Unfortunately there was one thing that the white South feared more than Negro dishonesty, ignorance, and incompetency, and that was Negro honesty, knowledge, and efficiency.

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There can be no perfect democracy curtailed by color, race, or poverty. But with all we accomplish all, even peace.

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We must complain. Yes, plain, blunt complaint, ceaseless agitation, unfailing exposure of dishonesty and wrong - this is the ancient, unerring way to liberty and we must follow it.

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Most men in this world are colored. A belief in humanity means a belief in colored men. The future world will, in all reasonable probability, be what colored men make it.

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Strive for that greatness of spirit that measures life not by its disappointments but by its possibilities.

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Now is the accepted time, not tomorrow, not some more convenient season. It is today that our best work can be done.

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Would America have been America without her Negro people?

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The theory of democratic government is not that the will of the people is always right, but rather that normal human beings of average intelligence will, if given a chance, learn the right and best course by bitter experience.

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Most men today cannot conceive of a freedom that does not involve somebody's slavery.

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We cannot escape the clear fact that what is going to win in this world is reason, if this ever becomes a reasonable world.

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