Ed Smith Quotes

I just think Rosa Parks was overrated. Last time I checked, she got famous for breaking the law.

You must understand as a kid of color in those days, the Harlem Globetrotters were like being movie stars.

By 1916, as Madam Walker herself was developing more assertive views on race, she was becoming eager to assume her place alongside Harlem's famous, influential and intriguing residents.

The name James Baldwin had been around the house for as long as I could remember and meant almost as much as that of Martin Luther King.

You cannot hear the name Martin Luther King, Jr., and not think of death. You might hear the words 'I have a dream,' but they will doubtlessly only serve to underscore an image of a simple motel balcony, a large man made small, a pool of blood. For as famous as he may have been in life, it is - and was - death that ultimately defined him.

It is over one hundred years since the abolition of slavery. The Negro people in the United States have taken plenty and they have reached a stage where they have decided that they are not going to take any more.

In '42,' it's like the '40s where racial equality had come into the consciousness of a lot of people, whereas in the 1900s it was sort of a new thing.

I was born after the Civil Rights Movement. I never saw Martin Luther King alive.

When I wrote 'The Secret Life of Bees,' I was writing about civil rights.

The African-American experience is one of the most important threads in the American tapestry.

The first African-American leader was Dr. Martin Luther King.

I grew up in the 1960s in Memphis, and my father was a member of the American Civil Liberties Union. I was born three years before Martin Luther King was killed, and I think that history of civil action was something that I had in my blood.

Maya Angelou, the famous African American poet, historian, and civil rights activist who is hailed be many as one of the great voices of contemporary literature, believes a struggle only makes a person stronger.

I was raised in Arizona, and I went to public school, and the extent of my knowledge of the civil-rights movement was the story of Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr. I wonder how much my generation knows.

Black history is American history.

The greatest movement for social justice our country has ever known is the civil rights movement and it was totally rooted in a love ethic.

What we fly today is not an enduring symbol of our heritage, but the fighting flag of those who wanted to preserve a segregated South.

I remember being a teenager, I never thought that I'd live in a society that was not segregated. It happened.

I have a complex heritage: my mom is African American, and my dad is Jewish. Both were activists, and they met during the movement in the '70s.

I was doing a civil rights musical here in Los Angeles, and we sang at one of the rallies where Dr. Martin Luther King spoke, and I remember the thrill I felt when we were introduced to him. To have him shake your hand was an absolutely unforgettable experience.

I grew up reading Martin Luther King and Malcolm X.

You can't be born in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1955 and grow up in South Central near the Black Panthers headquarters and not feel like you've got some kind of social responsibility.

Adam Clayton Powell Jr. was a very savvy character. His drinking and carousing, his charisma and intelligence... the things he did in Congress. He passed for white, then became a black advocate.

I think you can find some rationales for that if we look at the background out of which he came. Martin [Luther King] had come out of a highly competitive, black, middle-class background.

Growing up in Mississippi - a state that historically was a place of racial injustice, inequality and oppression - gave me the unique opportunity to experience first-hand the evolution of the civil rights movement through the eyes of my parents, grandparents, and the black elders of our community.