The greatness of a community is most accurately measured by the compassionate actions of its members.
Sometimes, I am also identified as a civil rights leader or a human rights activist. I would also like to be thought of as a complex, three-dimensional, flesh-and-blood human being with a rich storehouse of experiences, much like everyone else, yet unique in my own way, much like everyone else.
To abandon affirmative action is to say there is nothing more to be done about discrimination.
Our Congress passes laws which subsidize corporation farms, oil companies, airlines, and houses for suburbia. But when they turn their attention to the poor, they suddenly become concerned about balancing the budget and cut back on the funds for Head Start, Medicare, and mental health appropriations.
Civil rights leaders, including my husband and Albert Turner, have fought long and hard to achieve free and unfettered access to the ballot box. Mr. Sessions has used the awesome power of his office to chill the free exercise of the vote by black citizens in the district he now seeks to serve as a federal judge.
I believe all Americans who believe in freedom, tolerance and human rights have a responsibility to oppose bigotry and prejudice based on sexual orientation.
While not a panacea for the nation's illegal immigration problems, employer sanctions are one necessary means of stopping the exploitation of vulnerable workers and the undercutting of American jobs and living standards.
If American women would increase their voting turnout by ten percent, I think we would see an end to all of the budget cuts in programs benefiting women and children.
Homophobia is like racism and anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry in that it seeks to dehumanize a large group of people, to deny their humanity, their dignity and personhood.
As one whose husband and mother-in-law have died the victims of murder and assassination, I stand firmly and unequivocally opposed to the death penalty for those convicted of capital offenses... An evil deed is not redeemed by an evil deed of retaliation.
Mr. Sessions' conduct as a U.S. Attorney, from his politically-motivated voting fraud prosecutions to his indifference toward criminal violations of civil rights laws, indicated that he lacks the temperament, fairness and judgment to be a federal judge.
A constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage is a form of gay bashing and it would do nothing to protect traditional marriages.
During the bus boycott, I was tested by fire, and I came to understand that I was not a breakable crystal figurine.
On Thanksgiving Night, 1942, when I was fifteen years old, white racists burned our house to the ground.
The failure to invest in youth reflects a lack of compassion and a colossal failure of common sense.
Thank God we have the example of Martin Luther King, Jr. People need role models. They need to see examples of people in peoples' lives, and that's why it's so important not just to commemorate his life, but to study and try to live by the principles of that life.
We can prevent many people from becoming terrorists by truly listening to people who feel they've been treated unjustly and responding to their concerns with a sense of justice and compassion.
I suppose I experienced the personal dilemma that baffles every working woman. What happens when you are expected to be Superwoman, to perform a dozen conflicting tasks at the same time?
Particularly in the South, efforts continue to be made to deny blacks access to the polls, even where blacks constitute the majority of the voters.
Freedom and justice cannot be parceled out in pieces to suit political convenience. I don't believe you can stand for freedom for one group of people and deny it to others.
