“I think there’s a pain somewhere in the room,” said Mrs. Gradgrind, “but I couldn’t positively say that I have got it.”
“...there's nothing more depressing than bad capitalism.”
Source: Take the Cannoli
“Too few of us from the Black Power generation and the movements to take power in cities through the election of black elected officials have told our story. Hence there is very little understanding of the agenda for change we outlined for black people and America in the 1960s and early 1970s. We wanted self-determination, and end to racism, and economic security. It is an agenda that was never fulfilled, and hence the title of my book, Unfinished Agenda.”
Source: Unfinished Agenda: Urban Politics in the Era of Black Power
“Later that year, the Voting Rights Act opened the door for thousands to register for the first time.”
Source: Unfinished Agenda: Urban Politics in the Era of Black Power
“I had no way of predicting that Selma to Montgomery was indeed to be the last great civil rights march of the era, and that everything afterward would indeed by 'post-civil rights.”
Source: Unfinished Agenda: Urban Politics in the Era of Black Power
“But despite the scarcity of confrontation with whites in our neighborhood, race and racism permeated every aspect of our lives. Our parents taught us that in order to succeed, we 'had to be twice as good as white folks.' We were constantly being prepared to enter a world dominated by whites.”
Source: Unfinished Agenda: Urban Politics in the Era of Black Power
“Black power showed up in different ways, depending on the goals of the group.”
Source: Unfinished Agenda: Urban Politics in the Era of Black Power
“The SNCC base of operation, at the corner of Jackson and High Streets, was in the heart of the black community in Montgomery. I don't remember too much else about the city, but I'll always remember that corner. There were hundreds of young people behind police barricades of some sort. Lots of college students, some white, from up North, and some local black folks and college students. The whole Selma-to-Montgomery push, and this ancillary thrust by SNCC in Montgomery, was because on the other side of that barricade there were white folks who had shown they would stop at nothing, including violence, to protect white supremacy.”
Source: Unfinished Agenda: Urban Politics in the Era of Black Power
“There was an aura about King that was unforgettable. I seem him now in my mind's eye: collected, peaceful, calm. He was in his element and totally in command of himself and the situation.”
Source: Unfinished Agenda: Urban Politics in the Era of Black Power
“The ink of today’s actions writes the story of tomorrow. Every choice we make is a sentence in the book of our lives—let it be one worth reading.”