Constance Baker Motley Quotes

Brown versus the Board of Education is no longer the white person's problem.

We are now operating a school system in America that's more segregated than at any time since the death of Martin Luther King.

The NAACP was even considering earlier this summer reassessing their position on school integration.

During the days of segregation, there was not a place of higher learning for African Americans. They were simply not welcome in many of the traditional schools. And from this backward policy grew the network of historical black colleges and universities.

I love 'The Autobiography of Malcolm X.' That was like the only black book we read in high school.

We can revolutionize the attitude of inner city brown and black kids to learning. We need a civil rights movement within the African-American community.

I was one of the first three black students to go to an all-white school in Tennessee.

We conclude that in the field of public education the doctrine of 'separate but equal' has no place.

There will be no forced integration in Virginia. If Federal troops are sent into Virginia, they will patrol the halls of empty schools.

The United States Office of Education has likewise been guilty of spreading racial equality propaganda. In a report to the press, Dr. John W. Studebaker, head of the Office of Education, and his Negro assistant, Dr. Ambrose Caliver, who is racial adviser in the office of Education, called upon the colleges and universities of the South to open their doors to Negro students

What I did at Ole Miss had nothing to do with going to classes. My objective was to destroy the system of white supremacy.

As the 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education Supreme Court case has shown us, separate is not always equal.

Black History Month is a poignant time for the entire country, but particularly the African American community.

My mother didn't set out to surround us with white students or colleagues. My mother just sought a quality education. People have these expectations of who they think you should be. And I say it's because they don't really understand Malcolm X - or his wife.

Brown v. Board of Education was arguably the most important decision of the Supreme Court in the 20th century.

In my state, on the basis of the separate but equal doctrine, we have made enormous strides over the years in the education of both races. Personally, I think it would have been sounder judgment to allow that progress to continue through the process of natural evolution. However, there is no point crying about spilt milk.

There was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools and she was bused to school every day. That little girl was me.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was vigorously and vociferously opposed by the Southern states. President Lyndon B. Johnson signed it into law nonetheless.

It still amazes and fascinates me that women of color have kept my work alive for these many generations.

I had developed a specifically calculated plan to break the system of white supremacy. My theory was that since Mississippi was the place, this was the ultimate: Mississippi was the place you had to break it.

The American people hit the streets and did something that the government wouldn't do: the Civil Rights Act. It didn't go down well with the corporate world.

Anytime we're talking about Thurgood Marshall, that's a good thing, I think, because it gives us an opportunity to go back, look at the history, and recognize what his contributions were.

Sixty years after Brown v. Board of Education, it's time for us to take a hard look at the separate and unequal conditions that still exist in our schools and our communities and rededicate ourselves to fulfilling the promise of equal opportunity for all.

I was the first black child to desegregate the all-white William Frantz Elementary School in Louisiana in 1960.

I used to say, 'We've always had integration in the South... we just want it now in the daytime.