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Mary McLeod Bethune
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“... 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.”
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“What does the Negro want? His answer is very simple. He wants only what 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.”
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“In each experience of my life, I have had to step out of one little space of the known light, into a large area of darkness. I had to stand awhile in the darkness, and then gradually God has given me light. But not to linger in. For as soon as that light has felt familiar, then the call has always come to step out ahead again into new darkness.”
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“Knowledge is the prime need of the hour.”
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“Faith is the first factor in a life devoted to service. Without faith, nothing is possible. With it, nothing is impossible.”
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“The true worth of a race must be measured by the character of its womanhood. ”
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“[To the White House guard who addressed her as 'Auntie':] Which one of my brother's children are you?”
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“Invest in the human soul. Who knows, it might be a diamond in the rough.”
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“Cease to be a drudge [in your work], seek to be an artist.”
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“[To the patronizing train conductor who had twice said, 'Auntie, give me your ticket':] Which of my sister's sons are you?”
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“... when they learn of Caesar and his legions, we must teach them of Hannibal and his Africans; when they learn of Shakespeare and Goethe, we must teach them of Pushkin and Dumas.”
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“Next to God we are indebted to women, first for life itself, and then for making it worth living.”
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“I thought, maybe the difference between white folks and colored is just this matter of reading and writing. I made up my mind I would know my letters.”
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“Forgiving is not forgetting, it's letting go of the hurt.”
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“Greatness is largely a social accident, and almost always socially supported.”
Mary McLeod Bethune, U.S. educator, writer, civil rights worker
(1875 - 1955)
Full name: Mary Jane McLeod Bethune.