Thread by @axidentaliberal

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Thomas Jefferson

https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1150381395078000643

“As a nation, we began by declaring that 'all men are created equal.' We now practically read it 'all men are created equal, except negroes.' When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read 'all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics.'”

Lincoln

“I wish I could say that racism and prejudice were only distant memories. We must dissent from the indifference. We must dissent from the apathy....We must dissent because America can do better, because America has no choice but to do better.”

Thurgood Marshall

“Pit race against race, religion against religion, prejudice against prejudice. Divide and conquer! We must not let that happen here.”

Eleanor Roosevelt

“The white man's happiness cannot be purchased by the black man's misery.”

Frederick Douglass

“Ignorance and prejudice are the handmaidens of propaganda. Our mission, therefore, is to confront ignorance with knowledge, bigotry with tolerance, and isolation with the outstretched hand of generosity. Racism can, will, and must be defeated.”

Kofi Annan

“What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred..not violence and lawlessness, but is love and wisdom, and compassion..and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country”

Robert F. Kennedy

“I always looked upon the acts of racist exclusion, or insult, as pitiable, for the other person. I never absorbed that. I always thought that there was something deficient about such people. ”

Toni Morrison

“We must rapidly begin the shift..to a "person-oriented" society. When..profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.”

Martin Luther King Jr.

“years after Dr. King was murdered, we are still a nation of inequality. People of color, women, gays, lesbians, and others are still treated as second-class citizens. Yes, things have changed but we have still not achieved equality among all humans.”

Gary L. Francione

“There is no reason for you to try to become like white people..They have had to believe for many years, and for innumerable reasons, that black men are inferior to white men. Many of them, indeed, know better, but..people find it very difficult to act on what they know”

Baldwin