Jesse Jackson Quotes

I used to be a discipline problem, which caused me embarrassment until I realized that being a discipline problem in a racist society is sometimes an honor.

Not only are whites kicking us; they are telling us how to react to being kicked.

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

We African Americans have now spent the major part of the 20th Century battling racism.

A black man - I say a black man, we got no corner on the market, but every day in some form or fashion you got to prove you're a man. But you want to keep the life-and-death situations down. I can get beat. But there's getting beat and there's getting stomped.

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.

There had always been black people in and out of our house, and from the outset I had been taught that for them life was defined by struggle and filled with injustice.

One of the tragedies of the struggle against racism is that up to now there has been no national organization which could speak to the growing militancy of young black people in the urban ghetto.

I have no interest in romanticizing poor black people, having been one of them myself in our beloved hometown of Detroit.

I know how hard it is to be a woman, especially a black woman.

Black people have always been used as a buffer in this country between powers to prevent class war.

The stark reality is that crime happens in communities of color.

White people just don't want their slaves to be free. That's the whole thing.

As there is oppression of the majority such oppression will be fought with increasing hatred.

We [Blacks] wear the mask that grins and lies It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes.

Don’t play with us. If you’re not going to give us justice, let us go so that we may help ourselves….We can’t want for benevolent white people to give us handouts.

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart, I am the Negro bearing slaver's scars, I am the Red man driven from the land, I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek— And finding only the same ole stupid plan Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

It’s getting almost so bad a colored man hasn’t got any country…. The way they are treating my people in the South, the government can go to Hell!

The Negro has the simplest of alternatives: live a life of constant humility or ever-threatening danger.

If we don't do something real soon, I think you'll have to agree that we're going to be forced either to use the ballot or the bullet. It's one or the other in 1964. It isn't that time is running out—time has run out!

The South politician preaches to the poor white man, "You got more than the blacks, don't complain. You're better than them, you been born with white skin," they explain. And the Negro's name Is used, it is plain, For the politician's gain, As he rises to fame And the poor white remains On the caboose of the train; But it ain't him to blame -- He's only a pawn in their game.

The [Civil] war has taught this people [Southern whites[ only that the physical force of the nation cannot be resisted. They will be obedient to the letter of the law, perhaps, but the whole current of their lives flows in direct antagonism to its spirit..

For years now I have heard the word “Wait”. It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This “Wait” has almost always meant “Never”.

Negro poverty is not white poverty. Many of its causes and many of its cures are the same. But there are differences—deep, corrosive, obstinate differences—radiating painful roots into the community and into the family, and the nature of the individual. These differences are not racial differences. They are solely and simply the consequence of ancient brutality, past injustice, and present prejudice.

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