--- title: "4 African americans Quotes By Stephen M. Ward" description: "4 African americans quotes by Stephen M. Ward. Plus more from Stephen M. Ward and more African americans sayings from other authors." image: "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/ee6/stephen-m-ward-26459_african-american_what-are-you-complaining-about-if-they-d_962580.jpg" --- > [“What are you complaining about? If they don’t want you over here, why don’t you go over on Hastings Street and get…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/stephen-m-ward/what-are-you-complaining-about-if-they-don-t-want-you-over-here-why/) [Stephen M. Ward](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/stephen-m-ward/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/ee6/stephen-m-ward-26459_african-american_what-are-you-complaining-about-if-they-d_962580.jpg) > [“Jimmy likely wrote all three editorials, and one, titled “Who Is for Law and Order?” carried his byline. He argued that the…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/stephen-m-ward/jimmy-likely-wrote-all-three-editorials-and-one-titled-who-is-for-law/) [Stephen M. Ward](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/stephen-m-ward/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/0c6/stephen-m-ward-26459_african-american_jimmy-likely-wrote-all-three-editorials_1222059.jpg) > [“She told him the origins of the “buck dance,” when “white people would come up and say ‘N\_\_\_\_r, dance’, and then start…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/stephen-m-ward/she-told-him-the-origins-of-the-buck-dance-when-white-people-would/) [Stephen M. Ward](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/stephen-m-ward/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/d7b/stephen-m-ward-26459_african-american_she-told-him-the-origins-of-the-buck-dan_1238675.jpg) > [“public statements condemning segregation, sharply worded telegrams to Washington, and meetings with White House officials—were demonstrably ineffectual. New and more dramatic measures…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/stephen-m-ward/public-statements-condemning-segregation-sharply-worded-telegrams-to/) [Stephen M. Ward](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/stephen-m-ward/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/d1d/stephen-m-ward-26459_african-american_public-statements-condemning-segregation_1883810.jpg) ## Other authors on African americans - [ ![](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wp-content/uploads/sms4s/authors/processed/b017/author-michelle-alexander-67636.jpg) Michelle Alexander 27 quotes ](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/african-americans/michelle-alexander/) - [ ![](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wp-content/uploads/sms4s/authors/processed/b023/author-tanehisi-coates-88839.jpg) Ta-Nehisi Coates 20 quotes ](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/african-americans/ta-nehisi-coates/) - [ ![](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wp-content/uploads/sms4s/authors/processed/b009/author-elizabeth-bear-32477.jpg) Richard Rothstein 9 quotes ](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/african-americans/richard-rothstein/) - [ ![](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wp-content/uploads/sms4s/authors/processed/b004/author-ann-petry-13575.jpg) Ann Petry 9 quotes ](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/african-americans/ann-petry/) - [ ![](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wp-content/uploads/sms4s/authors/processed/b001/author-angie-thomas-2699.jpg) Angie Thomas 9 quotes ](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/african-americans/angie-thomas/) - [ ![](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wp-content/uploads/sms4s/authors/processed/b005/author-barack-obama-16275.jpg) Barack Obama 8 quotes ](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/african-americans/barack-obama/) - [Martin Luther King Jr 7 quotes](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/african-americans/martin-luther-king-jr-2/) - [ ![](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wp-content/uploads/sms4s/authors/processed/b020/author-rand-paul-77216.jpg) Rand Paul 6 quotes ](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/african-americans/rand-paul/) - [Maya Angelou 6 quotes](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/african-americans/maya-angelou/) - [ ![](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wp-content/uploads/sms4s/authors/processed/b008/author-donald-trump-30060.jpg) Donald Trump 6 quotes ](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/african-americans/donald-trump/) - [ ![](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wp-content/uploads/sms4s/authors/processed/b024/author-van-jones-93135.jpg) Van Jones 5 quotes ](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/african-americans/van-jones/) - [Salim Akil 5 quotes](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/african-americans/salim-akil/) ## More by Stephen M. Ward > [“Grace deeply identified with Mead’s view that ideas evolve historically. “Unlike the average American teacher of philosophy of his day,” she wrote, Mead “urged…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/stephen-m-ward/grace-deeply-identified-with-mead-s-view-that-ideas-evolve/) [Stephen M. Ward](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/stephen-m-ward/) > [“Initially, she responded by turning inward, pondering questions about the meaning of life and her place in the world. This led her to the…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/stephen-m-ward/initially-she-responded-by-turning-inward-pondering-questions-about/) [Stephen M. Ward](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/stephen-m-ward/) > [“In “Detroit Is Dynamite,” an August 1942 Life magazine article, Louis Martin and Ted Poston reported that 98.7 percent of all dwelling units in…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/stephen-m-ward/in-detroit-is-dynamite-an-august-1942-life-magazine-article-louis/) [Stephen M. Ward](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/stephen-m-ward/) > [“Jimmy and Grace returned to Detroit in late August, in time to participate in the final work to relaunch Correspondence. On September 21–22 the…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/stephen-m-ward/jimmy-and-grace-returned-to-detroit-in-late-august-in-time-to/) [Stephen M. Ward](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/stephen-m-ward/) > [“Thirteen million Negroes in America have never known three of the “Four Freedoms” which America is supposedly spreading to the rest of the world.