Famous Anti-Racism Quotes

We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr

I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear. ~Martin Luther King, Jr.

I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality.... I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.
-- Martin Luther King, Jr

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal." I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today.
-- Martin Luther King, Jr

The United States of America is a nation where people are not united because of those three glaring frailties: racism, injustices and inequities. ~Yuri Kochiyama

~ At the heart of racism is the religious assertion that God made a creative mistake when He brought some people into being. ~Friedrich Otto Hertz

But suppose God is black? What if we go to Heaven and we, all our lives, have treated the Negro as an inferior, and God is there, and we look up and He is not white? What then is our response? ~ Robert F. Kennedy

We are not myths of the past, ruins in the jungle, or zoos. We are people and we want to be respected, not to be victims of intolerance and racism.~ Rigoberta Menchu

"I resolutely believe that respect for diversity is a fundamental pillar in the eradication of racism, xenophobia and intolerance. There is no excuse for evading the responsibility of finding the most suitable path toward the elimination of any expression of discrimination against indigenous peoples." ~ Rigoberta Menchu

About Rigoberta Menchu

Rigoberta Menchu has dedicated her entire life to fighting for the rights of indigenous people in her native Guatemala. She was vocal about the plight of her people throughout the decades long Guatemalan Civil War that ended in 1996. This war and her families opposition to it claimed the lives of her father, mother and brother, still she fought on and continues to campaign for her people today. In 1981, she was forced to flee her country and live in exile in Mexico. While there she authored an autobiography, I Rigoberta Menchu.

In 1992 she received the Nobel Peace Prize. She is currently a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador and ran for president of Guatemala in 2007. Currently she is involved in Peace Jam with a number of Nobel Peace Laureates, an organization that globally promotes building young leaders.

Prejudice is a burden that confuses the past, threatens the future and renders the present inaccessible. ~ Maya Angelou

Race is the great taboo in our society. We are afraid to talk about it. White folks fear their unspoken views will be deemed racist. People of color are filled with sorrow and rage at unrighted wrongs. Drowning in silence, we are brothers and sisters drowning each other. Once we decide to transform ourselves from fearful caterpillars into courageous butterflies, we will be able to bridge the racial gulf and move forward together towards a bright and colorful future. ~ Eva Paterson

We all should know that diversity makes for a rich tapestry, and we must understand that all the threads of the tapestry are equal in value no matter what their color.
-- Maya Angelou

She is currently the CEO and co-founder of Equal Justice Society an organization that dedicates itself to "changing the law through progressive legal theory, public policy and practice."

She worked for the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights an organization that provides legal services, and litigates class action civil rights cases.

She co-founded the California Coalition for Civil Rights as well as A Safe Place, a shelter for abused and battered women in Oakland, California.

In 1970 as a college student she became well known internationally when she successfully debated then Vice President Spiro Agnew about the civil unrest on college campuses during that era and in particular his incorrect assumption of her position on these issues.

"Racism is an ism to which everyone in the world today is exposed; for or against, we must take sides. And the history of the future will differ according to the decision which we make."
~ Ruth Fulton Benedict

Ruth Fulton Benedict (1887 - 1948) was, in my opinion, a woman in a world well before her time. She became a student of anthropology at Columbia University at the age of 34, unusual for a woman in 1921 for sure. She earned a PhD in anthropology, her dissertation was titled; ,"The Concept of the Guardian Spirit in North America". She did a series of field studies among several Native American tribes during the 1920's and became an assistant professor at Columbia University and later became executive director of the Department of Anthropology at Columbia.

Ruth Fulton Benedict was also an accomplished author perhaps best known for writing Patterns of Culture.

I have no color prejudices nor caste prejudices nor creed prejudices. All I care to know is that a man is a human being, and that is enough for me; he can't be any worse. ~Mark Twain

"We hate some persons because we do not know them; and will not know them because we hate them."
~ Charles Caleb Colton

Until the philosophy which holds one race superior and another inferior is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned, everywhere is war and until there are no longer first-class and second-class citizens of any nation, until the color of a man's skin is of no more significance than the color of his eyes. And until the basic human rights are equally guaranteed to all without regard to race, there is war. And until that day, the dream of lasting peace, world citizenship, rule of international morality, will remain but a fleeting illusion to be pursued, but never attained... now everywhere is war.
~ Bob Marley

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"Right-wing propagandists like Limbaugh and Coulter are essentially entertainers, entertainers who stimulate prejudice, selfishness and meanness the way a comedian works for laughs or a tragedian plays for tears. Theirs is a new art form, exclusive to America and bewilderingly successful. In place of traditional conservative ideology, they offer their audience partisan belligerence and a complete package of mail-order hatreds, designed for the conceptually and ethically impaired."
~ Hal Crowther~

"Racism is man's gravest threat to man - the maximum of hatred for a minimum of reason." ~Abraham J. Heschel

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"We have been basically persuaded that we should not talk about racism." ~ Angela Davis

I think we have to own the fears that we have of each other, and then, in some practical way, some daily way, figure out how to see people differently than the way we were brought up to. ~Alice Walker

Love is what we are born with. Fear is what we learn. The spiritual journey is the unlearning of fear and prejudices and the acceptance of love back in our hearts. Love is the essential reality and our purpose on earth. To be consciously aware of it, to experience love in ourselves and others, is the meaning of life. Meaning does not lie in things. Meaning lies in us. ~Marianne Williamson

"It demands great spiritual resilience not to hate the hater whose foot is on your neck, and an even greater miracle of perception and charity not to teach your child to hate." ~ James Baldwin

"I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain." ~James Baldwin

The Problem We All Live With Giclee Print

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James Baldwin (1924 - 1987) was an extraordinarily gifted writer. His powerful and eloquent writing pioneered awareness of racism and social issues.

He grew up in Harlem, raised by his mother and step father, a minister in the Pentecostal Church, with whom he had a complex relationship with. Baldwins first novel, Go Tell It On The Mountain,published in 1953, was loosely based on his years growing up in New York and was written so that he might come to terms with his relationship with his step father, who had passed away in 1943. This richly told story is a pleasure to read. Not only does Baldwin explore his relationship and early years, he paints a very real picture of the prejudice and racism that permeated that era.

In addition to exploring racism in his novels, he also wrote about interracial relationships and homosexuality both topics that had never before been explored and were very much considered taboo during that time.

Perhaps more famous were the essays Baldwin wrote to portray what it meant to be black in a racist culture as well as how black Americans viewed white people. His honesty was brutally abrasive and crystal clear in his work when writing about black experiences. By observing and communicating racial issues through his writing, James Baldwin left a definite footprint in the fight against racism.

What I did not yet know so intensely was the hatred of the white American for the black, a hatred so deep that I wonder if every white man in this country, when he plants a tree, doesn't see Negroes hanging from its branches. ~Jean Genet

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Let it never be said by future generations that indifference, cynicism or selfishness made us fail to live up to the ideals of humanism which the Nobel Peace Prize encapsulates. Let the strivings of us all, prove Martin Luther King Jr. to have been correct, when he said that humanity can no longer be tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war. ~Nelson Mandela

No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.
Nelson Mandela

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"If you judge people you have no time to love them."
~Mother Teresa

As you grow older, you'll see white men cheat black men every day of your life, but let me tell you something and don't you forget it -- whenever a white man does that to a black man, no matter who he is, how rich he is, or how fine a family he comes from, that white man is trash. ~Harper Lee