B. Open Impromptu Event Prompts
Round 1 10:00am
Speaker 1
Speaker 1
· Never be the limited by other people’s imagination. – Dr. Mae Jemison
· I knew then and I know now, when it comes to justice, there is no easy way to get it. – Claudette Colvin
· Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which were overcome while trying to succeed. – Booker T. Washington
Speaker 2
Speaker 2
· The cost of liberty is less than the price of repression. – W.E.B. Du Bois
· In recognizing the humanity of our fellow beings, we pay ourselves the highest tribute. – Thurgood Marshall
· What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls the butterfly. What we do as black women is take the worst situations and create from that point. – Viola Davis
Speaker 3
Speaker 3
· Hate is too great a burden to bear. It injures the hater more than it injures the hated. – Coretta Scott King
· It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. – Frederick Douglass
· Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they’ve been given than explore the power they have to change it. – Muhammad Ali
Speaker 4
Speaker 4
· True heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic. It’s not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others at whatever cost. – Arthur Ashe
· I have learned over the years that when one’s mind is made up, this diminishes fear. – Rosa Parks
· To be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others. – Nelson Mandela
Speaker 5
Speaker 5
· If there is no struggle, there is no progress. – Frederick Douglass You’re not to be so blind with patriotism that you can’t face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who does it or says it.” – Malcolm X
· We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek. – Barack Obama
· I can accept failure. Everyone fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying. – Michael Jordan
Speaker 6
Speaker 6
· Almost always, the creative dedicated minority has made the world better. – Martin Luther King, Jr.
· I’m not quite sure what freedom is, but I know damn well what it ain’t. How have we gotten so silly, I wonder. – Assata Shakur
· If you have no confidence in self, you are twice defeated in the race of life. – Marcus Garvey
Speaker 7
Speaker 7
· Treat everyone you meet as if they are the most important person in the world – because they are. If not to you, then to someone; and if not today then perhaps tomorrow. -Cynthia Marshall
· I prayed for 20 years but never received no answer until I prayed with my legs. – Frederick Douglas
· If you judge people, you have no time to love them. – Mother Teresa
Round 2 2:00pm
Speaker 1
Speaker 1
· Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion. - Muhammad Ali
· Have a vision of excellence, a dream of success, and work like hell. – Dr. Samuel DuBois Cook
· Racism isn’t born, it’s taught. I have a two-year-old son. You know what he hates? Naps! End of list. – Dennis Leary.
Speaker 2
Speaker 2
· I am America. Black, confident, cocky; my name, not yours; my religion, not yours; my goals, not own; get used to me. – Muhammad Ali
· If they don’t give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair. – Shirley Chisholm
· Whatever is bringing you down, get rid of it. Because you’ll find that when you’re free…your true self comes out. – Tina Turner
Speaker 3
Speaker 3
· Racism is man’s gravest threat to man – the maximum of hatred for a minimum of reason. – Abraham Joshua Heschel
· If the only time you think of me as a scientist is during Black History Month, then I must not be doing my job as a scientist. – Neil deGrasse Tyson
· I’m lucky that whatever fear I have inside me, my desire to win is always stronger. – Serena Williams
Speaker 4
Speaker 4
· Life is not a spectator sport. If you spend your whole life in the grandstand just watching what’s going on, you’re wasting your life. – Jackie Robinson
· If there is a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, you must be the one to write it. – Toni Morrison
· Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better. – Maya Angelou
Speaker 5
Speaker 5
· I had no idea that history was being made. I was just tired of giving up. – Rosa Parks
· The thing about black history is that the truth is so much more complex than anything you could make up. – Henry Louis Gates
· There are still many causes worth sacrificing for, so much history yet to be made. – Michelle Obama
Speaker 6
Speaker 6
· Black history isn’t a separate history. This is all of our history, this is American history, and we need to understand that. – Karyn Parson
· If you don’t have confidence, you will always find a way not to win. – Carl Lewis
· If you know whence you came, there is really no limit to where you can go. – James Baldwin
Speaker 7
Speaker 7
· The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any. – Alice Walker
· You’ve to learn to leave the table when love’s no longer being served. – Nina Simone
· You are where you are today because you stand on somebody’s shoulders. And wherever you are headed, you cannot get there by yourself. – Vernon Jordan
Finals B 5:45pm
Speaker 1
Speaker 1
· If everything was perfect, you would never learn and you would never grow. – Beyonce Knowles
· A good head and a good heart are always a formidable combination. – Nelson Mandela
· Sometimes I feel discriminated against, but it does not make me angry. It merely astonishes me. How can any deny themselves the pleasure of my company is beyond me. – Zora Neale Hurston
Speaker 2
Speaker 2
· The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them. – Ida B. Wells
· Don’t make money your goal. Instead, pursue the things you love doing and then do them so well that people can’t take their eyes off you. – Maya Angelou
· There are two things I had a right to, liberty, or death; if I could not have one, I would have the other. – Harriet Tubman
Speaker 3
Speaker 3
· We exist temporarily through what we take, but we live forever through what we give. – Vernon Jordan
· Champions don’t become champions when they win the event buy in the hours, weeks, months and years they spend preparing for it. – Alan Armstrong.
· One of the hardest things in life is having words in your heart that you can’t utter. – James Earl Jones
Speaker 4
Speaker 4
· If you stand on the shoulders of others, you have a reciprocal responsibility to live your life so that others may stand on your shoulders. – Vernon Jordan
· The African race is a rubber ball. The harder you dash it to the ground, the higher it will rise. – African Proverb
· There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered. – Nelson Mandela
Speaker 5
Speaker 5
· I don’t have time to stay up all night worrying about what someone who doesn’t love me has to say about me. – Viola Davis
· I am the greatest. I said that before I ever knew I was. – Muhammad Ali
· The most dangerous creation of any society is the man who has nothing to lose. – James Baldwin
Speaker 6
Speaker 6
· Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted. – Martin Luther King, Jr.
· Instead of looking at the past, I put myself ahead twenty years and try to look at what I need to do now in order to get there. – Diana Ross
· The best way to make dreams come true is to wake up. – Mae C. Jemison
Speaker 7
Speaker 7
· Defining myself, as opposed to being defined by others, is one of the most difficult challenges I face. – Carol Moseley-Braun
· I am not ashamed of my grandparents for having been slaves. I am only ashamed of myself for having at one time been ashamed. – Ralph Ellison
· Do we care to match the reality of America to its ideals? – Barack Obama