What the people want is very simple. They want an America as good as its promise. – Barbara Jordan
What we have to do is strike a balance between the idea that government should do everything and the idea, the belief, that government ought to do nothing. Strike a balance. – Barbara Jordan
We have a positive vision of the future founded on the belief that the gap between the promise and reality of America can one day be finally closed. We believe that. – Barbara Jordan
We are a people in a quandary about the present. We are a people in search of our future. We are a people in search of a national community. – Barbara Jordan
Americans, unhappily, have the most remarkable ability to alchemize all bitter truths into an innocuous but piquant confection and to transform their moral contradictions, or public discussion of such contradictions, into a proud decoration, such as are given for heroism on the battle field. – James Baldwin