First Hand History

"It's so open here."

"The legal document in this society tells you who you are – and what you are is someone who is able to become visible in society, work, get paid, and have rights."

"A union is about solidarity, standing together, to try to make a difference."

"There really is no reason for so much violence and discrimination."

"You can't do everything, but don't let not being able to do everything prevent you from doing something."

"I’ll never know what it’s like to actually live in their shoes, but given that I've done this for 16 years I'm pretty good at understanding and having heard what happened what it makes them feel like and how discrimination has occurred and how its hidden and how its lied about."

"People that didn’t live in rural areas thought those who did were very poor."

"The man threatened us with a gun – we would have to work for him, or he will kill us."

"That time, high school graduates had to go work in the countryside and weren’t allowed to attend college."

"I found out that they were just more curious about me than I was about them. They wanted to know, “Oh! Your skin! The color doesn’t come off!” I was shocked to hear someone say that. I was washing my face, I was in the bathroom, and everybody had sinks lined up against the wall, and they watched."

"If one person is discriminated against, we all are. And I don't want to go around feeling blue, and so what I do is I try to do a little something about it."

"I think we've made great strides. Just the fact that we have a African-American president means a lot, but I do believe there is still racism in this country."