Quotessence
Home / Topics / Birmingham Quotes

Birmingham Quotes

Browse 85 quotes about Birmingham.

Related topics

IfsPeopleEndsWhite

Birmingham Quotes

“Certainly Birmingham had its white moderates who disapproved of Bull Connor's tactics. Certainly Birmingham had its decent white citizens who privately deplored the maltreatment of Negroes. But they remained publicly silent. It was a silence born of fear—fear of social, political and economic reprisals. The ultimate tragedy of Birmingham was not the brutality of the bad people, but the silence of the good people.”

FearSilenceDiscriminationModeratesAlabamaWhitesBirminghamBull Connor
Book:Why We Can't Wait
Create image

“A jail within a jail. In those long hours, he struggled over Reverend King's equation. "Throw us in jail and we will love you ... But be assured that we will wear you down by our capacity to suffer, and one day we will win our freedom. We will not only win our freedom for ourselves, we will so appeal to your heart and your conscience that we will win you in the process and our victory will be a double victory." No he could not make that leap to love. He understood neither the impulse of the proposition nor the will to execute it.”

RacismBlack Lives MatterCivil Rights MovementRacism In AmericaMartin Luther King JrBirmingham
Book:The Nickel Boys
Create image

“They have never put it into words, they cannot; but each absence is a threat. They never felt this way in New York - they moved all over New York. Here each is afraid that one of the others will get into some terrible trouble before he is seen again, and before anyone can help him. It is the spirit of the people, the eyes which endlessly watch them, eyes which never meet their eyes. Something like lust, something like hatred, seems to hover in the air along the country roads, shifting like mist or steam, but always there, gripping the city streets like fog, making every corner a dangerous corner. They spend more of themselves, each day, than they can possibly afford, they are living beyond their means; they drop into bed each evening, exhausted, into an exhausting sleep. And no one can help them. The people who live here know how to do it - so it seems, anyway - but they cannot teach the secret. The secret can be learned only by watching, by emulating the models, by dangerous trial and possibly mortal error.”

StreetsHatredLustBirmingham
Book:Just Above My Head
Create image

“On Thursday morning, May 2, 1963, nine-year-old Audrey Faye Hendricks woke up with freedom on her mind. But, before she could be free, there was something important she had to do. "I want to go to jail," Audrey had told her mother. Since Mr. and Mrs. Hendricks thought that was a good idea, they helped her get ready.”

Civil Rights MovementBirmingham
Book:We've Got a Job: The 1963 Birmingham Children's March
Create image

“The amazing aftermath of Birmingham, the sweeping Negro Revolution, revealed to people all over the land that there are no outsiders in all these fifty states of America. When a police dog buried his fangs in the ankle of a small child in Birmingham, he buried his fangs in the ankle of every American. The bell of man's inhumanity to man does not toll for any one man. It tolls for you, for me, for all of us.”

HumanityUnityCivil Rights MovementBirmingham
Book:Why We Can't Wait
Create image

“What’s the biggest problem facing teenagers today? Ourselves. We’re a generation of lazy underachievers who need to learn that hard work pays off. What’s your town known for? Cow manure! Hold for laughs... Actually Irondale is the setting of Fannie Flagg’s famous novel Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café. Why’d you enter the Junior Miss Birmingham pageant? To win... to go to State... then Nationals... maybe get the hell out of Alabama.”

HumorTeenAlabamaPageantBirmingham
Book:The Heaviest Corner on Earth
Create image

“He never had nothing of his own before, except the kid, and he can’t claim but half the credit, there, maybe less. T.J.’s blond like his mamma, and stubborn, too. Won’t let nobody hold him except her. Cries every time his daddy picks him up. Every time he looks in those wet blue eyes, he nearly loses it. His own son hates him. Can’t blame the kid for having an opinion.”

FictionParenthoodAlabamaBirmingham
Book:The Heaviest Corner on Earth
Create image

“Today Birmingham is by no means miraculously desegregated. There is still resistance and violence. The last-ditch struggle of a segregationist governor still soils the pages of current events and it is still necessary for a harried president to invoke his highest powers so that a Negro child may go to school with a white child in Birmingham. But these factors only serve to emphasize the truth that even the segregationists know: The system to which they have been committed lies on its deathbed. The only imponderable is the question of how costly they will make the funeral.”

