actresses-from-alabama

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

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

"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"

"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."

"I see producers as the people who fit all the pieces together. I always felt that if I relied on other people to get me work, then I’d be out of work rather quickly, because, like you said, people only see you in these archetypal roles. By producing, I get to hold the reins a bit tighter while providing opportunities for other marginalized storytellers."

"She had expressed to me she was frustrated, she’s grateful for her career but she was being offered the same thing and never the lead."

"I came from humble beginnings and I lead a very modest life. I have a perceived glamorous job that takes me all over the world and I get to dress up every now and again with diamonds and all that glittery stuff but at the end of the day, I’m still a little girl from Alabama and my roots are deep and I don’t need help staying grounded."

"I should be married and have 19 kids, And now I’m thinking my eggs are dying on the shelf. They’re going to go past their expiration date. But it’s what I chose, so I’m fine with that decision."

"When you’re in your regular private life, it’s just so strange to be known. I think also with the advent of the internet, people no longer have the luxury of introducing themselves. And so, there’s always a perception about people."

"I think it gives me a stronger connection and a better short-hand when working with people whose practice I respect. I used to come in on days that I wasn’t scheduled, just so I could watch the other actors."

"I actually am not the best in front of an audience. I have severe stage fright. So I had to confront that. And in public speaking, I always get extremely nervous before any speech that I have to do, and that has not dissipated at all. And so I had to embrace the fact that I will likely always have stage fright."

"With time comes experience and you learn that if you don’t break out of those boxes yourself, no one else will allow you to."

"What I learn from them is to continue to enjoy the process and have that free spirit about approaching the work and to not be so rigid."

"I think a lot of people lose the advantage in the negotiating process if they are not willing to walk away. And I'm always willing to walk away."

"I used to hate reading out loud as a kid because of my dyslexia, so my books are a message to kids. It doesn’t matter what your situation is in life – your path is what you choose it to be."

"When you are starting out, show how hard you work. There’s always room for advancement. Educate yourself on what everybody else in the market is getting, and then you ask for what you deserve. You’re not always going to get it, but you also have to be willing to walk away at some point."

"African-American women were living at the time where segregation was the letter of the law, They were basically treated as second-class citizens, but they weren’t complaining. They knew that they had more to offer, and they basically rolled up their sleeves and they did the work to be a part of something greater than themselves."

"For me, it’s about embracing our inner beauty and having it seen outwardly. The root of it is not about being valued for looks; it is about empowerment and Black women owning who they were and their own place in history."

"My dream role is that of a producer – a woman behind the scenes – who creates roles for diversity in films. I want to help create an industry that demonstrates what our society is as a whole."

"I’m at my happiest when I’m out in nature. When the sun is shining and birds are nearby and I’m sleeping and can appreciate the things around me."

"It's not just about, you know, sort of putting "diverse people" in the same sort of corrupt systems. We have to change the way that power works. And so much of that is about, I believe, changing the material conditions of poor and working people, the people who are the most marginalized, and to get them, you know, opportunities to work in the industry behind the scenes, and then be truly elevated to positions of power."

"The preoccupation with transition and surgery objectifies trans people. And then we don't get to really deal with the real lived experiences. The reality of trans people's lives is that so often we are targets of violence. We experience discrimination disproportionately to the rest of the community. Our unemployment rate is twice the national average; if you are a trans person of color, that rate is four times the national average. The homicide rate is highest among trans women. If we focus on transition, we don't actually get to talk about those things."

"For me, it's always important to support other transgender people, to love and support each other. There's enough spotlight, there are enough resources to go around, so for me it's always about loving and supporting my trans siblings."

"Being uncomfortable does not mean that you are unsafe. Right? [...] For several years, it was all about bathrooms. Banning trans people from bathrooms, right? In the segregated South, white folks were not comfortable with black people in the bathroom with them. But did that mean that they were unsafe?"

