Constance Baker Motley

Columbia Law School men were being drafted, and suddenly women who had done well in college were considered acceptable candidates for the…

— Constance Baker Motley

Today's white majority is largely silent about the race question.

— Constance Baker Motley

I rejected the notion that my race or sex would bar my success in life.

— Constance Baker Motley

Lack of encouragement never deterred me. I was the kind of person who would not be put down.

— Constance Baker Motley

King consciously steered away from legal claims and instead relied on civil disobedience.

— Constance Baker Motley

There is no longer a single common impediment to blacks emerging in this society.

— Constance Baker Motley

I soon found law school an unmitigated bore.

— Constance Baker Motley

The middle class, in the white population, encompasses a wide swath.

— Constance Baker Motley

There appears to be no limit as to how far the women's revolution will take us.

— Constance Baker Motley

King thought he understood the white Southerner, having been born and reared in Georgia and trained a theologian.

— Constance Baker Motley

I never thought I would live long enough to see the legal profession change to the extent it has.

— Constance Baker Motley

In high school, I discovered myself. I was interested in race relations and the legal profession. I read about Lincoln and that…

— Constance Baker Motley

In high school, I won a prize for an essay on tuberculosis. When I got through writing the essay, I was sure…

— Constance Baker Motley

When I went to law school, nobody heard of civil rights.

— Constance Baker Motley

We Americans entered a new phase in our history - the era of integration - in 1954.

— Constance Baker Motley

We knew then what we know now; only exemplary blacks are acceptable.

— Constance Baker Motley

My parents never told us that our great-grandmothers had been slaves.

— Constance Baker Motley

The black population now consists of two distinct classes-the middle class and the poor.

— Constance Baker Motley

The legal difference between the sit-ins and the Freedom Riders was significant.

— Constance Baker Motley

The women's rights movement of the 1970s had not yet emerged; except for Bella Abzug, I had no women supporters.

— Constance Baker Motley

New Orleans may well have been the most liberal Deep South city in 1954 because of its large Creole population, the influence…

— Constance Baker Motley