Mordecai Johnson Quotes & Sayings

Acquiring a dog may be the only opportunity a human ever has to choose a relative. — Mordecai Wyatt Johnson

The Negro people of America ... have cut our forests, tilled our fields, built our railroads, fought our battles, and in all of their trials they have manifested a simple faith, a grateful heart, a cheerful spirit, and an undivided loyalty . — Mordecai Wyatt Johnson

We're living under the illusion that we have the power to determine what to do with it. — Mordecai Wyatt Johnson

Following the death of his wife, Sam Johnson wrote to the Reverend Mr. Thomas Warton, "I have ever since seemed to myself broken off from mankind; a kind of solitary wanderer in the wilds of life, without any certain direction, or fixed point of view: a gloomy gazer on a world to which I have little relation."
But my wife wasn't dead, merely absent. — Mordecai Richler

Now they have come to the place where their faith can no longer feed on the bread of repression and violence. They ask for the bread of liberty, of public equality, and public responsibility. It must not be denied them. — Mordecai Wyatt Johnson

Western civilization, Christianity, decency are struggling for their very lives. In this worldwide civil war, race prejudice is our most dangerous enemy, for it is a disease at the very root of our democratic life. — Mordecai Wyatt Johnson

When the Negro cries with pain from his deep hurt and lays his petition for elemental justice before the nation, he is calling upon the American people to kindle about that crucible of race relationships the fires of American faith. — Mordecai Wyatt Johnson

There will be a meeting of the great powers who will disagree, and the next noise we hear will be the screeching of elevators going up and down from heaven to hell. — Mordecai Wyatt Johnson

The time is past when Christians in America can take a long spoon and hand the gospel to the black man out the back door. — Mordecai Wyatt Johnson