"When you play a character, you learn the inner workings of someone's heart. I've learned something about myself through every character I've played!"

"My father had a magnificent dream, but it still is only a dream. It is easier to build monuments than make a better world. If we choose to honor him in words alone, it will be a grotesque farce."

"These times call not for merriment only, but for movement."

"Don't tell me! Don't tell me!"

"I guess people don't understand that I'm just a person."

"There have been a number of gains, a number of, I think, token results. But far too many people, both black and white, are still locked out of the system and don't have the opportunity to reach toward those goals that many of us take for granted."

"Well, I wish they had built a Funtown for colored."

"Jim Crow is dead. But his sophisticated, college-educated, urbane first cousin J. Crow, Esquire, is alive and kicking."

"I am a 100 percent, dyed-in-the-wool, card-carrying believer in the dream."

"I know there was so much talk in school about my daddy and people were afraid to talk to me. They thought I was stuck up. They didn't know me, had never talked to me, but just because I was Martin Luther King's daughter, I had to be stuck up and I wouldn't be able to talk to them."

"Our mother is coming home and we are so grateful and so thankful that this is happening."

"To this day, my heart skips a beat every time I hear one of those special bulletins."

"And we wonder why we have problems with homelessness in our country. We wonder why we're floundering in education. We have got to take a look at reversing the priorities of this country."

"“For some of you, the civil rights movement might seem like ancient history, but it was live, in living color.”"

"“We today have that same power if we but choose it, but choose it we must. What makes each of us unique is the individual choices we make. There will always be doubters, those who prefer inaction. I have heard it all, but I am still a believer in the dream. I choose to believe.”"

"I cannot separate problems happening in South Africa with problems here. I don't think you can put too much emphasis on something as brutal and overt as South Africa."

"“We can throw up our hands in despair, we can write off the millions that are homeless, or we can choose to believe in a different way and we can do our share to bring that world into being.”"

"He knew in 1968 that while this was a beautiful symbol of hope and possibility, it indeed was only the beginning. For after they joined hands what then were they going to do? Yes, he was dreaming again of marching on Washington, but this time the intent was to stay there not just for a day, not just for speeches and singing but to engage in a campaign of massive civil disobedience to try and stop, nonviolently, the functioning of the national government until the cause of the poor became this nation’s first priority—until all people were guaranteed a decent job, at a decent income, until we stopped the killing of Asians abroad in the Vietnam war and turned to attend to the very desperate needs of our people within our shores. That was the last dream. And if you understand that dream, if you understand that for the last six months of his life Martin Luther King Jr. was not only talking about but actively organizing native Americans, Hispanics, poor whites, blacks, people from all across this nation who had for so long been denied; if you realize how threatening that was, perhaps you will understand why the bullet came, perhaps where it came from."

""She lived with a lot of the trauma of our struggle. The movement was in her DNA.”"

"I think basically the youth of today are just having so many problems and they are sort of confused...This is their method, of escaping...Just like I sleep to escape my problems."

"I chose to dream and act on my dreams, following the example that my father taught. To live with this dream may be crazy, it may be foolish, but to live without it would be a nightmare."

"The Civil Rights Movement was not a mirage; it was not a documentary; it was not even a television special; it was live and in living color. It should not surprise us that it was a woman who sparked the movement. If Rosa Parks had not chosen to stand up that day in December 1955 by remaining seated on that bus in Montgomery, we would not be here today celebrating the life of Martin Luther King Jr. But that was the incident that propelled him into leadership and ultimately triggered the ending of segregation in the South. The doors of educational and employment opportunities were opened and blacks, Hispanics, and women of all races streamed in on an unprecedented basis."

"I think blacks are definitely moving together. This is good, because in order to have any movement, you've got to have togetherness. But I also feel that because of the way society is now, we cannot get along without the white man. And the way it is now, he cannot get along without us...We've got to go to the roots of it and just change the whole society - that's why I don't believe in what some people say about having a black state and a separate black nation."