On the road to equality there is no better place for blacks to detour around American values than in forgoing its example in the treatment of its women and the organization of its family.
Eleanor Holmes NortonRead
Affirmative action is the most important antidiscrimination technique ever instituted in the United States. It is the one tool that has had a demonstrable effect on discrimination... Affirmative action, by all statistical measures, has been the central ingredient to the creation of the black middle class.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Affirmative action is a crucial method for combating discrimination and has significantly contributed to the economic advancement of marginalized communities.
Eleanor Holmes Norton highlights the importance of affirmative action as a vital strategy for reducing discrimination, particularly in the context of the United States. By asserting that it is the most effective tool in promoting equality, she emphasizes its role in establishing the black middle class through measurable statistical evidence. This quote underlines the necessity of such policies to create significant socio-economic change and to address historical injustices faced by marginalized groups.
Themes
Affirmative ActionDiscriminationEqualitySocial JusticeBlack Middle Class
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a speech addressing the importance of social justice policies.
More from Eleanor Holmes Norton
All quotes →Affirmative action is the most important modern anti-discrimination technique ever instituted in the United States. It is the one tool that has had a demonstrable effect on discrimination. No one who knows anything about the subject would say it hasn't worked. It has certainly done something, or else it wouldn't have provoked so much opposition.
Eleanor Holmes NortonRead
I agree that income disparity is the great issue of our time. It is even broader and more difficult than the civil rights issues of the 1960s. The '99 percent' is not just a slogan. The disparity in income has left the middle class with lowered, not rising, income, and the poor unable to reach the middle class.
Eleanor Holmes NortonRead
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