Leadership has a harder job to do than just choose sides. It must bring sides together.
It is time for us to turn to each other, not on each other.
The white, the Hispanic, the black, the Arab, the Jew, the woman, the Native American, the small farmer, the businessperson, the environmentalist, the peace activist, the young, the old, the lesbian, the gay and the disabled make up the American quilt.
If you wear a hoodie but aren’t registered to vote, you got the symbolism but missed the substance.
Your children need your presence more than your presents.
Both tears and sweat are salty, but they render a different result. Tears will get you sympathy; sweat will get you change.
No one should negotiate their dreams. Dreams must be free to fly high. No government, no legislature, has a right to limit your dreams. You should never agree to surrender your dreams.
Semi-automatic weapons are not just about gun control, they’re about national security. You know that these weapons can shoot down airplanes, they can blow up railroads. This is really a whole national security issue.
I was born in a slum, but the slum wasn’t born in me.
Today’s students can put dope in their veins or hope in their brains. If they can conceive it and believe it, they can achieve it. They must know it is not their aptitude but their attitude that will determine their altitude.
Hold your head high, stick your chest out. You can make it. It gets dark sometimes, but morning comes. Keep hope alive.
Few would deny that blacks have become very dominant in athletics: football, basketball, track, now dominant in tennis and dominant in golf.
Race designation is a political designation.
America is not a blanket woven from one thread, one color, one cloth.
You cannot teach what you don’t know. You cannot give energy if you’re not on fire on the inside.
What we have to be judged by is the work we try to do. It’s public service, not perfect service.
You can’t vote against healthcare and call yourself a black man.
The only time you should look down at someone, is when you are helping them up.
You can’t plant a seed and pick the fruit the next morning.
A man must be willing to die for justice. Death is an inescapable reality and men die daily, but good deeds live forever.