Anna Arnold Hedgeman: “I wanted desperately to say these same words to Martin Luther King, standing in front of 250,000 people who had come to Washington because they had a dream, and in the face of all the men and women of the past who have dreamed in vain, I wished very much that Martin had said, ‘We have a dream.’”

Daisy Bates: “No man or woman who tries to pursue an ideal in his or her won way is without enemies.”

Dorothy Height: “We have to realize we are building a movement.”

Ella Baker: “Strong people don’t need strong leaders.”

Madam C.J. Walker: “I am not merely satisfied in making money for myself, for I am endeavoring to provide employment for hundreds of women of my race. … I want to say to every Negro woman present, don’t sit down and wait for the opportunities to come. Get up and make them!”

Mary Church Terrell: “I cannot help wondering sometimes what I might have become and might have done if I had lived in a country which had not circumscribed and handicapped me on account of my race, that had allowed me to reach any height I was able to attain.”

Hattie McDaniel: “Faith is the black person’s federal reserve system.”

Septima Poinsette Clark: “I have great belief in the fact that whenever there is chaos, it creates wonderful thinking. I consider chaos a gift.”

Mary McLeod Bethune: “We have a powerful potential in our youth, and we must have the courage to change old ideas and practices so that we may direct their power toward good ends.”

Angela Davis: “As a black woman, my politics and political affiliation are bound up with and flow from participation in my people’s struggle for liberation, and with the fight of oppressed people all over the world against American imperialism.”