Art Quote by Spike Lee

Please remember that my great grandmother was a slave. My grandmother was a sharecropper. My mother was a factory worker.

— Afeni Shakur

I was born 50 years after slavery, in 1913. I was allowed to read. My mother, who was a teacher, taught me when I…

— Rosa Parks

I am a descendant of slaves. My great grandmother Mary Thomas, born in 1865, was the child of a slave. That is just three…

— Linda Thomas-Greenfield

In the 1930s, the government paid writers to interview 80- and 90-year-old former slaves, and I read those accounts. I came away realizing -…

— Colson Whitehead

My maternal grandmother was the longest-lived of my grandparents. She migrated to Australia in her 80s and lived into her 90s. It was great…

— Nick Earls

Many of my 20- and 30-something peers struggle with student loan debt and high rent, and more than once, I've erupted in laughter at…

— Mary Pilon

My great grandmother, Martha, was hired at 11 years old to be a worker to people.

— Amybeth McNulty

Mom was 50 when my Dad died. She got on a bus every weekday for years, and rode 40 miles each morning to Madison.…

— Paul Ryan

I WAS born a slave; but I never knew it till six years of happy childhood had passed away

— Harriet Ann Jacobs

My younger sister retired a few years ago after a 30-year career teaching history and social studies at an inner-city high school.

— Judy Woodruff

My grandmother was energetic and fearless - a talented poet and songwriter. She was also interested in chemistry and history and medicine, taking care…

— Salma Hayek

Before Social Security existed, about half of America's senior citizens lived in poverty.

— Bernie Sanders