The plague of racism is insidious, entering into our minds as smoothly and quietly and invisibly as floating airborne microbes enter into our bodies to find lifelong purchase in our bloodstreams.

The problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color-line.

Race prejudice decreases values both real estate and human; crime, ignorance and filth decrease values.

Everybody should take each other as they are, white, black, Indians, Creole. Then there would be no prejudice, nations would get along.

Why should anyone think a white skin superior in evaluating the qualities of human life? I did not really admire a white skin so much myself. Did I not prefer the brown that came with exposure to the sun?

Sometimes, it's [racial prejudice] like a hair across your cheek. You can't see it, you can't find it with your fingers, but you keep brushing at it because the feel of it is irritating.

Race prejudice is not only a shadow over the colored-it is a shadow over all of us, and the shadow is darkest over those who feel it least and allow its evil effects to go on.

Cannot the nation that has absorbed ten million foreigners into its political life without catastrophe absorb ten million Negro Americans into that same political life at less cost than their unjust and illegal exclusion will involve?

Who makes and keeps the Jew or the Negro base, who but you, who exclude them from the rights which others enjoy?

Racial prejudice boils down to the deeply anti-American message that some people are born to fail.