"It is worth noting that if Emmett Till had been a Mississippi farm boy instead of a Chicago lad on vacation in Mississippi, the world probably would never have known his fate."

Louis E. Burnham Journalism See all quotes by Louis E. Burnham →

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“How, then, should American literature deal with these people, crushed for centuries beneath an insufferable weight of exploitation, calumny and derision, yet always rising, their presence and their struggle ever mocking the strident pretensions of the nation?”

“Much of what Negroes fight for today is not to gain new ground but to restore positions once dearly won and foully taken away.”

“The forward surge of the Negro people is the most distinctive and progressive feature of Southern politics.”

“Occasionally speaking of Black people generally, in conversation with the still youthful Lorraine Hansberry: "They are beautiful, child.”

“From one end of the South to the other law and order have broken down. A public climate has been created in which a Negro’s life is worth no more than a White man’s whim.”

Resonant Thoughts

"Anyway, beards and drugs leads me neatly to the Taliban; were they really that backward, or were they the finest minds of the fourteenth century? Nobody seems to know or care. That ideology was never …"

— Bill Bailey

Entertainment1965

#knowledge

"It’s a big coincidence. It’s something we can’t explain. But as far as we know that’s all it is. And if it isn’t, we’ll only find out by discovering more facts, not speculating, no matter how logical …"

— Ken MacLeod

Science1954

#knowledge

"My start, my childhood, was less than auspicious. But when I was young, we didn’t know we lacked anything, because we had nothing to compare it to — and there's a freedom in that. I had a very hard wo…"

— Sean Connery

Entertainment1930–2020

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"I simply don't understand why the Nobel academy gave him a peace prize or why Charlie Dimmock and Alan Titchmarsh gave him a new garden. And I don't see why he should be given a statue in Trafalgar Sq…"

— Jeremy Clarkson

Journalism1960

#knowledge