Explore Quotes by Mary Mcleod Bethune

Knowledge is the prime need of the hour.

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.

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

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.

I leave you love. I leave you hope. I leave you the challenge of developing confidence in one another. I leave you respect for the use of power. I leave you faith. I leave you racial dignity.

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.

If we accept and acquiesce in the face of discrimination, we accept the responsibility ourselves. We should, therefore, protest openly everything ... that smacks of discrimination or slander.

From the first, I made my learning, what little it was, useful every way I could.

I never stop to plan. I take things step-by-step.

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

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