Mary White Ovington Quotes
- Mini Bio
- Name: Mary White Ovington
- Born: 11th April 1865, Brooklyn, New York, U.S.
- Died: 15th July 1951, Newton Highlands, Massachusetts, U.S.
- Occupation: Journalist, author, Social and Political Activist
- Famous for: Co-founder of NAACP National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
- Books: She authored several books including; Half a Man (1911); Status of the Negro in the United States (1913); Socialism and the Feminist Movement (1914); Portraits in Color (1927); and, The Walls Came Tumbling Down (1947)
- Trivia: A school in Brooklyn, New York was named after her; Mary White Ovington I.S.30 Middle School
"These are difficult days, but there is always hope"
Mary White Ovington"If we deny full expression to a race, if we restrict its education, stifle its intellectual and aesthetic impulses, we make it impossible to fairly gauge its ability"
Mary White Ovington"The coloured people, more than the white people in Greenpoint, took me for exactly what I was... I was among big hearted, friendly, hard working human beings"
Mary White Ovington"In all the months I lived, a white woman alone in a block with five thousand Negroes, I never had a disagreeable experience"
Mary White Ovington"Southern legislatures were at that time passing laws to make a person with a drop of negro blood a member of the negro race"
Mary White Ovington"In the minds of the white critics was the fear of negro domination, and the old slavery arguments were continually used"
Mary White Ovington"John Quincy Adams, more than a hundred years ago, said of them that they were the only well bred people in America"
Mary White Ovington"We at The Cosmopolitan Club were pioneers. We suffered the notoriety of pioneers. But we did a good piece of work"
Mary White Ovington"There are Mussolini's enough of the negro's making without the white man's manufacturing more"
Mary White Ovington"Do not have all the talk about conditions in the south. Have conditions in the north discussed"
Mary White Ovington"They should know the power the race has gained"
Mary White Ovington"Judas is not at the bottom of my inferno"
Mary White Ovington"The history of the progressive is one of dodging the race issue whenever possible"
Mary White Ovington"I should like to hammer that side of things into some of the aristocrats who are in the membership"
Mary White Ovington"Danger is never absent, but I did not taste it"
Mary White Ovington
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Mary White Ovington Biography
Bio By: Michael Joseph Farrelly
Mary White Ovington was born into a family of activists who were abolitionists and supporters of the womens rights movement. She was inspired by the cultured oratory skills of Booker T. Washington and the intellectually stimulating W.E.B. Du Bois which led her to be one of the co-founders of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People). She remained an active equal rights campaigner through the course of her life and also penned a number of books and novels.
During her career she was known for her eloquent correspondence skills so it was most interesting researching and selecting this compilation of 15 of the best Mary White Ovington quotes
Quotes About Mary White Ovington
Mary Covington White set up a dining club she called The Cosmopolitan Club that caused controversy because it included mixed races dining and talking on an equal basis around the table. The following is a few newspaper reactions from back in the day:
Judge Thomas N. Norwood proved he was not a fan when he wrote in the Savannah News: "The high priestess, Miss Ovington, whose father is rich and who affiliates five days in every week with Negro men and dines with them at her home in Brooklyn on Sunday. She could have had a hundred thousand negroes at the Bacchaanal feast had she waved the bread tray. But the horror over the decadent women is only equalled by our amazement to see the editors of papers that hitherto have been considered decent, and a reputable writer for magazines, in that witches' cauldron on that black night"
The Richmond Leader newspaper was outraged to say: "We have bitter contempt for the whites that participated in it and illustrated that degeneracy will seek its level"
The St Louis Dispatch was equally racist in its remarks: "This miscegenation dinner was loathsome enough to consign the whole fraternity of perverts who participated in it to undying infamy"