…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/stephen-m-ward/thirteen-million-negroes-in-america-have-never-known-three-of-the/) [Stephen M. Ward](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/stephen-m-ward/) > [“What are you complaining about? If they don’t want you over here, why don’t you go over on Hastings Street and get yourself something?”…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/stephen-m-ward/what-are-you-complaining-about-if-they-don-t-want-you-over-here-why/) [Stephen M. Ward](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/stephen-m-ward/) > [“Jimmy likely wrote all three editorials, and one, titled “Who Is for Law and Order?” carried his byline. He argued that the spectacle, seen…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/stephen-m-ward/jimmy-likely-wrote-all-three-editorials-and-one-titled-who-is-for-law/) [Stephen M. Ward](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/stephen-m-ward/) > [“She told him the origins of the “buck dance,” when “white people would come up and say ‘N\_\_\_\_r, dance’, and then start shooting around…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/stephen-m-ward/she-told-him-the-origins-of-the-buck-dance-when-white-people-would/) [Stephen M. Ward](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/stephen-m-ward/) > [“As a Chinese American growing up in a largely white world during the 1920s and 1930s, a sense of social marginalization marked her formative…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/stephen-m-ward/as-a-chinese-american-growing-up-in-a-largely-white-world-during-the/) [Stephen M. Ward](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/stephen-m-ward/) > [“Grace Lee Boggs was both product and producer of an improbable history. “I grew up in New York as a first generation Chinese American…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/stephen-m-ward/grace-lee-boggs-was-both-product-and-producer-of-an-improbable/) [Stephen M. Ward](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/stephen-m-ward/) > [“As an Asian American woman within black radical circles, Grace surely was anomalous, but this raised no significant concerns or barriers to her participation…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/stephen-m-ward/as-an-asian-american-woman-within-black-radical-circles-grace-surely/) [Stephen M. Ward](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/stephen-m-ward/) > [“Under Weiss’s direction, Grace began to delve deeply into writings and ideas that would shape the rest of her life. To begin with, Weiss…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/stephen-m-ward/under-weiss-s-direction-grace-began-to-delve-deeply-into-writings-and/) [Stephen M. Ward](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/stephen-m-ward/) > [“They listened to a series of speeches by civil rights luminaries, capped off by a rousing, crowd-pleasing address by Martin Luther King. While the…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/stephen-m-ward/they-listened-to-a-series-of-speeches-by-civil-rights-luminaries/) [Stephen M. Ward](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/stephen-m-ward/) > [“public statements condemning segregation, sharply worded telegrams to Washington, and meetings with White House officials—were demonstrably ineffectual. New and more dramatic measures were in…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/stephen-m-ward/public-statements-condemning-segregation-sharply-worded-telegrams-to/) [Stephen M. Ward](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/stephen-m-ward/) > [“Grace regarded her participation in the March on Washington Movement (MOWM) in Chicago as “the turning point in my life” because, as she told…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/stephen-m-ward/grace-regarded-her-participation-in-the-march-on-washington-movement/) [Stephen M. Ward](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/stephen-m-ward/) ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "ItemList", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/african-americans/stephen-m-ward/#itemlist", "name": "4 African americans Quotes By Stephen M. Ward", "numberOfItems": 4, "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "“What are you complaining about? If they don’t want you over here, why don’t you go over on Hastings Street and get yourself something?” This led to the following exchange: DAC members: We don’t want to eat on Hastings. We want to eat here. Police officer: Well, the man said he don’t want to serve you. DAC members: Yes, but the law says he has to serve us. This could lead to “an argument with the police officer, but he eventually would write up the case.” After securing an agreement from the restaurant that it would now welcome black patrons, and then sending a DAC team to ensure that African Americans did indeed receive service, Jimmy and his fellow activists still might face resistance and hostility. “We’d have lots of people that didn’t want us in there,” he recalled. “Even the customers in there would say, ‘we’re going home, get our guns, and run these niggers out of here.’ ” Indeed, Jimmy recalled confronting hostile responses at various locations and in multiple forms. At the Hotel Detroiter, for example, the DAC team received service, but the food “was full of salt,” while other establishments would “deliberately break the glasses up in front of us to let us know they wasn’t going to eat out of something some nigger ate out of.” 94”", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Stephen M. Ward" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/stephen-m-ward/what-are-you-complaining-about-if-they-don-t-want-you-over-here-why/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/ee6/stephen-m-ward-26459_african-american_what-are-you-complaining-about-if-they-d_962580.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/ee6/stephen-m-ward-26459_african-american_what-are-you-complaining-about-if-they-d_962580.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/ee6/stephen-m-ward-26459_african-american_what-are-you-complaining-about-if-they-d_962580.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“What are you complaining about? If they don’t want you over here, why don’t you go over on Hastings Street…” — Stephen M. Ward", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "“Jimmy likely wrote all three editorials, and one, titled “Who Is for Law and Order?” carried his byline. He argued that the spectacle, seen in other recent conflicts and then repeated most dramatically in the Little Rock crisis, of white people defying police as well as state and federal troops raised the question, “If white people defy the Constitution, who then are the law-abiding citizens of the U.S. and who is for democracy?” Inherent in his answer was a reshaping of the relations between blacks and whites. On one hand this meant the loss of white people’s claim to civic and moral authority. “The Little Rock crisis has put an end to the era of the white man’s burden to preserve democracy,” he asserted. “The white man’s burden now is to prove that he believes in democracy and that he can follow the example of the colored people in upholding law and order.” As for black Americans, their newfound racial assertion struck a blow to the edifice upon which their subordination had long rested. “For years untold colored people have been forced to maneuver in all directions trying to avoid a head-on collision,” Jimmy wrote. “They have allowed white people to name them ‘Negroes’ by which the whites mean a thing and not a person. They have stayed out of the public parks, restaurants, hotels and golf courses, walked on the cinder path when meeting whites on the sidewalk, gone to separate schools, worked on the worst jobs under the worst conditions, smiled and acted unhurt when abused in public places.” But the recent tide of black protest revealed that African Americans were making “an about face.” Black people, he wrote, were not only pressing for their rights but were also beginning to “denounce” the people and practices that had denied them those rights. 80 Jimmy’s analysis of Little Rock differed from other commentaries, which tended to emphasize it as an advance in the struggle for integration, highlight the moral questions it raised, or discuss it as a crisis of authority played out through conflict among the local, state, and national governments. Instead, Jimmy said Little Rock represented a rather sudden transformation now taking place among black people. The importance of Little Rock for him was in revealing how black people were seeing themselves differently and thus making this “about face,” no longer accepting the southern way of life and even rejecting the standards by which white people had organized society and elevated themselves. This analysis, and all of the editorials on Little Rock more generally, continued the focus and tone of Jimmy’s previous writings in the paper, but they also reflected the greater attention that Correspondence was soon to give to the escalating civil rights movement.”", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Stephen M. Ward" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/stephen-m-ward/jimmy-likely-wrote-all-three-editorials-and-one-titled-who-is-for-law/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/0c6/stephen-m-ward-26459_african-american_jimmy-likely-wrote-all-three-editorials_1222059.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/0c6/stephen-m-ward-26459_african-american_jimmy-likely-wrote-all-three-editorials_1222059.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/0c6/stephen-m-ward-26459_african-american_jimmy-likely-wrote-all-three-editorials_1222059.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“Jimmy likely wrote all three editorials, and one, titled “Who Is for Law and Order?” carried his byline. He…” — Stephen M. Ward", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "“She told him the origins of the “buck dance,” when “white people would come up and say ‘N____r, dance’, and then start shooting around the feet of blacks so that they would dance like everything.” 45 Big Ma was an important presence in Jimmy’s childhood and adolescence, and he credited her with giving him a unique and powerful sense of historical change. “When she talked about slavery,” he recalled, “she always talked not about how they freed the slaves, but about how [slaveholders] surrendered. There was a big difference. She saw the change as something that had been won by somebody, not something that had been given. She realized that there had been a struggle and that somebody had to lose.” 46 It would not take much for young Jimmy to see a historical connection and a continuity in struggle between these two moments—the buck dance that Big Ma witnessed in her childhood and the marauding Selma sheriff who came to town “shooting and raising Cain to see the colored folks run” during his childhood. Big Ma lived until the mid-1930s, when Jimmy was in his teens. By this time he could see new spaces of struggle emerging from shifts in