Many well-meaning intelligent people have argued since the May 17, 1954, decision of the United States Supreme Court outlawing segregation in the public schools that communication between the races has broken down.
Interpretation
The quote discusses the misguided belief that segregation's end has hindered communication between races.
Benjamin E. Mays highlights a paradox where despite the well-intentioned efforts to abolish segregation in schools, there is a perception that communication between racial groups has suffered. This suggests that legal changes alone do not necessarily bridge social divides, emphasizing the complexity of human relationships and the deeper societal issues that influence communication.
In practice
In a speech addressing community issues, one might use this quote to illustrate the complexities of racial relations post-segregation.
The tragedy of life doesn't lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy lies in having no goal to reach. It isn't a calamity to die with dreams unfulfilled, but it is a calamity not to dream...It is not a disgrace not to reach the stars, but it is a disgrace to have no stars to reach for. Not failure, but low aim is sin.
In this perilous world, if a black boy wanted to live a halfway normal life and die a natural death he had to learn early the art of how to get along with white folks.
It isn't more light we need, it isn't more truth, and it isn't more scientific data. It is more Christ, more courage, more spiritual insight to act on the light we have.
A child must learn early to believe that she is somebody worthwhile, and that she can do many praiseworthy things.
Whatever you do,strive to do it so well that no man living and no man dead and no man yet to be born could do it any better.
He who starts behind in the great race of life must forever remain behind or run faster than the man in front.
My view is different from this, only to the extent that if a decision is taken, by the parents and doctors, that it is better that a baby should die, I believe it should be possible to carry out that decision, not only by withholding or withdrawing life-support - which can lead to the baby dying slowly from dehydration or from an infection - but also by taking active steps to end the baby's life swiftly and humanely.
Admiration is a very short-lived passion, that immediately decays upon growing familiar with its object.
I will tell you what I will do and what I will not do. I will not serve that in which I no longer believe, whether it calls itself my home, my fatherland, or my church: and I will try to express myself in some mode of life or art as freely as I can and as wholly as I can, using for my defense the only arms I allow myself to use -- silence, exile, and cunning.
Our repugnance to death increases in proportion to our consciousness of having lived in vain.
Before impugning an opponent's motives, even when they legitimately may be impugned, answer his arguments.
We build a shell around it, like an oyster dealing with a painful particle of grit, coating it with smooth pearl layers in order to cope. This is how we walk and talk and function , day in, day out. Immune to others’ pain and loss.
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