20th Century African American Women

"We were victims of a lie"

"I still see Black businesses being burned. I still hear airplanes flying overhead. I hear the screams"

"I want this to be a forum where the best and brightest work together in an operating environment that embraces advanced knowledge and technologies to improve lives, including the life of our planet!"

"I still smell smoke and see fire"

"Let's level the playing field by making essential knowledge available, get it to people who need it, and support them in being healthy and self-sufficient"

"What can you do? What are you going to do? We need a healing in America right now. We need a healing going on in the Heartland. We need a healing going on in Mississippi"

"To me, there is an emotional connection to it. I have a visceral memory of the first time I went into a voting booth with my mother. I couldn’t have been more than 3, because the muscle memory says I was reaching up for her hand. We went down into the bowels of the Washington Heights Library, in Upper Manhattan, and there was the voting booth with its old-fashioned pull curtain. This was long before anybody ever said the word “suffrage” to me. But nearly 50 years later, when I started studying this stuff seriously in graduate school, I thought, “Yes, that’s what I remember.” Both of my grandmothers were Black Southern suffragists in the early 1900s, and their beliefs and activities remained important family legacies through several generations"

"They should learn how to do it nonviolently, but that’s it. I think the future looks bright."

"One of the things that you see in many movements is that there is sort of a simplistic assumption that we must avoid, which is that progress moves forward in straight lines. And boy, does it ever not go in straight lines. It twists back, it doubles over itself. And it crosses many categories, such as economics, gender and race. That’s something that we may forget, and perhaps it goes against Dr. Martin Luther King’s precept that the arc of justice always bends forward"

"I often think of the women, my grandmother among them, who wore white dresses to protest the denial of their political empowerment. There were echoes of that symbolic garb during the campaigns of Shirley Chisholm, and in the glorious display of white pantsuits worn by the record number of multiracial, multicultural women who went to Congress as result of the 2018 election. I smiled when I saw them!"

"It doesn’t matter if you have to stand in lines for five or six hours to vote. Stand there.”"

"My suffragist grandmother feels close to me today because her portrait still hangs in my apartment. The poster from the first “Afro-American Women and the Vote” conference also hangs on my wall, a testament to Adella and others like her."

"I didn’t know him any other way,And, if I called him something else, he would say that I was rude and disrespectful and wouldn’t listen to me."

"It was tremendous. It was huge. It’s Mississippi, and so much happened in Mississippi, so I thought it was more important than ever. I had a come-to-Jesus moment within my soul. I mean, I’m honored."

"I would say it is not one person nor one event, but the scarcely recorded efforts of anonymous women of all races, educational and economic levels who, for decades, talked with neighbors, held meetings, challenged their fathers, sons, husbands and employers — often putting themselves in physical and economic jeopardy to do so. They are the unknown heroes of the movement."

"Can I add something about time? Clearly this year’s centennial is a significant landmark, but it’s not the only date we should be thinking of. The federal Voting Rights Act, which became law in 1965, was incredibly important too, because the passage of that legislation supposedly guaranteed the franchise to African-American women — since even after ratification of the 19th Amendment, stifling Jim Crow regulations throughout the South had kept the vote from women, as much as they did for Black men."

"It’s a long road that we’ve gone down, but it’s not over. There’s a division in America today, and it’s time for a reconciliation."

"Tears started streaming down my face because the power of forgiveness is something great. If my dad could forgive George Wallace, who am I to say that I can’t forgive."

"Being poor shouldn’t hold you back either – when I talk to disadvantaged school kids about poverty, I tell them that the label of “poor” is a tactical assault of naming and shaming."

"It costs less than getting your hair done three times a year. And if you don't have the surgery, then you're asking to die."

"If you see a problem and don’t seek a solution, you have no right to complain,"

"I’ve achieved so much in my career, and it’s important to me that I pass on the torch and help to inspire others to get involved in science, technology, engineering and medicine (STEM) – whatever their backgrounds or circumstances."

