A Quote by Gordon Parks

Washington, D.C. in 1942 was not the easiest place in the world for a Negro to get along. — © Gordon Parks
Washington, D.C. in 1942 was not the easiest place in the world for a Negro to get along.
I maintain that I have been a Negro three times--a Negro baby, a Negro girl and a Negro woman. Still, if you have received no clear cut impression of what the Negro in America is like, then you are in the same place with me. There is no The Negro here. Our lives are so diversified, internal attitudes so varied, appearances and capabilities so different, that there is no possible classification so catholic that it will cover us all, except My people! My people!
I've traveled all over the world and America is the easiest place to get rich.
Negro producers, Negro distributors, Negro consumers! The world of Negroes can be self contained. We desire earnestly to deal with the rest of the world, but if the rest of the world desire not, we seek not
If you're looking for someone to go to Washington, to go along to get along, to get - to agree with the career politicians in both parties who get in bed with the lobbyists and special interests, then I ain't your guy.
There's two ways of working in Washington, ... One is to go along and get along. The other is to stand up for what you believe in.
We should emphasize not Negro History, but the Negro in history. What we need is not a history of selected races or nations, but the history of the world, void of national bias, race, hate, and religious prejudice. There should be no indulgence in undue eulogy of the Negro. The case of the Negro is well taken care of when it is shown how he has far influenced the development of civilization.
The most difficult place in the world to get a clear and open perspective of the country as a whole is Washington.
It is very simple to be likeable in Washington. You just go along to get along. You just do what your leadership wants.
The very first time I was on a car in Atlanta, I saw the conductor - all conductors are white - ask a Negro woman to get up and take a seat farther back in order to make a place for a white man. I have also seen white men requested to leave the Negro section of the car.
More than a few Republicans in the United States Senate seem to have contracted a severe case of what Harry Truman called 'Potomac Fever' (wanting to go along to get along in Washington).
When it comes to Washington, most people tend to think first of politics. But Washington is also a geographic and physical place. It is, for instance, one of the few cities of the world where you can talk endlessly about trees.
I won't mention names, but in my career, the most talented people invariably are the easiest and nicest to get along with.
Carmen Jones was the first all-Negro film that became a great box-office success. It established the fact that pictures with Negro artists, pictures dealing with the folklore of Negro life, were commercially feasible. This was a sign of growth that had occurred in the United States and throughout the world.
I wanted to go to a place where I could think, really sink into my own imagination, or ride it, or drift along it, as in a balloon. The kind of place that probably all writers crave. The kind of place where the outside world is still and quiet and you get a chance to listen, to peer, to go inward
Americans need to understand that they have lost their country. The rest of the world needs to recognize that Washington is not merely the most complete police state since Stalinism, but also a threat to the entire world. The hubris and arrogance of Washington, combined with Washington's huge supply of weapons of mass destruction, make Washington the greatest threat that has ever existed to all life on the planet. Washington is the enemy of all humanity.
I was born and raised in Dublin, Ireland and it is still home to me. My writing has taken me all over the world, but this is the place I come back to and the place where I find it easiest to write.
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