Constance Baker Motley Quotes

• I grew up in a house where nobody had to tell me to go to school every day and do my homework.

  Constance Baker Motley

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Teen, School, House

• All Southern state colleges and universities are open to black students.

  Constance Baker Motley

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Black, Open

• How long must the American community afford special treatment to blacks?

  Constance Baker Motley

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Special, American

• Had it not been for James Meredith, who was willing to risk his life, the University of Mississippi would still be all white.

  Constance Baker Motley

  Topics in Risk

  Tags in University, White

• Columbia Law School men were being drafted, and suddenly women who had done well in college were considered acceptable candidates for the vacant seats.

  Constance Baker Motley

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Women, Suddenly, Accept, School

• I got the chance to argue my first case in Supreme Court, a criminal case arising in Alabama that involved the right of a defendant to counsel at a critical stage in a capital case before a trial.

  Constance Baker Motley

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  Tags in Before, Criminal, Involved

• I never thought I would live long enough to see the legal profession change to the extent it has.

  Constance Baker Motley

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Change, Profession

• I remember being infuriated from the top of my head to the tip of my toes the first time a screen was put around Bob Carter and me on a train leaving Washington in the 1940s.

  Constance Baker Motley

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Remember, Leaving

• I rejected the notion that my race or s*x would bar my success in life.

  Constance Baker Motley

  Topics in Success

  Tags in Rejected, Notion

• I soon found law school an unmitigated bore.

  Constance Baker Motley

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Found, School

• In high school, I discovered myself. I was interested in race relations and the legal profession. I read about Lincoln and that he believed the law to be the most difficult of professions.

  Constance Baker Motley

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Relations, Discovered, Interested

• I was born and raised in the oldest settled part of the nation and in an environment in which racism was officially mooted.

  Constance Baker Motley

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Nation

• In high school, I won a prize for an essay on tuberculosis. When I got through writing the essay, I was sure I had the disease.

  Constance Baker Motley

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in School, Writing

• King consciously steered away from legal claims and instead relied on civil disobedience.

  Constance Baker Motley

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in King, Consciously

• Lack of encouragement never deterred me. I was the kind of person who would not be put down.

  Constance Baker Motley

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Person, Kind

• In my view, I did not get to the federal bench because I was a woman.

  Constance Baker Motley

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Woman, Federal

• Living at the YMCA in Harlem dramatically broadened my view of the world.

  Constance Baker Motley

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Living, View

• King thought he understood the white Southerner, having been born and reared in Georgia and trained a theologian.

  Constance Baker Motley

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Thought, Born, Understood

• My father kept his distance from working-class American blacks.

  Constance Baker Motley

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in American, Distance

• My parents never told us that our great-grandmothers had been slaves.

  Constance Baker Motley

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Parents, Great

Constance Baker Motley (39)

Birth:	14th September, 1921
Death:	28th September, 2005
Nationality:	American
Profession:	Activist, Judge, Lawyer, Politician

About

Constance Baker Motley was born in New Haven, Connecticut. She  was an American civil rights activist, lawyer, judge and state senator. She obtained her Bachelor of Arts Degree in 1943. She  received her law degree in 1946 from Columbia University School of Law. She was otherwise a key legal strategist in the civil rights movement, helping to desegregate Southern schools, buses, and lunch counters. In September 1966, President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed her to the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, making her the first African American woman federal judge. In 2001, President Bill Clinton awarded her the Presidential Citizens Medal.

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