Patriotism has no appeal to us; justice has. Party has no weight with us; principle has. Loyalty is meaningless; it depends on what one is loyal to.

Debs is greater than Lincoln. Debs is the spokesman of the great struggling working class of all races, nationalities, creeds, sexes.

Lincoln was the spokesman of the rising capitalist class of the North, who viewed the emancipation of Negro slaves as indispensable to the development and triumph of the manufacturers and bankers of the industrial North, East and West over the...

Lincoln merely nominally freed the bodies of Negroes. But Debs would free the bodies and minds of Negroes.

Negroes are in no mood to shoulder guns for democracy abroad while they are denied democracy here at home.

I personally pledge myself to openly counsel, aid, and abet youth, both black and white, to quarantine any Jim Crow conscription system.

I am prepared to oppose a Jim Crow army till I rot in jail.

Justice is never given; it is exacted.

Freedom is never granted; it is won.

Negroes must be free in order to be equal, and they must be equal in order to be free... Men cannot win freedom unless they win equality. They cannot win equality unless they win freedom.