Constance Baker Motley

“In high school, I discovered myself. I was interested in race relations and the legal profession. I read about Lincoln and that he believed the law to be the most difficult of professions.”

“We African Americans have now spent the major part of the 20th Century battling racism.”

“When Thurgood Marshall became a lawyer, race relations in the United States were particularly bad.”

“New Orleans may well have been the most liberal Deep South city in 1954 because of its large Creole population, the influence of the French, and its cosmopolitan atmosphere.”

“Too many whites still see blacks as a group apart.”

“Columbia Law School men were being drafted, and suddenly women who had done well in college were considered acceptable candidates for the vacant seats.”

“Sexism, like racism, goes with us into the next century. I see class warfare as overshadowing both.”

“Living at the YMCA in Harlem dramatically broadened my view of the world.”

“All Southern state colleges and universities are open to black students.”

“King consciously steered away from legal claims and instead relied on civil disobedience.”

“My parents never told us that our great-grandmothers had been slaves.”

“I soon found law school an unmitigated bore.”

“There appears to be no limit as to how far the women's revolution will take us.”

“My father kept his distance from working-class American blacks.”

“The women's rights movement of the 1970s had not yet emerged; except for Bella Abzug, I had no women supporters.”

“I was born and raised in the oldest settled part of the nation and in an environment in which racism was officially mooted.”

“Lack of encouragement never deterred me. I was the kind of person who would not be put down.”

“In my view, I did not get to the federal bench because I was a woman.”

“Had it not been for James Meredith, who was willing to risk his life, the University of Mississippi would still be all white.”

“The legal difference between the sit-ins and the Freedom Riders was significant.”