Carter G. Woodson Quotes

I don't believe in blanket statements on race.

Classifications and distinctions based on race or color have no moral or legal validity in our society. They are contrary to our constitution and laws.

If you truly believe in the brotherhood of man, then you must believe that blacks are just as capable of being racists as whites are.

I know of no rights of race superior to the rights of humanity...

We don't hate nobody because of their color. We hate oppression!

Racism is a global problem and it is as damaging to Whites as it is to non-Whites. Everyone must fight against it.

It is a lie that America is racist

I say that the negro, when he is, when, when they cease to look at him as a negro and realize that he's a human being, then they will realize that he is just as capable and has the right to do anything that any other human being on this earth has a right to do to defend himself.

"Racist" is a confusing word, and it should be clarified. Men have no special rights simply because they belong to one race or another. When you say "men," you have already imbued them with all their rights.

You are a white. The Imperial Wizard. Now, if you don't think this is logic you can burn me on the fiery cross. This is the logic: You have the choice of spending fifteen years married to a woman, a black woman or a white woman. Fifteen years kissing and hugging and sleeping real close on hot nights. With a black, black woman or a white, white woman. The white woman is Kate Smith. And the black woman is Lena Horne. So you're not concerned with black or white anymore, are you? You are concerned with how cute or how pretty. Then let's really get basic and persecute ugly people!

Racism is not dead, but it is on life support -- kept alive by politicians, race hustlers and people who get a sense of superiority by denouncing others as 'racists'

Obviously, In The Heat Of The Night was a landmark movie because the timing was perfect. It was in the middle of the Civil Rights Movement.

A good many observers have remarked that if equality could come at once, the Negro would not be ready for it. I submit that the white American is even more unprepared.

People need to free their minds of racial prejudice and believe in equality for all and freedom regardless of race. It would be a good thing if all people were treated equally and justly and not be discriminated against because of race or religion or anything that makes them different from others.

When you compare what people endured in the South in the 60s to try to get the right to vote for African Americans, and to compare what people were subjected to there to what happened in Philadelphia - which was inappropriate, certainly that . . . to describe it in those terms I think does a great disservice to people who put their lives on the line, who risked all, for my people.

Hip hop culture has done more for race relations in American than anything since Martin Luther King. And I really believe that.

To remain neutral in a situation where the laws of the land virtually criticized God for having created men of color was the sort of thing I could not, as a Christian, tolerate.

When you say black lives matter, that's inherently racist.

The study of women's intelligence and personality has had broadly the same history as the one we record for Negroes ... in drawing a parallel between the position of, and feeling toward, women and Negroes, we are uncovering a fundamental basis of our culture.

The only reason race matters is because of racism.

I'm so old that I can remember when most of the people promoting race hate were white.

We are not buried in history, but surrounded by it. You can't avoid our behavior being shaped by it, to a considerable degree. We have this fantasy that we are free of history. This allows us not to see the circumstances, the historical circumstances of other people.

Telling me that I’m obsessed with talking about racism in America is like telling me I’m obsessed with swimming when I’m drowning.

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.

The civility of no race can be perfect whilst another race is degraded.