A. Philip Randolph
Negroes must be free in order to be equal, and they must be equal in order to be free... Men cannot win freedom unless they win equality. They cannot win equality unless they win freedom.Collection: Equality
In every truth, the beneficiaries of a system cannot be expected to destroy it.Collection: Truth
Patriotism has no appeal to us; justice has. Party has no weight with us; principle has. Loyalty is meaningless; it depends on what one is loyal to.Collection: Patriotism
Justice is never given; it is exacted and the struggle must be continuous for freedom is never a final fact, but a continuing evolving process to higher and higher levels of human, social, economic, political and religious relationship.Collection: Relationship
Freedom is never granted; it is won.Collection: Freedom
Freedom is never given; it is won.Collection: Freedom
I don't ever remember a single day of hopelessness. I knew from the history of the labor movement, especially of the black people, that it was an undertaking of great trial. That, live or die, I had to stick with it, and we had to win.Collection: History
A community is democratic only when the humblest and weakest person can enjoy the highest civil, economic, and social rights that the biggest and most powerful possess.
I am prepared to oppose a Jim Crow army till I rot in jail.
I have an inner satisfaction of having done what I thought was right at the time which I thought was propitious.
Justice is never given; it is exacted.
I suggest that ten thousand Negroes march on Washington, D.C., the capital of the Nation, with the slogan, 'We loyal Negro American citizens demand the right to work and fight for our country.'
Since almost all Negroes are workers, live on wages, and suffer from the high cost of food, clothing and shelter, it is obvious that the Republican and Democratic Parties are opposed to their interests.
If we have white persons in the March, we are certain to have trouble with the Communists, and it may not be viewed as a true expression of the Negro's protest.
If someone tried to deprive you of your rights, you've got to resist it. You've got to resent it. You've got to fight against it.
Negroes are in no mood to shoulder guns for democracy abroad while they are denied democracy here at home.
Lincoln merely nominally freed the bodies of Negroes. But Debs would free the bodies and minds of Negroes.
Debs is greater than Lincoln. Debs is the spokesman of the great struggling working class of all races, nationalities, creeds, sexes.
Salvation for a race, nation or class must come from within.
Lincoln was the spokesman of the rising capitalist class of the North, who viewed the emancipation of Negro slaves as indispensable to the development and triumph of the manufacturers and bankers of the industrial North, East and West over the slave-holder of the South.
The Negro was a political football between his former slave master and Northern political adventurers. The economic basis of this contest was the power to tax, to float bonds, to award franchise: in short, to gain control over the financial resources of the newly organized States.
We must develop huge demonstrations, because the world is used to big dramatic affairs. They think in terms of hundreds of thousands and millions and billions... Billions of dollars are appropriated at the twinkling of an eye. Nothing little counts.
We seek the right to play our part in advancing the cause of national defense and national unity. But certainly, there can be no true national unity where one-tenth of the population is denied their basic rights as American citizens.
I personally pledge myself to openly counsel, aid, and abet youth, both black and white, to quarantine any Jim Crow conscription system.
Equality is the heart and essence of democracy, freedom, and justice, equality of opportunity in industry, in labor unions, schools and colleges, government, politics, and before the law. There must be no dual standards of justice, no dual rights, privileges, duties, or responsibilities of citizenship. No dual forms of freedom.Collection: Heart
At the banquet table of nature, there are no reserved seats. You get what you can take, and you keep what you can hold. If you can't take anything, you won't get anything, and if you can't hold anything, you won't keep anything. And you can't take anything without organization.Collection: Struggle
Salvation for a race, nation or class must come from within. Freedom is never granted; it is won. Justice is never given; it is exacted.Collection: Race
It's easy to get people's attention, what counts is getting their interest.Collection: People
Look for the enemies of Medicare, of higher minimum wages, of Social Security, of federal aid to education and there you will find the enemy of the Negro, the coalition of Dixiecrats and reactionary Republicans that seek to dominate the Congress.Collection: Enemy
The essence of trade unionism is social uplift. The labor movement has been the haven for the dispossessed, the despised, the neglected, the downtrodden, the poor.Collection: Uplifting
Nothing counts but pressure, pressure, more pressure, and still more pressure through broad organized aggressive mass action.Collection: Pressure
Those who deplore our militants, who exhort patience in the name of a false peace, are in fact supporting segregation and exploitation. They would have social peace at the expense of social and racial justice. They are more concerned with easing racial tension than enforcing racial democracy.Collection: Names
Make wars unprofitable and you make them impossible.Collection: Money
We want the full works of citizenship with no reservations. We will accept nothing less . . . This condition of freedom, equality, and democracy is not the gift of gods. It is the task of men, yes, men, brave men, honest men, determined men.Collection: Men
Power is the flower of organization.Collection: Flower
Winning Democracy for the Negro is winning the war for DemocracyCollection: War