Quotes about Negroes

In the evening, when we were alone like that, Uncle Willie didn't stutter or shake or give any indication that he had an affliction. It seemed that the peace of a day's ending was an assurance that the covenant God made with children, Negroes and the crippled was still in effect.

Whenever it is written—and I hope it will be—the part that the Yankee teachers played in the education of the Negroes immediately after the war will make one of the most thrilling parts of the history off this country.

You see, most whites, even when they credit a Negro with some intelligence, will still feel that all he can talk about is the race issue; most whites never feel that Negroes can contribute anything to other areas of thought, and ideas. You just notice how rarely you will ever hear whites asking any Negroes what they think about the problem of world health, or the space race to land men on the moon.

Freedom is not won by a passive acceptance of suffering. Freedom is won by a struggle against suffering. By this measure, Negroes have not yet paid the full price for freedom. And whites have not yet faced the full cost of justice.

When people think about race problems they are too often more concerned with men than with God. The question usually asked is: 'What will my friends think if I am too friendly to Negroes or too liberal on the race question?' Men forget to ask: 'What will God think?

But most whites in America in 1967, including many persons of goodwill, proceed from a premise that equality is a loose expression for improvement. White America is not even psychologically organized to close the gap—essentially it seeks only to make it less painful and less obvious but in most respects to retain it. Most of the abrasions between Negroes and white liberals arise from this fact.

We forfeit the right to worship God as long as we continue to humiliate negroes. ... The hour calls for moral grandeur and spiritual audacity.

jefferson, yoknapatawpha co., Mississippi. Area, 2400 Square Miles. Population, Whites, 6298; Negroes, 9313. william faulkner, Sole Owner & Proprietor.