Quotes from Constance Baker Motley

Today's white majority is largely silent about the race question.

How long must the American community afford special treatment to blacks?

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

Doing away with separate black colleges meets resistance from alumni and other blacks.

I soon found law school an unmitigated bore.

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.

King thought he understood the white Southerner, having been born and reared in Georgia and trained a theologian.

Something which we think is impossible now is not impossible in another decade.

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

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

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

The last state to admit a black student to the college level was South Carolina.

The Constitution, as originally drawn, made no reference to the fact that all Americans wre considered equal members of society.

I rejected the notion that my race or sex would bar my success in life.

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

I grew up in a house where nobody had to tell me to go to school every day and do my homework.

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.

I never thought I would live long enough to see the legal profession change to the extent it has.

There is no longer a single common impediment to blacks emerging in this society.

I got the chance to argue my first case in Supreme Court, a criminal case arising in Alabama that involved the right of a defendant to counsel at a critical stage in a capital case before a trial.

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