I believe if the white and colored people could get together and be let alone, they would understand each other and consequently love each other.

Beautiful? It’s all a question of luck. I was born with good legs. As for the rest… beautiful, no. Amusing, yes.

I like Frenchmen very much, because even when they insult you they do it so nicely.

I have walked into the palaces of kings and queens and into the houses of presidents. And much more. But I could not walk into a hotel in America and get a cup of coffee,...

I was a devil in other countries, and I was a little devil in America, too.

Let us stop saying ‘white Americans’ and ‘colored Americans,’ let us try once and for all saying… Americans. Let human beings be equal on Earth as in Heaven.

I ran away from St. Louis, and then I ran away from the United States, because of that terror of discrimination.

The things we truly love stay with us always, locked in our hearts as long as life remains.

My people have a country of their own to go to if they choose… Africa… but, this America belongs to them just as much as it does to any of the white race… in some...

Friends, to me for years St. Louis represented a city of fear… humiliation… misery and terror… A city where in the eyes of the white man a Negro should know his place and had better...

I remember when Lindbergh arrived in Paris, I was one of the first persons to know about his landing, because as the French people know that I was born in St. Louis, thinking I would...

I believe in prayer. It’s the best way we have to draw strength from heaven.

I’m not intimidated by anyone. Everyone is made with two arms, two legs, a stomach and a head. Just think about that.

Surely the day will come when color means nothing more than the skin tone, when religion is seen uniquely as a way to speak one’s soul, when birth places have the weight of a throw...

All my life, I have maintained that the people of the world can learn to live together in peace if they are not brought up in prejudice.

I wasn’t really naked. I simply didn’t have any clothes on.

God dislikes evil, and no happiness can be built on hate. Love one another as brothers.

I ran away from home. I ran away from St. Louis, and then I ran away from the United States of America, because of that terror of discrimination, that horrible beast which paralyzes one’s very...

All men can live together, if they wish to.

When I was a child and they burned me out of my home, I was frightened and I ran away. Eventually I ran far away. It was to a place called France. Many of you...

The hate directed against the colored people here in St. Louis has always given me a sad feeling because when I was a little girl I remember the horror of the East St. Louis race...

I wanted to get far away from those who believed in cruelty, so then I went to France, a land of true freedom, democracy, equality and fraternity.

Americans, the eyes of the world are upon you. How can you expect the world to believe in you and respect your preaching of democracy when you yourself treat your colored brothers as you do?

You must get an education. You must go to school, and you must learn to protect yourself. And you must learn to protect yourself with the pen, and not the gun.