No race has a monopoly on vice or virtue, and the worth of an individual is not related to the color of his skin.
Whitney M. YoungRead
Black is beautiful when it is a slum kid studying to enter college, when it is a man learning new skills for a new job. . . .
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the beauty and dignity of striving for better opportunities despite challenging circumstances.
Whitney M. Young's quote highlights the intrinsic value and beauty found in individuals, particularly from marginalized backgrounds, who are pursuing education and self-improvement. It suggests that true beauty lies in the efforts of those striving to overcome obstacles, such as slum children preparing for college or individuals acquiring new skills for employment, demonstrating resilience and aspiration against the odds.
In practice
In a speech about community development and education.
No race has a monopoly on vice or virtue, and the worth of an individual is not related to the color of his skin.
The danger is that people may mistake what is basically a change in vocabulary for a change in behavior, practices, and attitudes. While practically all Americans have learned to talk inoffensively, not enough have learned to think differently, nor act positively.
Black Power simply means: Look at me, I'm here. I have dignity. I have pride. I have roots. I insist, I demand that I participate in those decisions that affect my life and the lives of my children. It means that I am somebody.
Every man is our brother, and every manβs burden is our own. Where poverty exists, all are poorer. Where hate flourishes, all are corrupted. Where injustice reins, all are unequal.
You have learnt something. That always feels at first as if you had lost something.
Children learn what they live. Put kids in a class and they will live out their lives in an invisible cage, isolated from their chance at community; interrupt kids with bells and horns all the time and they will learn that nothing is important or worth finishing; ridicule them and they will retreat from human association; shame them and they will find a hundred ways to get even. The habits taught in large-scale organizations are deadly.
The strongest reason for giving woman all the opportunities for higher education, for the full development of her faculties, her forces of mind and body... is the solitude and personal responsibility of her own individual life.
Maybe all wondrous books appear in our lives the way Miloβs tollbooth appears, an inexplicable gift, cast up by some curious chance that comes to feel, after we have finished and fallen in love with the book, like the workings of a secret purpose. Of all the enchantments of beloved books the most mysterious-the most phantasmal-is the way they always seem to come our way precisely when we need them.
Kathy Dewar, my high-school English teacher, introduced me to journalism. From the moment I wrote my first article for the student paper, I convinced myself that having my name in print - writing in English, interviewing Americans - validated my presence here.
I'd be satisfied just coaching in high school. I turned down a number of colleges when I was teaching in South Bend, Indiana, before I went into the service. I honestly believe that if I hadn't enlisted in the service, I would never have left high school teaching. I'm sure I would have never left.
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