21 quotes
"To this day, my heart skips a beat every time I hear one of those special bulletins."
After recollecting her father's death to People magazine (1999)
"I am a 100 percent, dyed-in-the-wool, card-carrying believer in the dream."
"Our mother is coming home and we are so grateful and so thankful that this is happening."
This accomplishment is a moment of triumph—but not for Martin Luther King Jr., he wouldn’t have cared one way or other, his was a very self-effacing spirit.
A Dream Deferred (1989)
"Jim Crow is dead. But his sophisticated, college-educated, urbane first cousin J. Crow, Esquire, is alive and kicking."
“For some of you, the civil rights movement might seem like ancient history, but it was live, in living color.”
"These times call not for merriment only, but for movement."
The dream, that magnificent dream, pursued so fiercely by my father, is still only a dream.
A Dream Deferred (1989)
"And we wonder why we have problems with homelessness in our country. We wonder why we're floundering in education. We have got to take a look at reversing the priorities of this country."
I guess people don't understand that I'm just a person.
“We can throw up our hands in despair, we can write off the millions that are homeless, or we can choose to believe in a different way and we can do our share to bring that world into being.”
I chose to dream and act on my dreams, following the example that my father taught. To live with this dream may be crazy, it may be foolish, but to live without it would be a nightmare.
A Dream Deferred (1989)
Well, I wish they had built a Funtown for colored.
"Maybe some of this has to happen. Every year there is some outrageous act that reminds us that there is still so much work to be done."
"My father had a magnificent dream, but it still is only a dream. It is easier to build monuments than make a better world. If we choose to honor him in words alone, it will be a grotesque farce."
The Civil Rights Movement was not a mirage; it was not a documentary; it was not even a television special; it was live and in living color.
A Dream Deferred (1989)
He knew in 1968 that while this was a beautiful symbol of hope and possibility, it indeed was only the beginning. For after they joined hands what then were they going to do?
A Dream Deferred (1989)
"There have been a number of gains, a number of, I think, token results. But far too many people, both black and white, are still locked out of the system and don't have the opportunity to reach toward those goals that many of us take for granted."
To be perfectly honest, she was amazing so it has had its handicaps. The thing is that people judge you by your parents' and people expect me to be just like daddy and mother. Therefore, I can't run across the street or anything.
"I cannot separate problems happening in South Africa with problems here. I don't think you can put too much emphasis on something as brutal and overt as South Africa."