A Quote by David Olusoga

Britain went to war in 1939 in the name of freedom and democracy, but fielded armies within whose ranks were black and brown men who were regarded and often treated as second-class citizens.

David Olusoga

Quote Topics

Armies Black Britain Brown Citizens Class Democracy Freedom Men Name Often Ranks Regarded Second Second-Class Treated War Were Whose Within

Quote Author

David Olusoga
British - Historian

But my father also supported human rights, freedom and self-determination for all people, including Latino agricultural workers, Native Americans, and the millions of impoverished white men and women who were treated as second-class citizens.

Martin Luther King III

Countless black citizens in the South couldn't vote. They were second-class citizens from cradle to grave. The discrimination was terrible, brutal.

John Doar

Britain in 1939 and 1940 really thought they were going to lose the war. It looked like they were going to lose. There was bombing every day, and people were literally starving.

Graham Moore

Throughout history, women have often been treated as second-class citizens and their voices silenced.

Abby Johnson

There was a Yale even before Larry [Kramer] and I got there, and there were three designations of students: "white shoe," "brown shoe," and "black shoe." "White shoe" people were kind of the ur-preppies from high-class backgrounds. "Brown shoe" people were kind of the high school student-council presidents who were snatched up and brushed up a little bit to be sent out into the world. "Black shoe" people were beyond the pale. They were chemistry majors and things like that.

Kevin Sessums

I am very proud I was part of the IRA in Derry and involved in repelling the designs of the British state forces against people who were being treated as second- and third-class citizens.

Martin McGuinness

Men ruled the roost and women played a subservient role [in the 1960s]. Working wives were a rarity, because their place was in the home, bringing up the kids. The women who did work were treated as second-class citizens because it was a male-dominated society. That was a fact of life then. But it wouldn't be tolerated today, and that's quite right in my book... people look back on those days through a thick veil of nostalgia, but life was hard if you were anything other than a rich, powerful, white male.

Jon Hamm

It is unacceptable for the men and women who protect us to be treated like second class citizens over partisan bickering.

Jeff Van Drew

If we were second class citizens we'd be driving old Cadillacs and living good. If we were first class we'd be driving a Rolls Royce.

Muhammad Ali

I believed that, in a situation where the community that I came from were being treated like second- and third-class citizens, that I had a responsibility to fight back against it. And I don't apologise to anybody for having done that. I think it was the right thing to do.

Martin McGuinness

The advertising men made it clear that there were two ways of looking at ideas in a war against fascism. Those of us who were working on the project believed ideas were to be fought for; the advertising men believed they were to be sold. The audience, those at home in wartime, were not 'citizens' or 'people.' They were 'customers.'

Muriel Rukeyser

The Amazons were notorious for their freedom: their sexual freedom, their freedom to hunt, to be outdoors, to go to war; and the Greeks, both men and women alike, were fascinated by these stories. Maybe it was a safe way to explore the idea of women who could be equals of men.

Adrienne Mayor

Racism was a big part of our community. I'm not going to revisit history, and I'm not going to call out those communities, but the communities we grew up around, we were treated like second- or third-class citizens.

Kelvin Sampson

Many Japanese families moved to Taiwan during the occupation. Then, when the war ended, they were forced to move back. And at the macro level, the Taiwanese had every reason to cheer when the Japanese left. The Japanese military could often be incredibly brutal. The Taiwanese lived as second-class citizens on their own land.

Gene Luen Yang

Most of us were not afraid of death, only of the act of dying; and there were times when we overcame even this fear. At such moments we were free-men without shadows, dismissed from the ranks of the mortal; it was the most complete experience of freedom that can be granted a man.