George Carlin Quotes

I have always believed, heretofore, in the doctrines of the Declaration of Independence, that all men are born free and equal; but of late it appears that some men are born slaves, and I regret that they are not black, so all the world might know them.

Black people have always been America's wilderness in search of a promised land.

The Negro fought and bled and died in every war the white man waged, and he still won't give you justice. You nursed his baby and cleaned behind his wife, and he still won't give you freedom; you turned the other cheek while he lynched you and raped your women, but he still won't give you equality.

I've been in this struggle for many years now. I understand racism. I understand that there are a lot of people in this country who don't care about the problems of the inner city. We have to fight every day that we get up for every little thing that we get. And so I keep struggling.

When the passage "All men are born free and equal," when that passage was being written were not some of the signers legalised owners of slaves?

The Fourth of July-memorable in the history of our nation as the great day of independence to its countrymen-had no claim upon our sympathies. They made a flag and threw it to the heavens and bid it float forever; but every star in it was against us.

In name we had the Declaration of Independence in 1776; but we gave the lie by our acts to the words of the Declaration of Independence until 1865; and words count for nothing except in so far as they represent acts.

Is Justice to be established by subjecting half of mankind to the will of the other half? Justice, Sir, is blind to colors, and weighs in equal scales the rights of all men whether white or black…. An opportunity is now presented, if not to diminish, at least to prevent the growth of a sin that sits heavy on the soul of every one of us.

God made all men, and he did not make some to crawl on hands and knees and others to ride upon their backs.

I walked around feeling, in a sense, that people of color, we began at the bottom of a slave ship. We were enslaved; we picked cotton. There was Honest Abe, who wore a top hat and was taller than anyone and who said, 'Enough is enough; slavery must end.' And then, black people could stand up again. But after that, we didn't catch up.

Freedom in America was not always flat. Racism made it un-flat, so that some people had privileges over other people.

When Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, declaring that all men were created equal, he owned slaves. Women couldn't vote. But, throughout history, our abolitionists, suffragettes, and civil rights leaders called on our nation, in reality, to live up to the nation's professed ideals in that Declaration.

Through the years, I had became involved with social and political issues, such as racial discrimination.

I ask you and all the leaders of the world: Would you act differently, would you keep silent and do nothing if you were in our place? Would you not resist if you were allowed no rights in your own country because the color of your skin is different to that of the rulers, and if you were punished for even asking for equality? I appeal to you, and through you to all the countries of the world, to do everything you can to stop the coming tragedy. I appeal to you to save the lives of our leaders, to empty the prisons of all those who should never have been there.

America ain’t three fifths bad.

All of this is on account we want to register [sic], to become first-class citizens, and if the Freedom Democratic Party is not seated now, I question America. Is this America, the land of the free and the home of the brave where we have to sleep with our telephones off the hooks because our lives be threatened daily because we want to live as decent human beings - in America?

They don't stand for anything different in South Africa than America stands for. The only difference is over there they preach as well as practice apartheid. America preaches freedom and practices slavery.

Without slavery the rebellion could never have existed; without slavery it could not continue.

I could not comprehend the justice of that law, or that religion, which upholds or recognizes the principle of slavery.

I hate it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself. I hate it because it deprives our republican example of its just influence in the world.

The Negroes of America had taken the President, the press and the pulpit at their word when they spoke in broad terms of freedom and justice. But the absence of brutality and unregenerate evil is not the presence of justice. To stay murder is not the same thing as to ordain brotherhood.

The freedmen were not really free in 1865, nor are most of their descendants really free in 1965. Slavery was but one aspect of a race and color problem that is still far from solution here, or anywhere. In America particularly, the grapes of wrath have not yet yielded all their bitter vintage.

People are dying in vain because America isn't holding their end of the bargain up, as far as giving freedom and justice, liberty to everybody. That's something that's not happening.

Martin Luther King was bumped off unjustly, Adam Clayton Powell was bumped off unjustly, they took my title unjustly, they killed Megers Ever unjustly, all the integrators who love white folks, was unjustly kicked out of Washington, they've been deprived of education and poverty throughout the country.

All women, and men of color - we were owned like tables and chairs. We spent a hundred years getting a legal identity as human beings. That's a big thing.