Angela Yvonne Davis is born on this day in 1944 in Birmingham, Alabama. A philosopher, academic, author and activist, Dr. Davis has been one of Black America’s voices for freedom for over forty years.
Constance Baker Motley was nominated on this day in 1966 by President Lyndon B. Johnson to the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. This made her the first Black woman federal judge.
“And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone. And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, when will you be satisfied? We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating: for whites only. We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
MLK, Jr., 1963
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