ViolenceResistanceAfrican AmericansBlacksSegregationBirminghamDesegregation
Book:Why We Can't Wait
Create image

“You deplore the demonstrations taking place in Birmingham. But your statement, I am sorry to say, fails to express a similar concern for the conditions that brought about the demonstrations. I am sure that none of you would want to rest content with the superficial kind of social analysis that deals merely with effects and does not grapple with underlying causes. It is unfortunate that demonstrations are taking place in Birmingham, but it is even more unfortunate that the city’s white power structure left the Negro community with no alternative.”

RacismInjusticeActivismDiscriminationAfrican AmericansBlacksBirminghamDemonstrations
Book:Why We Can't Wait
Create image

“Before closing I feel impelled to mention one other point in your statement that has troubled me profoundly. You warmly commended the Birmingham police force for keeping "order" and "preventing violence." I doubt that you would have so warmly commended the police force if you had seen its dogs sinking their teeth into unarmed, nonviolent Negroes. I doubt that you would so quickly commend the policemen if you were to observe their ugly and inhumane treatment of Negroes here in the city jail; if you were to watch them push and curse old Negro women and young Negro girls; if you were to see them slap and kick old Negro men and young boys; if you were to observe them, as they did on two occasions, refuse to give us food because we wanted to sing our grace together. I cannot join you in your praise of the Birmingham police department.”

PoliceActivismAfrican AmericansBlacksPolice BrutalityBirminghamDemonstrations
Book:Why We Can't Wait
Create image

“I was in college, but I got kicked out. It was a very free school, but I created a "bad impression." Like I was a bit more fiery in those days. At the time I got kicked out, I knew exactly what I was going to do and didn't even bother to go back for a leaving certificate. Then I was singing in folk clubs around Birmingham and playing jazz in clubs on Sundays.”

SchoolBitsCollegeSingingJazzLeavingFolksClubsImpressionBotherSundayFieryCertificatesBirminghamPlaying JazzBad Impression
Author:Steve Winwood
Create image

“South Africa used to seem so far away. Then it came home to me. It began to signify the meaning of white hatred here. That was what the sheets and the suits and the ties covered up, not very well. That was what the cowardly guys calling me names from their speeding truck wanted to happen to me, to all of me: to my people. That was what would happen to me if I walked around the corner into the wrong neighborhood. That was Birmingham. That was Brooklyn. That was Reagan. That was the end of reason. South Africa was how I came to understand that I am not against war; I am against losing the war.”

PeopleIfsWellsWarEndsReasonHomeSeemsHappensWantedUsedGuyNamesWhiteCallingLosingHatredSouthCornersSuitsTiesNeighborhoodCoveredFar AwaySouth AfricaSheetsTruckBrooklynCowardlyAround The CornerSpeedingBirminghamAgainst WarCovered Up
Author:June Jordan
Create image

“The words 'bad timing' came to be ghosts haunting our every move in Birmingham. Yet people who used this argument were ignorant of the background of our planning...they did not realize that it was ridiculous to speak of timing when the clock of history showed that the Negro had already suffered one hundred years of delay.”

PeopleYearsMovingUsedSpeakRealizingHundredArgumentRidiculousPlanningGhostBackgroundsIgnorantClockTimingDelayHauntingBirminghamBad Timing
Book:Why We Can't Wait
Create image

“I grew up in a very loving middle class family. My parents were educators. I'm not even the first PhD in my family. They tried to shield me, just as other parents in my neighborhood tried to shield their children. But you knew there was a reason that you couldn't go to that theme park or to a movie theater or to a hamburger stand. They couldn't shield you completely. What they did though was they never let it be an excuse for not achieving, and they always said racism is somebody else's problem, not yours. They tried in that way not to make us bitter about Birmingham.”

WayFirstsChildrenSaidReasonProblemParentClassMiddleAchieveGrewGrew UpRacismMy FamilyTheaterExcuseBitterParksThemeMiddle ClassNeighborhoodShieldsEducatorHamburgersMovie TheaterBirminghamPhdsMiddle Class FamilyTheme Parks
Author:Condoleezza Rice
Create image

“I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial "outside agitator" idea.”

