“We can move in that direction as a country, in greater polarization -- black people amongst blacks, and white amongst whites, filled with hatred toward one another. Or we can make an effort”

— Robert F. Kennedy

Speech on the Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. (1968)
Context: Martin Luther King dedicated his life to love and to justice between fellow human beings. He died in the cause of that effort. In this difficult day, in this difficult time for the United States, it's perhaps well to ask what kind of a nation we are and what direction we want to move in. For those of you who are black -- considering the evidence evidently is that there were white people who were responsible -- you can be filled with bitterness, and with hatred, and a desire for revenge. We can move in that direction as a country, in greater polarization -- black people amongst blacks, and white amongst whites, filled with hatred toward one another. Or we can make an effort, as Martin Luther King did, to understand, and to comprehend, and replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed that has spread across our land, with an effort to understand, compassion, and love. [... ] But we have to make an effort in the United States. We have to make an effort to understand, to get beyond, or go beyond these rather difficult times.

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Robert F. Kennedy 72

American politician and brother of John F. Kennedy 1925–1968

James H. Cone (1938–2018) American theologian

Source: Black Theology and Black Power (1969), p. 14-16

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

Robert F. Kennedy (1925–1968) American politician and brother of John F. Kennedy

Speech on the Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. (1968)

“Some white people hate black people, and some white people love black people, some black people hate white people, and some black people love white people. So you see it's not an issue of black and white, it's an issue of Lovers and Haters.”

Eden ahbez (1908–1995) American songwriter and recording artist

As quoted by Joe Romersa (c. 1992)
Shadowbox Studio

“White people in this country must be willing to accept black leadership, for that is the only protection that black people have to protect ourselves from racism rising again in this country. Racism in the United States is so pervasive in the mentality of whites that only an armed, well-disciplined, black-controlled Government can insure the stamping out of racism in this country.”

James Forman (1928–2005) American civil rights leader

Source: "The Black Manifesto" (1969), p. 118

“Just as we preach a "black peril" so they will begin to speak of a "white peril" and of the hostility the white men have toward them.”

Jan Smuts (1870–1950) military leader, politician and statesman from South Africa

In June 1947, addressing the head committee of the United Party in Transvaal, cited by Tom MacDonald (1948) in Jan Hofmeyr: Heir to Smuts, p. 219

“You can play the piano with the white keys only or you can play it with only the black keys. But for harmony you must use the black and the white keys.”

Ernest Debrah (1947–2016) Ghanian politician

On the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA), in Will Ross, " Africans wary of Europe's trade offer http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7134407.stm", BBC (8 December, 2007).