Mississippi Quotes

• To understand the world, you must first understand a place like Mississippi.

  William Faulkner

  Reality, World, Firsts

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• I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, sons of former slaves and sons of former slave-owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day, even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into a oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by content of their character. I have a dream today!

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Dream, Children, Character

  Speech at Civil Rights March,Washington, D.C., 28 Aug. 1963

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• Some people think that [it was] Martin Luther King Jr.'s idea to have a boycott. It was a black woman, a teacher, who said we should boycott the buses. You had people like Fannie Lou Hamer; Delta, Mississippi.

  John Lewis

  Teacher, Kings, Thinking

  "The Long March Of John Lewis". Interview with Jamil Smith on MTV News' "The Stakes" podcast, www.mtv.com. August 5, 2016.

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• One day I know the struggle will change. There's got to be a change-not only for Mississippi, not only for the people in the United States, but people all over the world.

  Fannie Lou Hamer

  Struggle, People, One Day

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• These people in Mississippi State, they are not "down"; all they need is a chance. And I am determined to give my part not for what the Movement can do for me, but what I can do for the Movement to bring about a change in the State of Mississippi.

  Fannie Lou Hamer

  Giving, People, Needs

  Source: www.encyclopedia.com

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• Jesmyn Ward is an alchemist. She transmutes pain and loss into gold. Men We Reaped illustrates hardships but thankfully, vitally, it's just as clear about the humor, the intelligence, the tenderness, the brilliance of the folks in DeLisle, Mississippi. A community that's usually wiped off the literary map can't be erased when it's in a book this good.

  Victor LaValle

  Pain, Book, Loss

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• I wanted to get out of Mississippi in the worst way. Go back? What I want to go back for?

  Muddy Waters

  Want, Way, Worst

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• Mississippi is like my mother. I am allowed to complain about her all I want, but God help the person who raises an ill word about her around me, unless she is their mother too.

  Kathryn Stockett

  Mother, Complaining, Want

  Kathryn Stockett (2009). “The Help”, p.469, Penguin

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• Nothing could stop Mississippi.

  Gwendolyn Brooks

  Gwendolyn Brooks (2005). “The Essential Gwendolyn Brooks”

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• We're first on executions. We're 49th in funding public education. We're in a race with Mississippi for the bottom, and we're winning.

  Kinky Friedman

  Winning, Race, Firsts

  "Kinky Friedman Talks with Bill O'Reilly About Why He Wants to be Governor of Texas". The O'Reilly Factor" with Bill O'Reilly, www.foxnews.com. March 14, 2005.

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• She was so Southern that she cried tears that came straight from the Mississippi, and she always smelled faintly of cottonwood and peaches.

  Sarah Addison Allen

  Southern, Tears, Peaches

  Sarah Addison Allen (2007). “Garden Spells”, p.76, Bantam

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• Elvis was the only man from Northeast Mississippi who could shake his hips and still be loved by rednecks, cops, and hippies.

  Jimmy Buffett

  Hippie, Redneck, Men

  Song: Oysters And Pearls, Album: Beach House on the Moon, 1999

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• I do remember, one time, a man came to me after the students began to work in Mississippi and he said the white people were getting tired and they were getting tense and anything might happen. Well, I asked him "how long he thinks we had been getting tired"? I have been tired for 46 years and my parents was tired before me and their parents were tired, and I have always wanted to do something that would help some of the things I would see going on among Negroes that I didn't like and I don't like now.

  Fannie Lou Hamer

  Tired, Men, Thinking

  Source: www.encyclopedia.com

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• The time for running has come to an end. You tell them white folk in Mississippi that all the scared niggers are dead!

  Stokely Carmichael

  Running, White, Scared

  Address at March Against Fear, 1966.

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• Hollywood is run by people who sit up in their executive office, who are not connected to Mississippi, Alabama, Chicago, South Carolina. They know nothing about that, they don't go to church, and they make their decisions about what they think is right.

  Steve Harvey

  Running, Thinking, People

  "Biography/Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• Books were my pass to personal freedom. I learned to read at age three, and soon discovered there was a whole world to conquer that went beyond our farm in Mississippi.

  Oprah Winfrey

  Education, Book, Reading

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• Simultaneously with the establishment of the Constitution, Virginia ceded to the United States her domain, which then extended to the Mississippi, and was even claimed to extend to the Pacific Ocean.

  William H. Seward

  Ocean, Virginia, United States

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• I grew up in Jackson, Mississippi, really in suburbia, so my mother was in community theatre plays.

  Beth Henley

  Mother, Play, Community Theatre

  "Expressing "The Misery and Confusion Truthfully": An Interview with Beth Henley". "American Drama" Journal, Vol. 14, No. 1, 2005.

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• This United States Government should go down to Mississippi and protect my people. That is what should happen.

  Paul Robeson

  Government, People, United States

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• In Russia I felt for the first time like a full human being. No color prejudice like in Mississippi, no color prejudice like in Washington. It was the first time I felt like a human being.

  Paul Robeson

  Russia, Color, Prejudice

  Testimony before the House Committee on Un-American Activities, June 12, 1956.

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• Most of the locks and dams on the upper Mississippi River system are over 60 years old and many are in serious need of repair and rehabilitation.

  Ron Kind

  Years, Rivers, Needs

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• Of course that was my idol, Son House. I think he did a lot for the Mississippi slide down there.

  Muddy Waters

  Son, Thinking, Idols

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• Georgia Tech beat us and Mississippi Southern tied us last year, and Texas beat us after we had the game won. We only played about five games the way we were capable of playing and lost one of those.

  Bear Bryant

  Technology, Texas, Lost Ones

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• The case of the Seminoles constitutes at present the only exception to the successful efforts of the Government to remove the Indians to the homes assigned them west of the Mississippi.

  Martin Van Buren

  Home, Successful, Government

  United States. President (1837-1841 : Van Buren), Martin Van Buren (1838). “Message from the President of the United States to the Two Houses of Congress: At the Commencement of the Third Session of the Twenty-fifth Congress”, p.18

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• It affords me sincere pleasure to be able to apprise you of the entire removal of the Cherokee Nation of Indians to their new homes west of the Mississippi.

  Martin Van Buren

  Home, Able, West

  Martin Van Buren (1969). “Martin Van Buren, 1782-1862: chronology-documents-bibliographical aids”

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