Alex Haley Quotes

South Central is just who I am. Even though I have a nice house, nice family, the rest of my generation is still in South Central L.A. My cousins, my brothers, my sisters, they don't wanna move out.

I'm not one that believes that affirmative action should be based on one's skin color or one's gender, I think it should be done based on one's need, because I think if you are from a poor white community, I think that poor white kid needs a scholarship just as badly as a poor black kid.

If I could help every ghetto, I would.

I grew up in Compton: 116th and Wilmington.

I wasn't burdened by a personal history of prejudice. It's part of why I thought Barack could win.

We need a president who doesn't just visit our forgotten communities for rallies but one who lives in them - one who knows the pain and suffering that comes with being unseen and unheard.

I grew up in the ghetto, and the thing is when there were problems, I knew when to get away.

I believe this system of mass incarceration would have Dr. King turning in his grave. There's no doubt in my mind that Dr. King would be doing everything in his power to build a movement to end mass incarceration in the United States; a movement for education, not incarceration.

I didn't have to leave my neighborhood to be surrounded by the things that 'Super Fly' is about. It was easier than most scripts because it was about an environment that I knew.

I am not sure the issue of race in America will ever be completely solved.

All the poor white people, all the poor black people, all the Hispanics, they're in the same boat. They've got no economic opportunities.

The great drama at the core of American race relations is always the same: Can black Americans ever be truly equal - are they capable of achieving it and are others capable of accepting it?

We've come a long way from the days where there was state-enforced segregation. But we still have a way to go.

If white people need colleges to furnish teachers, ministers, lawyers, and doctors, do black people need nothing of the sort?

Black Lives Matter was born out of our unwavering love for black people and our undeniable rage over a system that has historically dehumanized black people.

I'm from Hackney, and it's an area that is not so pretty, and we have a different way of expressing ourselves than somebody from uptown that has lots of money.

I think 'Holler If Ya Hear Me' is almost 'A Raisin in the Sun' 50 years later, with just a different 20-year-old voice speaking the words. But it's about access to the American dream and equal lives having equal value in America. It's still holding a mirror up to us so we can see ourselves.

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.

Only when we ensure that the mistakes of our past are not the vision for our future, will we truly have achieved justice.

If you're into social justice it's hard not to be on black people's side.

I am thrilled and proud of Benjamin Watson for speaking up on behalf of innocent black lives, traditionally an unpopular stance in the mainstream media.

I've been an activist since I was a teenager. I was always curious about what we would now call social justice. I remember just trying to navigate growing up poor in an overpoliced environment with a single mother and a father who was in and out of prison.

Kneeling for the anthem does nothing to advance solutions to racial injustice, police brutality, or any other social plight. It is a slap in the face to patriotism itself. It is a statement that America as a country is no longer worth standing for.

Those inner-cities, they're not giving kids a chance. They're not giving the teachers a chance to really help those kids. They're making it real tough. You're either gonna help or you're hurting your own country.

I'm from the inner city of Buffalo.