David Ben-Gurion Quotes

It is only because miners sweat their guts out that superior persons can remain superior.

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.

It's built into the fabric of this country, you know - oppressing black people socially, politically and economically. They all kind of go hand in hand.

There never has yet existed a wealthy and civilized society in which one portion of the community did not, in point of fact, live on the labor of the other.

It doesn't do good to open doors for someone who doesn't have the price to get in. If he has the price, he may not need the laws. There is no law saying the Negro has to live in Harlem or Watts.

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.

They cannot divide us by saying that you're middle class or you're lower class.

I have always thought that the rapid economic development of South Africa would in the long run prove to be incompatible with the government's racial policies, and recent events have tended to confirm my opinion.

Class structures are a luxury that we cannot afford.

South Africa is labouring to find its revolutionary path; the colours of the Rainbow Nation have difficulty blending together; the wealthy elites (white, black or Indian) profit from de facto segregation.

Children are not simply commodities to be herded into line and trained for the jobs that white people who live in segregated neighborhoods have available.

People don't know that there were very successful black businessmen in the years of apartheid.

The people desire to permit no equality between coloured people and white inhabitants, either in church or state.

The white race ... will be proprietors of the land, and the blacks its cultivators; such is their destiny.

Labor in white skin cannot be free so long as labor in a black skin is branded.

In France … the Gentry who may possess Lands, live in good condition, though the Peasants are little better then Slaves, because they can possess nothing but at the will of others.

The colored people should not urge that they be placed on an equality with white people.

There is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I, as much as any other man, am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.

Sex and race, because they are easy, visible differences, have been the primary ways of organizing human beings into superior and inferior groups, and into the cheap labor on which this system still depends.

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.

When we finally got school buses for African American students in Georgia, the state legislature ordained that the front bumpers be painted black. Not even the school busses could be equal.

The Southern States have enacted Black Codes with the aim of keeping former slaves subservient to the white race and compelled to labor for low wages.

Two peculiar customs: both alcohol and dark-skinned people were prohibited. No slavery is allowed, nor negroes. As a sanctuary for free white people, Georgia would not permit slaves, for slaves starve the poor laborer.

Allowing slavery will starve the poor white laborer.

I had felt for a long time that, if I was ever told to get up so a white person could sit, that I would refuse to do so.