the true history of the black community in this country. The history has been filled with incredible oppression and we really have to acknowledge that, to start to change the lens of how we see true equality.

I couldn't see why a black man wasn't allowed to drink out of the same water fountain or sit in the same bus or go to the same schools as a white guy.

Separate but equal does not work.

There is, however, a somber point in the social outlook of Americans. Their sense of equality and human dignity is mainly limited to people of white skin.... The more I feel like an American, the more the situation pains me.

Racial inequality is a big problem.

In all the relations of life and death, we are met by the color line.