“There is no conceivable reason why all colored people should not be treated according to the merits of each individual. It is not only the plain duty, but also the interest of us all, to have every colored man take the place for which he is best fitted by education, character, ability, manners, and culture. If others insist on keeping him in any lower and poorer place, it is not only his injury, but our universal loss. Yet which of our white congregations would take a colored pastor? How many of our New England villages would like to have colored postmasters, or doctors, or lawyers, or teachers in the public schools? A very slight difference in complexion suffices to keep a young man from getting a place as policeman, or fireman, or conductor, even on the horse cars. The trades-unions are closed against him, and so are many of our stores; while those which admit him are obliged to refuse him promotion on account of the unwillingness of white men to serve under him.”

— Frederick Douglass

Speech http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/the-nations-problem/

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Frederick Douglass 274

American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman 1818–1895

Josef Albers (1888–1976) German-American artist and educator

Homage to the square' (1964), Oral history interview with Josef Albers' (1968)

“It ought to be possible for American consumers of any color to receive equal service in places of public accommodation, such as hotels and restaurants and theaters and retail stores, without being forced to resort to demonstrations in the street, and it ought to be possible for American citizens of any color to register and to vote in a free election without interference or fear of reprisal. It ought to be possible, in short, for every American to enjoy the privileges of being American without regard to his race or his color. In short, every American ought to have the right to be treated as he would wish to be treated, as one would wish his children to be treated. But this is not the case.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

1963, Civil Rights Address

“I make a little mystique for myself. Since I have no preference or so-called sense of color, I could take almost everything that could be some accident of a previous painting. Or I set out to make a series. I take, for instance, some pictures where I take a color, some arbitrary color I took from some place. Well, this is gray maybe, and I mix the color for that, and then I find out that when I am through with getting the color the way I want it, I have six other colors in it, to get that color; and then I take those six colors and I use them also with this color. It is probably like a composer does a variation on a certain theme. But it isn't technical, it isn't just fun.”

Willem de Kooning (1904–1997) Dutch painter

interview conducted by David Sylvester for the BBC, 1962; as quoted in Abstract Expressionism: Creators and Critics, edited by Clifford Ross, Abrahams Publishers, New York 1990, p. 50.
1960's

“We are like chameleons; we take our hue and the color of our moral character from those who are around us.”

John Locke (1632–1704) English philosopher and physician

Attributed to Locke on various quotes sites and on social media, this quotation is a false rendering of "We are all a sort of chameleons, that still take a tincture from things near us: nor is it to be wondered at in children, who better understand what they see, than what they hear" from Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693).
Misattributed

“Certainly it is okay for them to play. I see no reason in the world why we shouldn't compete with colored athletes as long as they conduct themselves with politeness and gentility. Let me say also that no white man has the right to be less of a gentleman than a colored man, in my book that goes not only for baseball but in all walks of life.”

Ty Cobb (1886–1961) American baseball player

Responding to the impending integration of the Dallas Rangers, as quoted in "Between the Lines" http://www.mediafire.com/view/e8dga7hnpbb7tzk/BETWEEN_THE_LINES_THE_GREAT_T(2).jpg by Dean Gordon Hancock (ANP), in The Atlanta Daily World (February 10, 1952); reproduced in "The Knife in Ty Cobb’s Back" http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-knife-in-ty-cobbs-back-65618032/ (30 August 2011), Smithsonian, by Gilbert King.

“Let Christians act out their religion, and there is no more race problem. Equality for the colored man is coming. The colored people are showing themselves worthy of it. Let the colored be industrious, purchase homes, respect law and order, educate themselves and their children, and keep insisting on their rights.”

John Ireland (bishop) (1838–1918) Catholic bishop

Sermon at St. Augustine Catholic Church (1890)

“Formerly, the purchase of Texas by our Government, for the purpose of bestowing it as a gift upon our colored population, was a favorite opinion of ours; but we have settled down into the belief, that the object is neither practicable nor expedient. In the first place, it is not probable that the Congress would make the purchase; nor, secondly, is it likely that the mass of our colored people would remove without some compulsory process; nor, thirdly, would it be safe or convenient to organise them as a distinct nation among us,—an imperium in imperio. The fact is, it is time to repudiate all colonization schemes, as visionary and unprofitable; all those, we mean, which have for their design the entire separation of the blacks from the whites. We must take our free colored and slave inhabitants as we find them—recognise them as countrymen who have extraordinary claims upon our charities—give them the advantages of education—respect them as members of one great family, who may be made useful in society and honorable in reputation. This is our view of the subject.”

William Lloyd Garrison (1805–1879) American journalist

The Liberator http://deadconfederates.com/2016/03/21/garrison-gives-up-on-colonization/ (22 January 1861)
The Liberator (1831 - 1866)

“He treated me as a man… He did not let me feel for a moment that there was any difference in the color of our skins.”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

About Abraham Lincoln (1864), as quoted in Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877 https://books.google.com/books?id=cwVkgrvctCcC&printsec=frontcover&dq=%22Eric+Foner%22+%22Republicans%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiOwdup3aLLAhVK7SYKHZufDmUQ6AEIRjAH#v=onepage&q&f=false, by Eric Foner, p. 6
1860s

“Told, during the days of segregation in the US, that he couldn't be served as he was trying to take breakfast at a restaurant "for colored folk", he insisted: "But we are colored, my dear. We are pink."”

Pierre Monteux (1875–1964) French conductor

From Monteux, Fifi (1962). Everyone is Someone. New York: Farrar, Straus & Cudahy. OCLC 602036672, pp. 13–15

“Let us not forget what befits our present state in the pursuit of vain fancies. Mankind has its place in the sequence of things; childhood has its place in the sequence of human life; the man must be treated as a man and the child as a child. Give each his place, and keep him there. Control human passions according to man's nature; that is all we can do for his welfare. The rest depends on external forces, which are beyond our control.”

Jean Jacques Rousseau book Emile, or On Education

Emile, or On Education (1762), Book II

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Frederick Douglass 274

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