"Do not allow your mind to be imprisoned by majority thinking. Remember that the limits of science are not the limits of imagination."

"Taking the high road may be arduous and long, but it will lead to justice and triumph."

"When I began my residency training at New York University, I had no idea that I was the first and only African-Americans ophthalmology resident. I did not know, or even care! But I did know that my superior grades, scores and credentials had earned me a coveted spot in a highly competitive residency, and that was awesome. I was happy and excited that I was about to capture my dream and become a great ophthalmologist by training in one of the most prestigious programs in the USA."

"The biggest challenge I overcame in my career was wanting to do research, but not having the funding or a lab to do it in. When I encountered discrimination, I stayed focused on my goal and worked to outsmart the racism I faced – with ingenuity, rather than wasting my time and energy complaining about it."

"I hope that through my past legacy and future advocacy, that the current and future generations of young scientists will not experience the hurtful wounds of discrimination of any kind."

"“Philosophically, I like to think that my greatest accomplishment has to be those moments when I’ve helped someone regain eyesight, when I remove the patient’s patch and he starts with the big E and goes all the way down to the 20/20 line.”"

"Eyesight is a basic human right"

"Prosthesis products are widely available in terms of being able to dress fashionably. I have one for swimming, one for strapless dresses, and regular bras for other wear."

"I wasn’t seeking to be first. I was just doing my thing, and I wanted to serve humanity along the way—to give the gift of sight."

"“Service to the underserved was a natural evolution of my life from my Harlem roots,”"

"Although I chose a path in cornea and cataract surgery for my specialization, I could not help but be impacted by my observations of the prevalence of blindness among African Americans"

"To me, it was home and a place of happy memories, and I grew up believing I was rich."

"“When I was offered an office not equivalent to that of my male colleagues, I could’ve started marching. But I felt it was more important to focus on the prize.”"

"My entire breast was removed in a modified radical mastectomy, and I didn’t bother with reconstructive surgery,"

""Hater-ation, segregation, racism, that’s the noise — you have to ignore that and keep your eyes focused on the"

"My parents believed that with enough education, I could own the world,"

"I knew the barriers were going to be broken down eventually and felt the more applicants, the better the chances would be for each person"

"I want to be just another nurse accepted into the service, and I'll do a good job. That's what's expected of me. You can't keep us back any longer; the new world is coming."

"I didn't come in the Army to service any of them, I came in to nurse them."

"One cannot go through life without facing obstacles of various types. We have to remain focused, barrel over the obstacles, see the light at the end of the tunnel, and by the Grace of God, keep moving."

"My greatest satisfaction is being able to treat children all over the world for a disease that a few years ago, was considered hopeless."

"I am proud of the fact that I deemed it essential to teach patients about their medical condition, encourage them to ask questions, and to read. I am proud of the knowledge I have been able to impart to physicians around the country through lectures on gastrointestinal diseases."

"Some of the challenges I have faced have been in getting trained in pediatric surgery and in pediatric surgical oncology. When I applied to be a pediatric surgery fellow, I did not match the first time, second time or third time because there were no other Black pediatric surgeons. I am the first board-certified U.S. Black female pediatric surgeon. This was a huge hurdle to overcome. It was challenging at first, but I love my profession now."

"Even though I wasn’t sure of the effectiveness, I was sure that doing nothing wasn’t going to make anything better,"

"It takes 10-14 hours, sometimes 20 hours. The longest operation I’ve done is 22 hours. That individual had over 2,000 tumors"

"All ages, classes, races, called her blessed."

"Our hospital work is entirely among the poor, ignorant, and superstitious class of colored people of Charleston and its counties,” consisting mostly of those “who believe in all kinds of signs and conjuration."

"I read everything I could get my hands on about aviating," she later recalled. "Some of the libraries wouldn't let black girls who picked cotton borrow books, but the books I wanted were about piloting, and folks were so surprised they let me have them anyway."