69 Racial Segregation Quotes
Following is our list of racial segregation quotations and slogans full of insightful wisdom and perspective about racial equality.
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Famous Racial Segregation Quotes
Segregation is the adultery of an illicit intercourse between injustice and immorality. — Martin Luther King, Jr.
Segregation now, segregation tomorrow and segregation forever! — George C. Wallace
And thus goes segregation which is the most far-reaching development in the history of the Negro since the enslavement of the race. — Carter G. Woodson
We stand for the segregation of the races and the racial integrity of each race. — Strom Thurmond
Segregation was wrong when it was forced by white people, and I believe it is still wrong when it is requested by black people. — Coretta Scott King
I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny, and I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever. — George C. Wallace
America preaches integration and practices segregation. — Malcolm X
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. — John Lewis
When you grow up in a totally segregated society, where everybody around you believes that segregation is proper, you have a hard time. You can't believe how much it's a part of your thinking. — Shelby Foote
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. — Thurgood Marshall
... all Americans are the prisoners of racial prejudice. — Shirley Chisholm
In order to get beyond racism, we must first take account of race. There is no other way. And in order to treat some persons equally, we must treat them differently. — Harry A. Blackmun
Do not ghettoize society by putting people into legal categories of gender, race, ethnicity, language, or other such characteristics. — Preston Manning
The tragedy of the civil rights movement is that just as it achieved the beginning of the end of racial segregation, white educated elites became swept up in the glamour of the sexual revolution. — Maggie Gallagher
It needlessly pits whites against nonwhites. — Vivek Ramaswamy
Segregation Quotes
Women should not be enlightened or educated in any way. They should, in fact, be segregated as they are the cause of hideous and involuntary erections in holy men. — Unknown Author
I think segregation is bad, I think it's wrong, it's immoral. I'd fight against it with every breath in my body, but you don't need to sit next to a white person to learn how to read and write. The NAACP needs to say that. — Clarence Thomas
Those who deplore our militants, who exhort patience in the name of a false peace, are in fact supporting segregation and exploitation. They would have social peace at the expense of social and racial justice. They are more concerned with easing racial tension than enforcing racial democracy. — A. Philip Randolph
God did not create a human family made up of segregated, dissociated, mutually independent members. No; he would have them all united by the bond of total love of Him and consequent self-dedication to assisting each other to maintain that bond intact. — Pope Pius XII
I wanna tell you, ladies and gentlemen, that there's not enough troops in the army to force the Southern people to break down segregation and admit the nigra race into our theaters, into our swimming pools, into our homes, and into our churches. — Strom Thurmond
Traveling in the segregated South for black people was humiliating. The very fact that there were separate facilities was to say to black people and white people that blacks were so subhuman and so inferior that we could not even use public facilities that white people used. — Diane Nash
Jim Crow is alive and it's dressed in a Brooks Brothers suit, my friend, instead of a white robe. — Myrlie Evers-Williams
Do away with curriculum. Do away with segregation by age. And do away with the idea that there should be uniformity of all schools and of what people learn. — Seymour Papert
Blockchains will drop search costs, causing a kind of decomposition that allows you to have markets of entities that are horizontally segregated and vertically segregated. — Vitalik Buterin
The increasing segregation we have in our country geographically and culturally has led to these pretty monolithic views of different classes of people, and because of that, we've lost a certain amount of cultural cohesion. — James David Vance
Racial Equality Quotes
I believe profoundly in the possibilities of democracy, but democracy needs to be emancipated from capitalism. As long as we inhabit a capitalist democracy, a future of racial equality, gender equality, economic equality will elude us. — Angela Davis
To live anywhere in the world today and be against equality because of race or color is like living in Alaska and being against snow. — William Faulkner
My answer to the racial problem in America is to not deal with it at all. The founding fathers dealt with it when they made the Constitution. — James Meredith
As members of the judiciary tasked with intervening to carry out the guarantee of equal protection, we ought not sit back and wish away, rather than confront, the racial inequality that exists in our society. — Sonia Sotomayor
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. — Rosa Parks
It is clear that the way to heal society of its violence . . . and lack of love is to replace the pyramid of domination with the circle of equality and respect. — Manitonquat
My fight is not for racial sameness but for racial equality and against racial prejudice and discrimination. — John Oliver Killens
It does no service to the cause of racial equality for white people to content themselves with judging themselves to be nonracist. Few people outside the clan or skinhead movements own up to all-out racism these days. White people must take the extra step. They must become anti-racist. — Clarence Page
Long before many of us were even conscious of our own degradation, these men [Marcus Garvey and W. E. B. DuBois] fought for African national and racial equality. — Kwame Nkrumah
I want to state upfront, unequivocally and without doubt: I do not believe that any racial, ethnic or gender group has an advantage in sound judging. I do believe that every person has an equal opportunity to be a good and wise judge, regardless of their background or life experiences. — Sonia Sotomayor
People Writing About Racial Segregation
More Racial Segregation Quotes
I have been to the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and I have witnessed the racially segregated roads and housing that reminded me so much of the conditions we experienced in South Africa under the racist system of Apartheid. — Desmond Tutu
Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. — Martin Luther King, Jr.
Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children. — Martin Luther King, Jr.
