Ruby Dee

". But because they are in some ways the beneficiaries of racism-they are racists!"

"A free-wheeling conversation with Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee 9 March, 2021"

"I never thought about myself as an activist when we were coming along"

"I love the people I love. I didn't care whether they could be a Democrat, Republican, communist ... anything but a racist"

"I didn't care about being integrated or accepted"

"they were just tasting a little teeny bit of what was racism and fascism and the horror of what was happening in the country"

"If I could be - somebody could think of me and feel encouraged"

"I felt envious of what I thought was the male prerogative"

"The worries and fears about personal lacks are immobilizing and make me dream the dream too long"

"the dreams stay in my head, they haunt me, they push me and become a kick to my consciousness, making me act"

"The Divine Impulse—it’s always safe to follow it"

"Feminine sensibilities are not being acknowledged, and we’ve allowed the antipeople to steal the children and are tolerating far too much: the assault on ourselves, the families of the world, permitting war and rape."

"More women are becoming enraged about these things and I think we’re on the verge of doing something about them"

"My constant battle is putting aside time wasters, and I have to watch out for procrastination"

"Staying on the path of something you’re trying to create has much to do with having confidence in yourself and in your capacity to realize the things you want out of life"

"I don't know who I would be if I weren't this child from Harlem, this woman from Harlem. It's in me so deep"

"We have to institute democracy, which is still mostly an aspiration, and universal love, which is still unrealized"

"I dream of getting prisons off the stock exchange"

"It is a dastardly crime and an insult to the word democracy to make a commodity of jailing people."

"we gave ourselves permission to have other partners if we wished to"

"in a marriage loyalty and fidelity and trust cannot be compromised."

"Preserving the family means everything to our community now"

"In the world of entertainment, the problem for African-American artists is "lack of access to the levels of power"

"There is still a patronizing attitude in the media towards African-Americans"

"I am an actress, wife, mother, and own my own home and I have never seen my experiences reflected on the screen."

"When African-Americans are on screen, they've usually got guns."

"I usually played good girl wives and mothers. And truthfully those good-girl roles were stretches"

"Racism undercuts confidence. I wish I had known that sooner"

"Critics still see blacks as 'the other,' an 'exotic"

"We have to bring forward the graces in life and make them real"

"It occurred to me that being what they call 'colored,' being a Negro, was some kind of a disadvantage"