Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

"And what [Obama] was very clear about is what we're very clear about, which is that if you fix the problems that most afflict black and brown people, you actually fix the country as a whole.

"We have fought for, you know, to raise the floor in this society. We have fought for black people because, historically, that flow was defined by the way that black people were treated.

"But each time we raised the floor, we actually improved the country for all people."

"Just take our first issue, right -- 100 years ago we were founded here in Manhattan to end lynch mob justice. When we shamed the country out of that practice, we made life better for blacks, we made life better for Catholics, who were the second most lynched group, for Jews, for Chinese, for drunk cowboys.

"That's partly what he was talking about last night, is look, if we engage these issues and most desperately afflict black and brown people, life gets better for all poor people and, frankly, for the country as a whole."

-- Benjamin Jealous, president of the NAACP, on the PBS television program, Charlie Rose, 2009-07-17 (link has transcript and video)