Birch Bayh Quotes

Every social injustice is not only cruel, but it is economic waste.

Our criminal justice system affirmatively depends on inequality.

Is it right that your mother, your sister... should be classed with criminals and lunatics...? Is it right that while the loafer, the gambler, the drunkard, and even the wife-beater has a vote, earnest, educated and refined women are denied it?... Is it right... that a mother... should be thought unworthy of a vote that is freely given to the blasphemer, the liar, the seducer, and the profligate?

Women, what age soever they are of, are not considered as having a sufficient acquired discretion to exercise the franchise

Came Ms. Margarett Brent and requested to have vote in the howse for her selfe and voyce also ... The Governor denyed that the said Ms. Brent should have any vote in the howse. And the said Ms. Brent protested against all proceedings in this present Assembly, unlesse shee may be present and have vote as aforesaid.

Such is the boasted chivalry of the Land of Freedom, which has left its women to strive against tradition, prejudice, conservatism, self-interest, political power and in addition all the forces of corruption combined, to secure the privilege which was conferred upon vast numbers of men who never even demanded it and many of whom knew nothing of its significance after it was granted.

Southern men declare that their slaves are better off than hired laborers amongst us. How little they know, whereof they speak! There is no permanent class of hired laborers amongst us.

Is it right that your mother, your sister... should be classed with criminals and lunatics... ? Is it right that while the gambler, the drunkard, and even the wife-beater has a vote, earnest, educated and refined women are denied it?... Is it right... that a mother... should be thought unworthy of a vote that is freely given to the blasphemer, the liar, the seducer, and the profligate?

One-half of the people of this nation to-day are utterly powerless to blot from the statute books an unjust law, or to write there a new and a just one.

Why respect the rules of the system … if the system consistently generates crises?

There is a lot of inequality in Colombia. We have to correct that.

Indians are first class people suffering from third class governance.

People have almost been lulled into complacency because there are no signs over the water fountains. But the signs have been in the policies. There's still housing discrimination and wage discrimination.

I think it's important to realize that law enforcement does do a very good job oftentimes of trying to ensure the safety and security of their people. But oftentimes, where they fail is communities of color and in lower socioeconomic status communities where they discriminate against these people.

The cancer that demands our urgent attention is corruption and poverty.

I am here, a citizen of this country, and I'm saying, 'Hey, the system failed me. I am a good citizen. I contribute to this country, and here I am sharing my story. What are you going to do now?'

America is built on the labors of the oppressed.

Oppression doesn't disappear just because you decided not to teach us that chapter.

Separate but equal is a fraud.

What is happening today is that there are millions of children who are not lifted up to the first rung of the ladder. Then they are condemned when they don't know how to climb from there.

It is an understatement to say that in this society injustices abound: in truth, it is itself the quintessence of injustice.

What we were all always saying with 'The Wire' was that there's a whole group of people that America just sort of wants to throw away. They want to forget about them, and if they could, they'd get rid of them. They are Americans - they're worth saving; they're worth helping.

Systemically, there hasn't been an oppression more overt and long-lasting than economic oppression against black people and minorities in this country.

As an older generation, we need to give all our young people love and the possibility of realizing their dreams. For instance, if I get really political, the fact that some people can't go to college, can't even think about college, that's not American; that's not right.

I can create as many programs and mentorships and scholarships as I want, but it doesn't change the environment in which our youth are growing up in.