America

Have you ever thought of America this way? Read what our brothers and sisters have to say.

America is not a blanket woven from one thread, one color, one cloth.
Jesse Jackson, 1988 Democratic National Convention Address

America is not like a blanket-one piece of unbroken cloth, the same color, the same texture, the same size. America is more like a quilt-many patches, many pieces, many colors, many sizes, all woven and held together by a common thread.
Jesse Jackson, Address to the Democratic Convention Jul 17, 1984

America is woven of many strands. I would recognize them and let it so remain. It's 'winner take nothing' that is the great truth of our country or of any country. Life is to be lived, not controlled; and humanity is won by continuing to play in face of certain defeat. Our fate is to become one, and yet many -- This in not prophecy, but description.
Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

Americans have begun to understand that trouble does not start somewhere on the other side of town. It seems to originate inside the absolute middle of the homemade cherry pie..
June Jordan

Americans think of themselves collectively as a huge rescue squad on twenty-four-hour call to any spot on the globe where dispute and conflict may erupt.
Eldridge Cleaver

I am the American heartbreak? The rock on which Freedom Stumped its toe.
Langston Hughes, American Heartbreak

I believe that America is going to die, die like flies, just like the song says.
Nina Simone

I don't see an American Dream, I see an American Nightmare.
Malcolm X

I feel that I am a citizen of the American dream and that the revolutionary struggle of which I am a part is a struggle against the American nightmare.
Eldridge Cleaver

If a man like Malcolm X could change and repudiate racism, if I myself and other former Muslims can change, if young whites can change, then there is hope for America.
Eldridge Cleaver

If we think we have ours and don't owe any time or money or effort to help those left behind, then we are a part of the problem rather than the solution to the fraying social fabric that threatens all Americans.
Marian Wright Edelman

Our flag is red, white and blue, but our nation is a rainbow-red, yellow, brown, black and white-and we're all precious in God's sight.
Jesse Jackson, Speech, 16 July 1984

Sitting at the table doesn't make you a diner, unless you eat some of what's on that plate. Being here in America doesn't make you an American. Being born here in America doesn't make you an American.
Malcolm X, Malcolm X Speaks

Success is not assured, but America is resolute: this is the best chance for peace we are likely to see for some years to come - and we are acting to help Israelis and Palestinians seize this chance.
Condoleezza Rice, Israel, Palestinians Declare Ceasefire

Success is not assured, but America is resolute: this is the best chance for peace we are likely to see for some years to come - and we are acting to help Israelis and Palestinians seize this chance.
Condoleezza Rice, Israel, Palestinians Declare Ceasefire#

The American dream is not dead. It is gasping for breath, but it is not dead.
Barbara Jordan

The majority of the American people still believe that every single individual in this country is entitled to just as much respect, just as much dignity, as every other individual.
Barbara Jordan, The Johnson Years: LBJ: The Differences He Made

The players in this drama of frustration and indignity are not commas or semicolons in a legislative thesis; they are people, human beings, citizens of the United States of America.
Roy Wilkins

The white, the Hispanic, the black, the Arab, the Jew, the woman, the Native American, the small farmer, the businessperson, the environmentalist, the peace activist, the young, the old, the lesbian, the gay and the disabled make up the American quilt.
Jesse Jackson, The Rainbow Coalition

There's a lot of Americans, black and white, who think that we've arrived where we need to be and nothing else needs to be done and affirmative action needs to be dismantled.
Spike Lee

This land, which we have watered with our tears and our blood, is now our mother country, and we are well satisfied to stay where wisdom abounds and gospel is free.
Richard Allen

Too many people are being bowled over by Bush and Tony Blair in Britain. It's ludicrous to expect the whole world to follow what they want. America doesn't have the moral right to tell other people what to do. To say the whole world has to fall into line is you-know-what. I hope more people will rise up.
Spike Lee

We do not have a money problem in America. We have a values and priorities problem.
Marian Wright Edelman

What America demands in her black champions is a brilliant, powerful body and a dull, bestial mind.
Eldridge Cleaver

White Americans today don't know what in the world to do because when they put us behind them, that's where they made their mistake. . . . they put us behind them, and we watched every move they made.
Fannie Lou Hamer