Political Quotes

“Throughout this month, students across my State, across Ohio, are reciting speeches by Sojourner Truth, Frederick Douglass, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., to commemorate Black History Month. Dr. Carter Woodson started what was originally called Negro History Week in February between the birthdays of President Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. Dr. Woodson initiated the weeklong tribute to incorporate the legacies, images, and historical contributions of African Americans into the greater American story. Today, people throughout the United States celebrate African-American History Month to ensure all American stories are recognized. Ohio has been the scene for which many of these chapters were written. In Mount Pleasant, OH, the first antislavery gazette newspaper in the United States, the Philanthropist, was published in 1817. The Ohio Anti-Slavery Society was founded in Zanesville in 1835. My home State has played a rich role in American history, as have so many Ohioans. Every new U.S. passport includes the words of a formerly enslaved Oberlin College graduate Dr. Anna Julia Cooper. If you have a passport, you will see her words: The cause of freedom is not the cause of a race or a sect, a party or a class--it is the cause of humankind, the very birthright of humanity. In Yellow Springs, OH, a young music student at Antioch College, Coretta Scott, would later work alongside her husband, Dr. Martin Luther King, for social and economic justice in our country.…”