the region’s economy and black people’s employment patterns. These shifts had impacted his family, specifically through his father’s work opportunities, and would shape his own prospects. Cotton continued to be an important part of the economy, both in the state and in the Black Belt region, but its significance declined relative to Alabama’s growing industrial economy. African Americans saw expanded employment opportunities, as labor shortages, strikes, and union organizing during the first two decades of the century led companies to open up jobs previously unavailable to black workers. The steel industry, which had previously satisfied its need for cheap labor with immigrant workers, came to rely heavily on black labor after World War I. 47”", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Stephen M. Ward" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/stephen-m-ward/she-told-him-the-origins-of-the-buck-dance-when-white-people-would/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/d7b/stephen-m-ward-26459_african-american_she-told-him-the-origins-of-the-buck-dan_1238675.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/d7b/stephen-m-ward-26459_african-american_she-told-him-the-origins-of-the-buck-dan_1238675.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/d7b/stephen-m-ward-26459_african-american_she-told-him-the-origins-of-the-buck-dan_1238675.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“She told him the origins of the “buck dance,” when “white people would come up and say ‘N____r, dance’, and…” — Stephen M. Ward", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 4, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "“public statements condemning segregation, sharply worded telegrams to Washington, and meetings with White House officials—were demonstrably ineffectual. New and more dramatic measures were in order. Mass action, Randolph reasoned, would be required, and he proposed a protest of 10,000 black people marching down Pennsylvania Avenue to demand an end to segregation in the armed forces and exclusion from jobs in the defense industry. Drawing on community organizing and protest networks developed during the 1920s and 1930s, this would be a broad, national mobilization of African Americans. The substance of their demand would be full and equal participation in the national defense effort, and the form of the demand would be a mass mobilization designed to compel the federal government to action. The MOWM, in effect, pioneered the type of protest politics that was used to considerable effect during the civil rights movement to push the federal government to enforce or enact African American citizenship rights. Randolph announced the March on Washington proposal in a January 1941 statement to the press. He declared that “power and pressure do not reside in the few, and intelligentsia, they lie in and flow from the masses.… Power is the active principle of only the organized masses, the masses united for a definitive purpose.” 19 Two months later Randolph issued the official call for the march, set for July 1, 1941. Drawing on his standing as a prominent black leader, and especially as the head of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (BSCP), Randolph made his case that the time was right. “In this period of power politics, nothing counts but pressure, more pressure, and still more pressure,” he wrote in the call to march. “To this end we propose that 10,000 Negroes MARCH ON WASHINGTON FOR JOBS IN NATIONAL DEFENSE AND EQUAL INTEGRATION IN THE FIGHTING FORCES.” 20 To coordinate this massive effort, organizers established a March on Washington Committee, headed by Randolph, along with a sponsoring committee and regional committees in cities across the country. Galvanized by a rising desire for action within black communities, the idea found enthusiastic approval in the black press and eventually won the endorsement of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the National Urban League, and other elements of black leadership. 21 By the end of May, Randolph estimated that 100,000 black Americans would march. A national grassroots movement was afoot, and Randolph grew even more confident in his vision for the demonstration. “Let the Negro masses march!” he declared. “Let the Negro masses speak!” 22”", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Stephen M. Ward" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/stephen-m-ward/public-statements-condemning-segregation-sharply-worded-telegrams-to/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/d1d/stephen-m-ward-26459_african-american_public-statements-condemning-segregation_1883810.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/d1d/stephen-m-ward-26459_african-american_public-statements-condemning-segregation_1883810.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/d1d/stephen-m-ward-26459_african-american_public-statements-condemning-segregation_1883810.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“public statements condemning segregation, sharply worded telegrams to Washington, and meetings with White…” — Stephen M. Ward", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } } ] }, { "@type": "CollectionPage", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/african-americans/stephen-m-ward/#webpage", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/african-americans/stephen-m-ward/", "name": "African americans Quotes by Stephen M. Ward", "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#website" }, "mainEntity": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/african-americans/stephen-m-ward/#itemlist" }, "primaryImageOfPage": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/ee6/stephen-m-ward-26459_african-american_what-are-you-complaining-about-if-they-d_962580.jpg" }, "description": "4 African americans quotes by Stephen M. Ward. Plus more from Stephen M. 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