A Quote by Jeh Johnson
What got me motivated was my dad's idea that I go to Morehouse College in Atlanta. It's an all-black, all-male school. Martin Luther King went there. The most famous person in my class was Spike Lee. And I really caught fire. I was so inspired by the people around me that I went from C's and D's to straight A's by the time I left.
Related Quotes
Martin Luther King really was a safety valve for white people. Any time it appeared that the black community was on the verge of really doing what we ought to do based on having been attacked, they put Martin Luther King on television. He was always saying, "We must use nonviolence. We must overcome hate with love." White people loved that. That's why they gave him a Nobel Prize. But when Martin Luther King started condemning the Vietnam War, that's when white people turned against him.
I don't know if it's really important, or intelligent even, when people say to me I'm a white Spike Lee, because they said to Spike Lee you're a black Woody Allen.
The goal of Martin Luther King is to get the Negroes to forgive the people the people who have brutalized them for four hundred years, by lulling them to sleep and making them forget what those whites have done to them, but the masses of black people today don't go for what Martin Luther King is putting down.
I remember back in the 1960s - late '50s, really - reading a comic book called 'Martin Luther King Jr. and the Montgomery Story.' Fourteen pages. It sold for 10 cents. And this little book inspired me to attend non-violence workshops, to study about Gandhi, about Thoreau, to study Martin Luther King, Jr., to study civil disobedience.
We [black people] don't respect our elders. Besides artists, we don't respect Frederick Douglass. We don't respect Martin Luther King. You look at every Martin Luther King Boulevard out here, and it's a crack block. That's not because of white people. That's because of black leadership. We just have that problem, and it's something that I am going to spend the rest of my life trying to conquer.
The white man supports Reverend Martin Luther King, subsidizes Reverend Martin Luther King, so that Reverend Martin Luther King can continue to teach the Negroes to be defenseless - that's what you mean by nonviolent - be defenseless in the face of one of the most cruel beasts that has ever taken people into captivity - that's this American white man, and they have proved it throughout the country by the police dogs and the police clubs.
I'm not Martin Luther King. I can't be Martin Luther King. The only thing I can do is present what I feel the essence of Martin Luther King is.
So many people - DPs, writers, and the assistants that go on to be directors and writers - come from the School of Spike Lee. He's almost set up an Institution of Spike Lee.
I was in a number of school plays, one in particular, when I was 13 or 14, entitled 'Illusions.' It was put together by one of the teachers, and was about famous historical figures. I had to do the Martin Luther King 'I have a dream' speech, and some black women in the audience were clapping and crying and whooping.
Everybody knows when you've got a role in a Spike Lee movie, you're gonna blow up. But I happen to be the only person who's had the lead in the two Spike Lee movies nobody saw.
Martin Luther King said it was time to inject a new dimension of love into the veins of human civilization. I don't think anyone is calling Martin Luther King a New Age woo-woo.
The most influential people in my life are deceased. These include my parents, George Dunne, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., my minister in college.
The White man pays Reverend Martin Luther King so that Martin Luther King can keep the Negro defenseless.
From time to time, you have seminal personalities who really change the way the world sees itself - people like Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela. Warren Buffett is that kind of person in the business world.
After the '57 initial meeting - I was up this way working, not as a staff person - there became the need for a much more definite organized office. What you'd had prior to that time were these big meetings in different places, and there was nobody to pull anything together. Everything was left to [Martin Luther] King and the group that was around him.
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.
Related Authors
Andrew Yang Quotes
American
Public Servant
Ben Bernanke Quotes
American
Public Servant
David Frum Quotes
American
Public Servant
Elizabeth Warren Quotes
American
Public Servant
Henry Paulson Quotes
American
Public Servant
James Comey Quotes
American
Public Servant
Janet Reno Quotes
American
Public Servant
Janet Yellen Quotes
American
Public Servant
Karren Brady Quotes
British
Public Servant
Michael Hayden Quotes
American
Public Servant
Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf Quotes
Iraqi
Public Servant
Paula White Quotes
American
Public Servant
Samantha Power Quotes
Irish
Public Servant
Steve Bannon Quotes
American
Public Servant
Vivek Murthy Quotes
American
Public Servant
Wendy Kopp Quotes
American
Public Servant