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.

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Would America have been America without her Negro people?

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To be a poor man is hard, but to be a poor race in a land of dollars is the very bottom of hardships.

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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.

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

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It is the wind and the rain, O God, the cold and the storm that make this earth of yours to blossom and bear its fruit. So in our lives it is storm and stress and hurt and suffering that make real men and women bring the world's work to its highest perfection.

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We cannot escape the clear fact that what is going to win in this world is reason, if this ever becomes a reasonable world.

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Now is the accepted time, not tomorrow, not some more convenient season. It is today that our best work can be done and not some future day or future year. It is today that we fit ourselves for the greater usefulness of tomorrow. Today is the seed time, now are the hours of work, and tomorrow comes the harvest and the playtime.

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There is no force equal to a woman determined to rise

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A little less complaint and whining, and a little more dogged work and manly striving, would do us more credit than a thousand civil rights bills.

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