Daily the Negro is coming more and more to look upon law and justice, not as protecting safeguards, but as sources of humiliation and oppression. The laws are made by men who have little interest in him; they are executed by men who have absolutely no motive for treating the black people with courtesy or consideration; and, finally, the accused law-breaker is tried, not by his peers, but too often by men who would rather punish ten innocent Negroes than let one guilty one escape.

---

There is but one coward on earth, and that is the coward that dare not know.

---

One ever feels his twoness - an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.

---

There can be no perfect democracy curtailed by color, race, or poverty. But with all we accomplish all, even peace.

---

Unfortunately there was one thing that the white South feared more than Negro dishonesty, ignorance, and incompetency, and that was Negro honesty, knowledge, and efficiency.

---

The theory of democratic government is not that the will of the people is always right, but rather that normal human beings of average intelligence will, if given a chance, learn the right and best course by bitter experience.

---

Children learn more from what you are than what you teach.

---

Either America will destroy ignorance or ignorance will destroy the United States.

---

Most men today cannot conceive of a freedom that does not involve somebody's slavery.

---

Men must not only know, they must act.

---