My father and his eight siblings grew up in the kind of poverty that Americans don't like to talk about unless a natural disaster like Hurricane Katrina strikes, and then the conversation only lasts as long as the news cycle. His family squatted in shacks. The children scavenged for food.
I think people assume that because I talk the way that I talk that I grew up with money, and then I've had to say, 'No, I grew up poor.' And then I was like, 'Why do I have to play this game where the only black experience that's authentic is the one where you grew up in poverty?' I mean, it's ridiculous.
When you are raised, as John Edwards was, in a small town like Robbins, North Carolina, you get to understand poverty and unemployment, or inadequate health care, first-hand by seeing the daily struggles of your friends and neighbors.
Much good art got made while money ruled; I like a lot of it, and hardship and poverty aren't virtues. The good news is that, since almost no one will be selling art, artists - especially emerging ones - won't have to think about turning out a consistent style or creating a brand. They'll be able to experiment as much as they want.
It is conflict overall that mires people in poverty. That is the first law of development.
I don't want to sound Pollyannish about this. I understand that poverty is never just poverty. It's often this collection of maladies, this compounded adversity. I'm not naive about the problem. But I think that stable, steady housing is one of the surest footholds we could have on the road to financial stability.
In Mexico, wealth and poverty live next to each other and are cordial with each other - in my experience.
Making sure that mothers are educated means we can lift more people out of poverty and build a more inclusive and sustainable society.
Think about it: Every educated person is not rich, but almost every education person has a job and a way out of poverty. So education is a fundamental solution to poverty.
What causes terrorism is disrespect, a lack of justice, and poverty.
Most of us working on poverty alleviation simply want to know, 'How much poverty can I reduce for every dollar I donate?'
Even the best community organizations and faith-based initiatives and the extraordinary charity of Americans across the country can't carry the brunt of eliminating poverty.
It's not a coincidence that in the Scriptures, poverty is mentioned more than 2,100 times. It's not an accident. That's a lot of air time, 2,100 mentions.
Let me first say that I don't think the millennium target of cutting global poverty in half is an impossible or abstract target. I think it is a real and achievable goal.
Muhammad Ali struck us in the middle of America's darkest night, in the heart of its most threatening gathering storm. His power toppled the mightiest of foes, and his intense light shined on America, and we were able to see clearly injustice, inequality, poverty, pride, self realization, courage, laughter, love, joy and religious freedom for all.
Poverty must be reduced not only for reasons of moral and justice, but also of security.
More than 90 percent of what Planned Parenthood does nationally is preventive care - including cervical cancer screenings, breast cancer screenings, and family planning - mostly for women with low resources and income below the poverty line.
My top most priority is to deal with India's massive social and economic problems, so that chronic poverty, ignorance and disease can be conquered in a reasonably short period of time.
For complicated historical and political reasons, we associate 'poor' in our public consciousness with 'black.' Terms such as 'welfare queen' and 'culture of poverty' became associated uniquely with the social maladies of African Americans in urban ghettos, despite the fact that poor whites outnumbered poor blacks.
When I was a kid, politicians wanted to avoid talking about religion if they could. John F. Kennedy couldn't duck the issue, being Catholic and all. So how did he address it? By reminding Americans that religion shouldn't be an issue, that he was concentrating on big things like poverty and hunger and leading the space race.
Visit those who are sick, or who are in trouble, especially those whom God has made needy by age, or by other sickness, as the feeble, the blind, and the lame who are in poverty. These you shall relieve with your goods after your power and after their need, for thus biddeth the Gospel.
Poverty is not the simple result of bad geography, bad culture, bad history. It's the result of us: of the ways that people choose to organize their societies.
The debate that I'm interested in having is with seriously smart people about how we design institutions in the 21st century that will genuinely address problems of poverty and educational underachievement.
Sometimes, tax rate increases create the very problems that the spending is intended to cure. In other words, the tax rate increases reduce economic growth; they shrink the pie; they cause more poverty, more despair, more unemployment, which are all things government is trying to alleviate with spending.
There was no pomp and ceremony in connection with the birth of Jesus - rather the opposite: it took place in simplicity and in poverty.
Armchair poverty tourism has been around as long as authors have written about class. As an author, I have struggled myself with the nuances of writing about poverty without reducing any community to a catalog of its difficulties.
It's pretty obvious that Western lifestyles which rely on gigantic amounts of electricity use up far more resources than a subsistence-based life. A little more poverty would be a good thing.
Handouts are not going to end global poverty, but work - real work - just might.
Economic development and poverty alleviation are so complicated that I don't think there's a single background or a single discipline that is sufficient to tackle these great human problems.
If we have an honest discussion on whether the war on poverty should be fought with welfare or with economic growth in the private sector, Democrats will lose black votes.
The United States is a leader across a broad range of scientific disciplines. Our technological prowess is part of our greatness as a nation. Sadly, among the rich industrialized nations, we also lead by a substantial margin in the rate of poverty among children.
The factory work that lifted millions out of poverty in places like China and Vietnam probably did cost some workers in North Carolina and Wallonia their jobs.
The only way you multiply resources is with technology. To really affect poverty, energy, health, education, or anything else - there is no other way.
Poverty is rooted in injustice.
Haiti is in desperate poverty.
I know that a man who shows me his wealth is like the beggar who shows me his poverty; they are both looking for alms from me, the rich man for the alms of my envy, the poor man for the alms of my guilt.
