“One had better die fighting against injustice than die like a dog or a rat in a trap.”

The miscegenation laws of the South only operate against the legitimate union of the races; they leave the white man free to seduce all the colored girls he can, but it is death to the colored man who yields to the force and advances of a similar attraction in white women.

The South is brutalized to a degree not realized by its own inhabitants, and the very foundation of government, law and order, are imperilled.

I had an instinctive feeling that the people who have little or no school training should have something coming into their homes weekly which dealt with their problems in a simple, helpful way… so I wrote in a plain, common-sense way on the things that concerned our people.

White men lynch the offending Afro-American, not because he is a despoiler of virtue, but because he succumbs to the smiles of white women.

In slave times the Negro was kept subservient and submissive by the frequency and severity of the scourging, but, with freedom, a new system of intimidation came into vogue; the Negro was not only whipped and scourged; he was killed.

The people must know before they can act, and there is no educator to compare with the press.

There is nothing we can do about the lynching now, as we are out-numbered and without arms.

The negro has suffered far more from the commission of this crime against the women of his race by white men than the white race has ever suffered through his crimes.

I had already determined to sell my life as dearly as possible if attacked. I felt if I could take one lyncher with me, this would even up the score a little bit.

The doors of churches, hotels, concert halls and reading rooms are alike closed against the Negro as a man, but every place is open to him as a servant.

The emergency no longer existing, lynching gradually disappeared from the West.

The South resented giving the Afro-American his freedom, the ballot box and the Civil Rights Law.

The mob spirit has grown with the increasing intelligence of the Afro-American.

I am only a mouthpiece through which to tell the story of lynching and I have told it so often that I know it by heart. I do not have to embellish; it makes its own way.

A Winchester rifle should have a place of honor in every black home.

Brave men do not gather by thousands to torture and murder a single individual, so gagged and bound he cannot make even feeble resistance or defense.

If we just had an election which is a kind of desiccated calculation, obviously I think the Conservatives have the best economic plans, but it is about more than that. It is about the overall person.

I have never had illusions about the value of my individual contribution! I realized early that what a man or a woman does is built on what those who have gone before have done, that its real value depends on making the matter in hand a little clearer.

I know I had no hand in making this war, and I know I will make more sacrifices today than any of you to secure peace.

I felt that one had better die fighting against injustice than to die like a dog or rat in a trap.

I’ve never had any illusions about being a lead actor in films, because lead actors have to be of a certain kind. Apart from the beauty of looks and figure, which I cannot claim to have, there’s just a particular kind of ordinary-Joe quality that a film star needs to have.

My mother had very humble beginnings – to put it mildly. Her dad built their home out of timber that he cut down on their land. No heat, no air-conditioning – ‘no foolishness,’ as he would call it.

I can read a four-page scene once and have it memorized. It’s a skill you learn in school: disposable cramming.

Ever since third grade, I had a notebook and was putting together words just for fun.