Black Voting Quotes & Sayings

Man is the carrier of God's image — Sunday Adelaja

The irony is that these efforts to go beyond the original intent of the Voting Rights Act in the name of helping blacks politically have almost certainly hampered blacks politically by limiting their appeal to nonblack voters. By creating "safe" black districts, racial gerrymandering has facilitated racial polarization and hyperpartisanship. — Jason L. Riley

Abraham Lincoln struck off the chains of black Americans, but it was Lyndon Johnson who led them into voting booths, closed democracy's sacred curtain behind them, placed their hands upon the lever that gave them a hold on their own destiny, made them, at last and forever, a true part of American political life. — Robert A. Caro

Only now, in rhythmic waves, was she struck by her stupidity, her blindness, her estheronautiness, and, above all, her longing, the insult of the power of her longing, and she knew very well that is was these shortcomings that had made her so eager to interweave in his story the threads of her secret dreams of candor and of painful, purifying honesty; of a generous togetherness in which everything was possible. For a moment, with all that had been spun and stabbed and defiled within her, her face took on the expression of a frightened, abandoned girl who lunges out to bite, who lives unimaginably close to the skin's surface, ready to be drawn out like a final plan of retreat. — David Grossman

Sooner would be better than later, and now would be better than sooner. - Tyrion — George R R Martin

In that August of 1957, however, the cloakroom was often crowded, with senators talking earnestly on sofas and standing in animated little groups, and sometimes the glances between various groups were not comradely at all - sometimes, in fact, they glinted with a barely concealed hostility, and the narrow room simmered with tension, for the main issue before the Senate that summer was civil rights, a proposed law intended to make voting easier for millions of black Americans — Robert A. Caro

But it would be absolutely mistaken to regard a wealth of theoretical knowledge as characteristic proof for the qualities and abilities of a leader. — Adolf Hitler

The solution Ben Ginsberg hit upon was to use the Voting Rights Act's provisions governing majority-minority districts to create African American seats in Southern states. Work closely with minority groups to encourage candidates to run. Then pack as many Democratic voters as possible inside the lines, bleaching the surrounding districts whiter and more Republican, thus resegregating congressional representation while increasing the number of African Americans in Congress. The strategy became known as the unholy alliance, because it benefited black leaders and Republicans at the expense of the Democratic Party. Ginsberg had another name for it when a reporter asked him to describe it: Project Ratfuck. The — David Daley

Later that year, the Voting Rights Act opened the door for thousands to register for the first time. — Junius Williams

In my lifetime, we've gone from Eisenhower to George W. Bush. We've gone from John F. Kennedy to Al Gore. If this is evolution, I believe that in twelve years, we'll be voting for plants. — Lewis Black

Malcolm was such a spellbinding orator that the fact that he was also a political theoretician is little appreciated, but he was. He advocated, for example, that instead of pursuing the diversionary goal of integration, Black people ought to control their own communities economically and politically and fight to exercise their Fifteenth Amendment right to vote nationwide. Then they could extricate themselves from the hypocritical grasp of the two-party system and be an independent political power in their own right. But if America was unwilling to "do the right thing," voting-wise and otherwise, Malcolm advised Blacks to emulate the revolutionary struggles of Africa, Vietnam, Cuba, Algeria, et al. and fight for their liberation too, i.e., "the Ballot or the Bullet." Accordingly, — Jared Ball

A Black man voting for the Republicans makes about as much sense as a chicken voting for Col. Sanders, — J. C. Watts

I spent many years working for voting rights, but we still see sophisticated efforts, led by white officials, to disenfranchise black voters in local and national elections. — Edward Brooke

What mostly prevents black people from voting is that drug laws send them to prison, and then they can't vote. — Bill Maher

How many black holes have we been up close and personal with?" Kosta countered. "All sorts of odd things happen near the event horizon, from huge tidal forces to variations in time. Personally, I'm voting on it having to do with gravity, either a polarization of the fields themselves or else something related to the time differential."
I didn't know physics had become a democracy," Hanan murmered. — Timothy Zahn

It was Abraham Lincoln who struck off the chains of black Americans, but it was Lyndon Johnson who led them into voting booths, closed democracy's sacred curtain behind them, placed their hands upon the lever that gave them a hold on their own destiny, made them, at last and forever, a true part of American political life. How true a part? Forty-three years later, a mere blink of history's eye, a black American, Barack Obama, was sitting behind the desk in the Oval Office. — Robert A. Caro

Let the black man vote when he is fit to vote; prohibit the white man voting when he is unfit to vote. — Warren G. Harding

Mr. Cain would structurally change the voting demographic. There would be more black economic conservatives, and the Democrats would lose their stranglehold on the black vote. — Alveda King

It's not true that voting doesn't make a difference. To check out is political suicide. This is especially true for our young black artists. You don't want to inadvertently end up doing someone's bidding. — Darryl Pinckney

Voting is a Constitutional right. Absent any evidence of fraud, all Americans have a protected right to vote, be they rich or poor, black, Hispanic or white, people who live in a big city or in remote rural areas. — Juan Williams

but racism is about the power of a group and in America it's white folks who have that power. How? Well, white folks don't get treated like shit in upper-class African-American communities and white folks don't get denied bank loans or mortgages precisely because they are white and black juries don't give white criminals worse sentences than black criminals for the same crime and black police officers don't stop white folk for driving while white and black companies don't choose not to hire somebody because their name sounds white and black teachers don't tell white kids that they're not smart enough to be doctors and black politicians don't try some tricks to reduce the voting power of white folks through gerrymandering and advertising agencies don't say they can't use white models to advertise glamorous products because they are not considered "aspirational" by the "mainstream." So — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

The truth is that the hard-fought victories of the Civil Rights Movement caused a reaction that stripped Brown of its power, severed the jugular of the Voting Rights Act, closed off access to higher education, poured crack cocaine into the inner cities, and locked up more black men proportionally than even apartheid-era South Africa. — Carol Anderson

Ever since the civil rights movement, the black church has always encouraged people to utilize their voting right, which is a right that was fought for. — Otis Moss III

They do not expect that the free right to vote, to enjoy civic rights, and to be educated, will come in a moment; they do not expect to see the bias and prejudices of years disappear at the blast of a trumpet; but they are absolutely certain that the way for a people to gain their reasonable rights is not by voluntarily throwing them away and insisting that they do not want them; that the way for a people to gain respect is not by continually belittling and ridiculing themselves; that, on the contrary, Negroes must insist continually, in season and out of season, that voting is necessary to modern manhood, that color discrimination is barbarism, and that black boys need education as well as white boys. — W.E.B. Du Bois

I didn't know what to say. I felt like crying, Goddammit everybody in the world wants an explanation for your acts and for your very being. — Jack Kerouac

Men and women in my lifetime have died fighting for the right to vote: people like James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, who were murdered while registering black voters in Mississippi in 1964, and Viola Liuzzo, who was murdered by the Ku Klux Klan in 1965 during the Selma march for voting rights. — Jeff Greenfield

I was guided by Allah (God) to give a yardstick to the voting public, particularly Black people as to what will set that candidate apart from others. — Louis Farrakhan

You notice that all the minorities are going to be voting for Barack Obama because he's a minority. He's going to be their hero; he's going to be their white knight if you will, or in this case black knight. — Frosty Wooldridge

Disfranchisement is the deliberate theft and robbery of the only protection of poor against rich and black against white. — W.E.B. Du Bois

Since felons are subsequently disfranchised, the US now has 1.75 million people disqualified from voting because of their criminality- 1.4 million black men have forfeited their right to vote, almost 15 per cent of the black male population. — Jeremy Seabrook