Booker T. Washington

"It is not hyperbole to say that Booker T. Washington was a great American. For twenty years before his death he had been the most useful, as well as the most distinguished, member of his race in the world, and one of the most useful, as well as one of the most distinguished, of American citizens of any race."

"The race that can produce a Booker T. Washington in a century ought to feel it can do miracles in time."

"The action of President Roosevelt in entertaining that nigger will necessitate our killing a thousand niggers in the South before they learn their place again."

"What man is a worse enemy to a race than a leader who looks with equanimity on the disfranchisement of his race in a country where other races have universal suffrage by constitutions?"

"Silence is tantamount to being virtually an accomplice in the treasonable act of this Benedict Arnold of the Negro race."

"Social equality carries with it civil equality, political equality, financial equality, judicial equality, business equality, and wherever social equality is denied by legislative enactments and judicial decrees, the sequel must be discrimination, proscription, injustice and degradation. ... With all due respect to Prof. Washington personally, for we do respect him personally, he will have to live a long time to undo the harm he has done to our race. His remarks on social equality, which is nothing more than civil equality, will be quoted by newspapers, magazines, periodicals, legislatures, congressmen, lawyers, judges and all grades of whites to prove that the Negro race is satisfied with being degraded, not that the Professor meant it, but such will be the construction given it by our civil and political enemies."

"I am just as much opposed to Booker T. Washington as a voter as I am to the coconut-headed, chocolate-colored typical little coon who blacks my shoes every morning."