“One day our descendants will think it incredible that we paid so much attention to things like the amount of melanin in our skin or the shape of our eyes or our gender instead of the unique identities of each of us as complex human beings.” — Franklin A. Thomas · widely attributed to Franklin A. Thomas, former president of the Ford Foundation
“You may write me down in history with your bitter, twisted lies, you may trod me in the very dirt, but still, like dust, I'll rise.” — Maya Angelou · "Still I Rise," And Still I Rise, 1978
“Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly.” — Langston Hughes · "Dreams," 1922
“I am not tragically colored. There is no great sorrow dammed up in my soul, nor lurking behind my eyes. I do not mind at all.” — Zora Neale Hurston · "How It Feels to Be Colored Me," World Tomorrow, 1928
“Life's most persistent and urgent question is: What are you doing for others?” — Martin Luther King Jr. · "A Question of Life or Death," speech, Louisville, Kentucky, March 1956
“There is no such thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives.” — Audre Lorde · "Learning from the 60s," speech at Harvard, February 1982