First Hand History

"Until you offer every American who’s able to vote the opportunity to do so, you don’t have a democracy…You’re not fulfilling your promise as a democratic nation, as a republic, unless you’re giving people a voice at the voting booth. "

"They had to start a new beginning, and leave all of their relatives, and all of their friends, and knowing they would never see each other again."

"For me, the important part of what I do is the word ‘choice’: that people can make their own decisions."

"They really want the same things we want. They may have different ways of expressing it, but they want the same things."

"Most of the books about the ‘gay lifestyle’ made it sound so depressing, empty and cold. It was like, you will always be persecuted and never have any children."

"Well, I wanted equality, and I wanted fairness with credit and jobs; I think I wanted what every woman wants today. So it really hasn't changed much; I wanted what’s equally right for a woman that a man has or anyone else."

"The roads were big, the cars were big, the amount of food people ate was huge. It astounded me."

"The initial view on the Civil Rights Movement was something that should have happened a long time ago."

"I firmly believe that the death penalty is being used by politicians to get people to fall in line. "

"It’s pretty easy now to see what the word terrorism means: acts of violence committed by those who don’t agree with U.S. policy."

"You could feel you were making a difference. However, a lot of what we did was sit around and wait."

"You are liable to get a fair shake here from justice and our system of government, which doesn’t always happen overseas."

"We were full of excitement as Gandhi passed by our town, knowing that many were supporting the cause of independence and a hope for a better future. "

"It's not a question of gay rights, it's a question of human rights. "

"I would say that getting people to care more about what happens to their fellow human beings is the one thing that could really make a difference in the area of racial relations."

"Most of us are just regular people living regular lives, you know, raising kids, doing laundry. That kind of thing."

"When you’re talking about justice issues and poverty, things like decreasing the incarceration rate of black people, you have to empower black people to speak for black people."

"For China, I think that the Cultural Revolution was one of the growing experiences for all Chinese people."

"Monday: best day of the week. Great day to get better."

"One of the puppets was in a wheelchair, one of them had a learning disability, and one of them was blind."

"I carried a knife in my boots when I was in seventh and eighth grade. It was just something that you did to protect yourself even though nothing ever happened. "

"I learned from my kids to accept everybody for who they are and to pass on the love. Pass it forward."

"That's the hidden factor in American social fabric, that in a funny way, classism is stronger than racism."

"Everybody says, “If I was disabled, I would just want to just go kill myself.” Well, no, you wouldn’t. You'd get depressed, and you'd feel sorry for yourself, but then the will to survive would kick in... I know no other way. I don’t have that choice. Or, I don’t want that choice; and I am who I am."

"I wanted to go to the United States to try to get a job because there’s not as many jobs and opportunities in Mexico as there is here in the U.S."

"A real key piece of it is educating teachers and principals and school administrators that this is happening, this is real."

"Not only did we sustain damage and trauma from the eruption, we also lost our good paying jobs from the U.S. military bases."

"In most places, I didn't understand the language, but I still felt that connection with people."

"When you stop and think about it and find out they were not being paid very much money, it's sort of shocking, and it made me want to do something about it."

"We don't realize it, but every kid in America has a chance for school and has an opportunity to make something out of themselves."

"I would describe the condition of Equatorial Guinea as corrupt."

"We cannot be ignored. We cannot, as women, be overlooked."