So often we think we have got to make a difference and be a big dog. Let us just try to be little fleas biting. Enough fleas biting strategically can make a big dog very uncomfortable.
Children cannot lobby and cannot vote. We must speak for them.
Together we can and must fight for justice for our children and protect them from draconian tax cuts and budget choices that threaten their survival, education and preparation for the future. If they are not ready for tomorrow, neither is America.
Unless children have strong education and strong families and strong communities and decent housing, it’s not enough to go sit in at a lunch counter.
Don’t assume a door is closed; push on it. Don’t assume if it was closed yesterday that it is closed today. Don’t ever stop learning and improving your mind. If you do, you’re going to be left behind.
I worry about the kids who have too much. As a parent living in a so-called good neighborhood with children who went to private high school, I found myself spending much time in parent groups worrying about alcohol, unsupervised parties, and parents not being parents.
No one, Eleanor Roosevelt said, can make you feel inferior without your consent. Never give it.
Justice is not cheap. Justice is not quick. It is not ever finally achieved.
It never occurred to me that I was not going to challenge segregation.
I never thought I was breaking a glass ceiling. I just had to do what I had to do, and it never occurred to me not to.
I hadn’t planned on going to law school. I wanted to study 19th-century Russian literature.
I’m sure I am impatient sometimes. I sure do get angry sometimes. I think it’s outrageous how hard it is to get this country to feed its children and to take care of its children, to give them a decent education.
I’m doing what I think I was put on this earth to do. And I’m really grateful to have something that I’m passionate about and that I think is profoundly important.
You’d better stay determined, because that’s how our ancestors got us where we are.
In my generation, we learned how to be leaders by being exposed to and involved with adults who empowered us and gave us a sense that we could choose things. We’ve let down the generations coming behind us and we are trying to re- establish that connection.
I was taught that the world had a lot of problems; that I could struggle and change them; that intellectual and material gifts brought the privilege and responsibility of sharing with others less fortunate; and that service is the rent each of us pays for living – the very purpose of life and not something you do in your spare time or after you have reached your personal goals.
If you as parents cut corners, your children will too. If you lie, they will too. If you spend all your money on yourselves and tithe no portion of it for charities, colleges, churches, synagogues, and civic causes, your children won’t either. And if parents snicker at racial and gender jokes, another generation will pass on the poison adults still have not had the courage to snuff out.
Service is the rent we pay for the life we have been given.
Pick a piece of the problem that you can help solve while trying to see how your piece fits into the broader social change puzzle.
Don’t give anyone the proxy for your conscience.
I admit I still recoil against a society that has so slipped in caring that ordinary human sharing and thoughtfulness appears to warrant a”humanitarian award” and diligent effort seems too often the exception rather than the rule.