Pick battles big enough to matter, small enough to win.

Racial segregation has come back to public education with a vengeance.

The greatest difference between now and 1964, when I began teaching, is that public policy has pretty much eradicated the dream of Martin Luther King.

You need massive recruitment to tell the poorest of the poor what is possible.

Separate and unequal didn't work 100 years ago. It will not work today.

The first goal and primary function of the U.S. public school is not to educate good people, but good citizens. It is the function which we call - in enemy nations - 'state indoctrination.'

False hope is worse than despair.

The cause of homelessness is lack of housing.

Apartheid education, rarely mentioned in the press or openly confronted even among once-progressive educators, is alive and well and rapidly increasing now in the United States.

The ones I pity are the ones who never stick out their neck for something they believe, never know the taste of moral struggle, and never have the thrill of victory.

I encourage teachers to speak in their own voices. Don't use the gibberish of the standards writers.

Yes, ” I whisper so the others won’t hear, “but being afraid is good because it means I still have more to lose.

If we feel secureIn the depths of our heart, We shall not challenge anybody, For inner confidenceIs nothing short ofComplete satisfaction.

Do you see? The story I have to tell is so small, of the people who stayed when everyone else fled.

No night so wild but brings the constant sun With love and power untold; No time so dark but through its woof there run Some blessed threads of gold.

Somewhere in the world is the most invincible man. Just as somewhere is the most vulnerable.

The children-my own and other people's-became the passion of my personal and professional life.

I bought all my friends guitars and I had a good time with my money. But then one day the IRS came knocking.

I've always remembered. This fellow said to me - if you think someones'doing you wrong, it's not for you to judge. Kill them first and then God can do the judging.

I could hum Beatles songs before I could talk - not very well, but sort of.