Mary Mcleod Bethune

If we have the courage and tenacity of our forebears, who stood firmly like a rock against the lash of slavery, we shall find a way to do for our day what they did for theirs.

You white folks have long been eating the white meat of the chicken. We Negroes are now ready for some of the white meat instead of the dark meat.

Enter to learn; depart to serve.

We live in a world which respects power above all things. Power, intelligently directed, can lead to more freedom. Unwisely directed, it can be a dreadful, destructive force.

Forgiving is not about forgetting, it's letting go of the hurt

What does the Negro want? His answer is very simple. He wants only what all other Americans want. He wants opportunity to make real what the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and the Bill of Rights say, what the Four Freedoms establish. While he knows these ideals are open to no man completely, he wants only his equal chance to obtain them.

Whatever the white man has done, we have done, and often better.

I plunged into the job of creating something from nothing.... Though I hadn't a penny left, I considered cash money as the smallest part of my resources. I had faith in a living God, faith in myself, and a desire to serve.

For I am my mother's daughter, and the drums of Africa still beat in my heart.

I do feel, in my dreamings and yearnings, so undiscovered by those who are able to help me.

Studying goes deeper than mere reading. There are surface nuggets to be gathered but the best of the gold is underneath, and it takes time and labor to secure it.

The drums of Africa still beat in my heart. They will not let me rest while there is a single Negro boy or girl without a chance to prove his worth.

The true worth of a race must be measured by the character of its womanhood.

Without faith, nothing is possible. With it, nothing is impossible.

We have a powerful potential in our youth, and we must have the courage to change old ideas and practices so that we may direct their power toward good ends.

When they learn of Shakespeare and Goethe, we must teach them of Pushkin and Dumas. . . . Whatever the white man has done, we have done, and often better.

There is a place in God's sun for the youth "farthest down" who has the vision, the determination, and the courage to reach it.

Next to God we are indebted to women, first for life itself, and then for making it worth living.