Motivational Quotes

Why do you all push us around?

Whites would accuse you of causing trouble when all you were doing

was acting like a normal human being instead of cringing.

I talked and talked of everything

I know about the white man's inhuman treatment of the Negro.

Let us look at Jim Crow for the criminal he is and

what he has done to one life multiplied

millions of times over these United States and the world.

He walks us on a tightrope from birth.

The Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute accepts people of any race.

We don't discriminate against anyone.

We teach people to reach their highest potential.

I set examples by the way I lead my life.

At the time I was arrested I had no idea it would turn into this.

It was just a day like any other day.

The only thing that made it significant was that

the masses of the people joined in.

I have been refused entrance on the buses because

I would not pay my fare at the front

and go around to the rear door to enter.

That was the custom if the bus was crowded up to the point

where the white passengers would start occupying.

I had felt for a long time that,

if I was ever told to get up so a white person could sit,

that I would refuse to do so.

It was not pre arranged.

It just happened that the driver made a demand

and I just didn't feel like obeying his demand.

I was quite tired after spending a full day working.

Have you ever been hurt and the place tries to heal a bit,

and you just pull the scar off of it over and over again.

Whatever my individual desires were to be free,

I was not alone.

There were many others who felt the same way.

I was born 50 years after slavery, in 1913.

I was allowed to read.

My mother, who was a teacher,

taught me when I was a very young child.

The first school I attended was a small building

that went from first to sixth grade.

There was one teacher for all of the students.

There could be anywhere from 50 to 60 students of all different ages.

My only concern was to get home after a hard day's work.

As far back as I can remember,

I knew there was something wrong with our way of life

when people could be mistreated because of the color of their skin.

All I was doing was trying to get home from work.

You spend your whole lifetime in your occupation,

actually making life clever,

easy and convenient for white people.

But when you have to get transportation home,

you are denied an equal accommodation.

Our existence was for the white man's comfort and well being;

we had to accept being deprived of just being human.

There is just so much hurt,

disappointment,

and oppression one can take...

The line between reason and madness grows thinner.

Time begins the healing process of wounds cut deeply by oppression.

We soothe ourselves with the salve of attempted indifference,

accepting the false pattern set up by

the horrible restriction of Jim Crow laws.

Racism is still with us.

But it is up to us to prepare our children for what they have to meet,

and,

hopefully,

we shall overcome.

I'm tired of being treated like a second

class citizen.