People of my generation knew we needed to move beyond that, the racial division and segregation and unsustainable social relations, that were unfair to millions of people. But it didn't mean that we were going to become a big government liberal. — Jeff Sessions
What a racially segregated system once taught the young black about living with his inferiority is now taught by a benevolent social welfare system. The difference was that in an earlier age a black parent could fight the competing influences. — Charles Alan Murray
There are some things concerning which we must always be maladjusted if we are to be people of good will. We must never adjust ourselves to racial segregation. We must never adjust ourselves to religious bigotry. We must never adjust ourselves to economic conditions that take necessities from the many to give luxuries to the few. — Martin Luther King, Jr.
People are really beginning to see the mechanisms of imperialism. When colonialism existed people could see colonialism. When racial segregation existed in its apartheid form, people could see the "whites only" signs. But it's much more difficult to see the structures of neo-imperialism, neo-colonialism, neo-slavery. — Assata Shakur
Racial segregation must be seen for what it is, and that is an evil system, a new form of slavery covered up with certain niceties of complexity. — Martin Luther King, Jr.
In America, there is no racial segregation. I'm not sure I'm quite familiar with this phrase. — Trevor Noah
For some of us it seems like yesterday when Ike was in the White House, the U.S. Senate censured Joe McCarthy, and the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that racial segregation in public school was unconstitutional. — Malcolm Forbes
Belief in Some One's right to punish you is the fate of all children in Judaic-Christian culture. But nowhere else, perhaps, have the rich seed-beds of Western homes found such a growing climate for guilt as is produced in the South by the combination of a warm moist evangelism and racial segregation. — Lillian Smith
I was born in Columbia in 1954, the year the Supreme Court invalidated racial segregation in public schools. I visited frequently but did not live there. — Randall Kennedy
I grew up in the South. I grew up in the days of legalized segregation. And, so, whether you called it legal racial segregation or you called it apartheid, it was the same injustice. — Johnnetta B. Cole
In its heart, America knew that racial segregation was wrong. In its heart, America knows that human life begins before birth. — F. LaGard Smith
In the Brown decision, the United States Supreme Court unanimously struck down the legal and moral footing of racially segregated public education in this country. — Bobby Scott
I went to public schools, and while Gary was, like most American cities, racially segregated, it was at least socially integrated - a cross section of children from families of all walks of life. — Joseph Stiglitz
We still have many neighborhoods that are racially identified. We still have many schools that even though the days of state-enforced segregation are gone, segregation because of geographical boundaries remains. — Ruth Bader Ginsburg
The Church is not segregated by region or cities. That's an antiquated view of the world. We are united with churches all over the world working toward common goals based on shared values. Mosaic is one of the most racially diverse churches on the planet. Our community and extended Church family is global and completely integrated. — Erwin McManus
Chicago has always been a very segregated city and Mt. Greenwood is an example of that. I can't say I've seen organized white-supremacist growth, but I have seen racial tensions increase. I think we've all seen that. In the Barack Obama presidency, especially, the far right has considered diversity a code word for white genocide. — Christian Picciolini
Harry Truman was courageous enough to command that racial segregation be ended in the military. I was serving in a submarine in the U.S. Navy at the time he issued the order. — Jimmy Carter
I wasn't thinking about history. I was thinking about how we were going to end segregation at lunch counters in Atlanta, Georgia.We would have never thought about making history, we just thought: Here is our chance to get out our sense of rejection at this kind of racial discrimination. I don't know that there was a time that anybody growing up in the South wasn't enraged about being segregated and being discriminated against. — Marian Wright Edelman
Cincinnati like so many other cities, we know that so many of our schools, when it comes to public schools, are still de facto segregated racially. It has to do with residential segregation. It has to do with James Crow, Jr., which is at work, de facto rather than legally so that some of the integration is taking place among more and more well-to-do. — Cornel West
Chicago has very few public spaces where people are encouraged to get together. It's partly to prevent riots, and also to segregate a city with a history of racial segregation. — Aleksandar Hemon
What used to be racial segregation now mirrors itself in class segregation, this great sorting (has) taken place. It creates its own politics. There are some communities where not only do I not know poor people, I don't even know people who have trouble paying the bills at the end of the month. I just don't know those people. And so there's less sense of investment in those children. — Barack Obama
One of life's intriguing paradoxes is that hierarchical social order makes cheap rents and outré artists' colonies possible. Raffish bohemian neighborhoods flourished in the days of racial segregation; under integration the artistic poor have no safe places in which to create.... If America lacks a vigorous culture it is partly because studios and ateliers have become crack houses. — Florence King
There's five factors or characteristics of places where kids from poor backgrounds don't do very well. And those are places that have more economic and racial segregation, places with more income inequality. — Gwen Ifill
What a racially segregated system once taught the young black about living with his inferiority is now taught by a benevolent social welfare system. The difference was that in an earlier age a black parent could fight the competing influences. — Charles A. Murray
There could be no more powerful argument against mixing religion and government than the success of independent African American churches in placing racial segregation and discrimination on a reluctant nation's social agenda. Would black churches have been able to take the lead in the struggle had they been dependent on funds doled out for 'faith-based initiatives' . . . ? — Susan Jacoby
A new race-neutral language was developed for appealing to old racist sentiments, a language accompanied by a political movement that succeeded in putting the vast majority of backs back in their place. Proponents of racial hierarchy found they could install a new racial caste system without violating the law or the new limits of acceptable political discourse, by demanding 'law and order' rather than 'segregation forever'. — Michelle Alexander
The new racism: Racism without 'racists.' Today, racial segregation and division often result from habits, policies, and institutions that are not explicitly designed to discriminate. Contrary to popular belief, discrimination or segregation do not require animus. They thrive even in the absence of prejudice or ill will. It's common to have racism without racists. — Eduardo Bonilla-Silva
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