Turning to those who have voiced the struggle for justice and social well being. Some statements from James Baldwin to think about as I plan for the fall.
Those who say it can’t be done are usually interrupted by others doing it.
The price one pays for pursuing any profession, or calling, is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side.
Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.
To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time.
I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.
Be careful what you set your heart upon – for it will surely be yours.
It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.
A child cannot be taught by anyone who despises him, and a child cannot afford to be fooled.
Education is indoctrination if you’re white – subjugation if you’re black.
Most of us are about as eager to be changed as we were to be born, and go through our changes in a similar state of shock.
The young think that failure is the Siberian end of the line, banishment from all the living, and tend to do what I then did – which was to hide.
The most dangerous creation of any society is the man who has nothing to lose.
There is never time in the future in which we will work out our salvation. The challenge is in the moment; the time is always now.
The only thing that white people have that black people need, or should want, is power-and no one holds power forever.
The future is like heaven, everyone exalts it, but no one wants to go there now.
Every legend, moreover, contains its residuum of truth, and the root function of language is to control the universe by describing it.
It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who had ever been alive.
Voyagers discover that the world can never be larger than the person that is in the world; but it is impossible to foresee this, it is impossible to be warned.