On being an historian and an activist
“The writing of history reflects the interests, predilections, and even prejudices of a given generation. This means that at the present time there is an urgent need to re-examine our past in terms of our present outlook.”
“One might argue the historian is the conscience of the nation, if honesty and consistency are factors that nurture the conscience.”
March 1994
“I want to be out there on the firing line, helping, directing or doing something to try to make this a better world, a better place to live.”
Associated Press
October 2005
On the history of African Americans
“In discussing the history of a people one must distinguish between what has actually happened and what those who have written the history have said has happened. So far as the actual history of the American Negro is concerned, there is nothing particularly new about it. It is an exciting story, a remarkable story. It is the story of slavery and freedom, humanity and inhumanity, democracy and its denial. It is tragedy and triumph, suffering and compassion, sadness and joy.”
February 1977
On scholarship
“The very essence of the life of the mind is the freedom to inquire, to examine and to criticize. But that freedom has the same restraints abroad that it has at home: to state one’s position, if impelled by personal conviction, with clarity, reason and sobriety, always mindful of the point that the scholar recognizes and tolerates different views that others may hold and that his view is independent, not official.”
The American Scholar
1968
“I have never regretted the decision to remain a student and a teacher of history. … I have been a student and advocate of the view that the exchange of ideas is more healthy and constructive than the exchange of bullets.”
Charles Homer Haskins lecture
April 14, 1988
Winston-Salem Journal
Aug. 6, 1989
On Jim Crow
“The merit is not in going back or holding back and becoming and remaining segregated. The merit is in making desegregation work. Making desegregation work. That’s where the merit is. We didn’t work to do it. We haven’t worked to do it — not hard enough. We haven’t pressed our government. We haven’t pressed our communities. We haven’t pressed our educational systems to stand up and do what they’re supposed to do. We can’t say we’re going to run back to our segregated institutions and think that that’s going to get us anywhere. I don’t think so. I have not lived all these years to want to go back. I want to go forward. I want to improve what we’ve got. I want to make over what we’ve got, if necessary. But I don’t want to go back to the ghetto. I don’t want to go back to segregation. I don’t want to go back to Jim Crow.”
Stetson Law Review
April 20, 2005