IdeasStatesHappensCommunityJusticeDestinyConcernedThreatInjusticeCaughtTiedGarmentsAtlantaBirminghamCognizantInterrelatednessInjustice Anywhere
Author:Martin Luther King, Jr.
Create image

“But the time will come when New England will be as thickly peopled as old England. Wages will be as low, and will fluctuate as much with you as with us. You will have your Manchesters and Birminghams; and, in those Manchesters and Birminghams, hundreds of thousands of artisans will assuredly be sometimes out of work. Then your institutions will be fairly brought to the test.”

SometimesLowsTestsEnglandInstitutionsWagesManchesterNew EnglandBirminghamArtisansOld England
Author:Thomas B. Macaulay
Create image

“I flew over to Birmingham and did half a dozen scenes or so as a pastor in the film. I had a great time. I look forward to seeing the final version. I also am good friends with the Erwin Brothers who are co-directing and producing the film with Kevin. They also helped with Courageous. It's kind of a small little family in this arena and we love helping each other out.”

LooksKindLittlesHelpingFilmHalfSeeingBrotherSceneFinalsVersionsCourageousDozenGood FriendPastorArenaFlewGreat TimesKevinHelping Each OtherBirminghamHad A Great Time
Author:Alex Kendrick
Create image

“I remember being at the church a few hours after the church was bombed in Birmingham, the 16th Street Baptist Church. It was very hard and very difficult to stand on that corner across the street from the church. Or to go Mississippi and search for the three civil rights workers who came up missing. There is a lot of trauma.”

HardRememberThreeDifficultHoursChurchRightsStreetsMissingWorkersCornersTraumaCivil RightsBaptistsMississippiBirmingham
Author:John Lewis
Create image

“There's a beauty shop companion called School of Beauty, School of Culture at the Birmingham Museum of Art. I got an email that said a couple had a guerrilla wedding in front of that picture. They slipped into the museum with a preacher and had their wedding ceremony in front of it. It turns out that the woman is a beautician and the man is a barber, they had seen that picture, and they said it was the perfect place to get married.”

MenArtSaidSchoolTurnsCulturePerfectFrontsHe ManCoupleMarriedShopsCompanionMuseumsPreacherThey SaidEmailCeremonyWedding CeremonyBarbersBirminghamGuerrillasBeauticiansBeauty Shop
Author:Kerry James Marshall
Create image

“I've probably read maybe by now fifteen, twenty books on Matthew. I'd say the authors I like best are an English fellow named Michael Goulder, who taught at the University of Birmingham in England, and he writes about the Jewish background in Matthew's gospel, which is part of what I was just talking about, which is just really thrilling to me.”

WritingBookTalkingTaughtEnglandTwentiesFellowsUniversityBackgroundsFifteenThrillingMatthewBirmingham
Author:John Shelby Spong
Create image

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

WisdomPeaceCommunityJusticeFreedomStruggleRightsSocietyDangerKingsGaySocial JusticeThreatInjusticeHuman RightsEqualityCivil RightsIslamicJailBentEqual RightsMenacePeace And JusticeCriminal JusticeI Had A DreamBeing At PeacePeace JusticeRacial JusticeEquality And JusticeInternational PeaceBirminghamLiberty And JusticeMass IncarcerationSocial InjusticeTruth And JusticeLaw And JusticeI Have A Dream SpeechKings SpeechJustice For AllKings And LoveGood KingsSocial EqualityCivil Right MovementJustice And MercyJustice And InjusticeSocial ActionAfrican American InspirationalAmerican JusticeEqual JusticeLegal RightsHuman EqualityAfrican American Civil RightsJustice EqualityJustice TruthBeloved CommunityInterrelatednessInjustice AnywhereRights In AmericaJustice Denied
Author:Martin Luther King, Jr.
Create image

“Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.”

PoliticalPoliticsGivenFreedomLibertyBirthIndependenceCivil RightsOppressionJailOppressed4th Of JulyFreedom And LibertyFreedom Of ThoughtFreedom LibertyOppressorsCivil LibertiesFreedom Of ChoiceBirminghamAmerica FreedomFighting For FreedomIndependence And FreedomDirect ActionAmerican FreedomKings And LoveGood KingsUltimate FreedomJustice Denied
Author:Martin Luther King, Jr.
Create image