Civil Rights Quotes

How can you render the duties of justice to men when you're afraid they'll be so unaware of justice they may destroy you? ...especially since their attitude toward their own race is a destructive one.

~ John Howard Griffin

May I say just a word to those of you who are struggling against this evil. Always be sure that you struggle with Christian methods and Christian weapons. Never succumb to the temptation of becoming bitter. As you press on for justice, be sure to move with dignity and discipline, using only the weapon of love. Let no man pull you so low as to hate him

~ Martin Luther King Jr.

[Ella Baker]'s second defining characteristic was her dislike of top-down leadership... 'She felt leaders were not appointed but the rose up. Someone will rise. Someone will emerge'. It was an attitude Baker shared with some of the older women in the movement.

~ Gail Collins

In the years since his murder, we have transformed King into a kind of innocuous black Santa Claus.

~ Timothy B. Tyson

Our history, America’s history, has been so heavily edited. In history classes, we don’t really go into full discussions about the past. People, struggles, and triumphs have been erased. As a result, we now have a generation, my generation, of people who are intelligent but ignorant of and blind to the truth.

~ Janelle Gray

I watched as people went to the memorial reading the names. I started at the first entry from 1954. I read each one quietly but out loud to myself, like I’d done with the names of those in the museum. I felt somehow they were getting the message that their sacrifice was known and their voice was heard.

~ Janelle Gray

We want trumpets that sound like thunder, and men to act as though they were going to war with those corrupt and degrading principles that rob one of all rights, merely because he is ignorant, and of a little different color. Let us have principles that will give every one his due; and then shall wars cease, and the weary find rest.

~ William Apess

Back then, Black churches were a small piece of peace. Church was a world where, even with its imperfections, the offer of equality and common humanity was the sustenance needed to make it through the rest of the week in a society that deemed them less than human.

~ Janelle Gray

Privilege doesn't just insulate people from the consequences of their prejudice, it cuts them off from their humanity.

~ Dashanne Stokes

I'm hurting because the color of my skin makes me perfect for their target practice.

~ R.h. Sin

I was brought up by people who loved others. I love people. We had no animosity. We had no feeling that we hate anyone.

~ Amelia Boynton Robinson

If we want truth and justice to rule our global village, there must be no hypocrisy. If there is no truth, then there will be no equality. No equality, no justice. No justice, no peace. No peace, no love. No love, only darkness.

~ Suzy Kassem

Justice is what love sounds like when it speaks in public.

~ Michael Eric Dyson

Jealousy clings to love's underside like bats to a bridge.

~ Amy Waldman

But I believe that, once the shock settles, faith and energy will return. Because let’s be real: we always knew this shit wasn’t going to be easy. Colonial power, patriarchal power, capitalist power must always and everywhere be battled, because they never, ever quit. We have to keep fighting, because otherwise there will be no future—all will be consumed. Those of us whose ancestors were owned and bred like animals know that future all too well, because it is, in part, our past. And we know that by fighting, against all odds, we who had nothing, not even our real names, transformed the universe. Our ancestors did this with very little, and we who have more must do the same. This is the joyous destiny of our people—to bury the arc of the moral universe so deep in justice that it will never be undone.

~ Junot Díaz

The most important gift you can give your children is the importance of standing up to injustice. Children will remember moments spent with you. However, it isn't togetherness that creates humane parents and righteous kids. It is the example of integrity that a parent sets and the on going lessons they teach about compassion toward others throughout their lives. A good father or mother teaches their children that cruelty is not something you cause or ignore, rather it is the moment you suit up for war.

~ Shannon L. Alder

a delegate shout out from the floor: “Peonage, Anti-Lynch Bill, poll tax, these are our issues. They are the most controversial issues in American life, and some of us will have to die for them! Yes, we want to join with the CIO! We cannot stop for controversy!” And there in the faces of my people I saw strength. There with the whites in the audience I saw the positive forces of civilization and the best guarantee of America’s future.

~ Ralph Ellison

Given a thimbleful of [dramatic] facts we rush to make generalizations as large as a tub.

~ Gordon W. Allport

The American flag doesn't give her glory on a peaceful, calm day. It's when the winds pick up and become boisterous, do we see her strength. When she unfolds her hand, and shows her frayed fingers, where we see the stretch of red-blood lines of man that fought for this land. The purity of white stripes that strips our sins, and the stars of Abraham's covenant, broad in a midnight blue sky. The rights our forefathers established. As it waves high in the currents of freedom, where the Torch of Liberty shines over the sea, does she give meaning to unity. When we strive as one nation, or when it drops half-mast, to a fallen soldier.

~ Anthony Liccione

Bigotry lives not just in our words, but in our actions, thoughts, and institutions.

~ Dashanne Stokes

When we stand up for what we believe in—for what’s right—there is always a chance that we risk the very things we fight for: our safety, our lives, our freedom. But if we stand down, the risk is definite.

~ Kelseyleigh Reber

As day is to a sword, night is to a shield.

~ Anthony Liccione

Slavery is a memory of something we cannot remember, and yet we cannot forget.

~ Bill T. Jones

Non Violence and Religion: Both designed to keep the oppressed from murdering their oppressors.

~ Darnell Lamont Walker

Negro poverty is not white poverty. Many of its causes and many of its cures are the same. But there are differences - deep, corrosive, obstinate differences - radiating painful roots into the community and into the family, and the nature of the individual. These differences are not racial differences. They are solely and simply the consequence of ancient brutality, past injustice, and present prejudice.

~ Lyndon B. Johnson

We have fought hard and long for integration, as I believe we should have, and I know that we will win. But I've come to believe we're integrating into a burning house.I'm afraid that America may be losing what moral vision she may have had …. And I'm afraid that even as we integrate, we are walking into a place that does not understand that this nation needs to be deeply concerned with the plight of the poor and disenfranchised. Until we commit ourselves to ensuring that the underclass is given justice and opportunity, we will continue to perpetuate the anger and violence that tears at the soul of this nation.

~ Martin Luther King Jr.

Never stand in the way of letting God use people’s actions, in order to solve a greater issue in the world.

~ Shannon L. Alder

the underlying struggle - between worlds of plenty and worlds of want; between the modern and the ancient; between those who embrace our teeming, colliding, irksome diversity, while still insisting on a set of values that binds us together, and those who would seek, under whatever flag or slogan or sacred text, a certainty and simplification that justifies cruelty toward those not like us...

~ Barack Obama

Our situation is intolerable, but what's worseis to sit here and do nothing.

~ Rita Dove

Although the principle of equality has always been self-evident, it has never been self-executing.

~ Barack Obama

If you'd combat bigotry, use honest language and call things out for what they really are.

~ Dashanne Stokes

Calling for an end to hate shouldn't be treated as a punishable offense.

~ Dashanne Stokes

It's terrifying to think you could become the next statistic.

~ Dashanne Stokes

Love is a better way.

~ John Lewis

Right isn't always legal.

~ J.s.b. Morse

Racism is dead only to those who've closed their eyes and ears to the whole world around them.

~ Dashanne Stokes

Privilege is when you contribute to the oppression of others and then claim that you are the one being discriminated against.

~ Dashanne Stokes

Adoptees deserve open records because deception and partial truths do not set us free.

~ Dashanne Stokes

Silence is for fools. Communication is for leaders. Justice is for those brave enough to not stand another moment dealing with people that feel the solution to any problem is through cold indifference because of their lack of courage and insecurities.

~ Shannon L. Alder

Only until all human beings begin to recognize themselves as human beings will prejudice be gone forever. People ask me what race I am, but there is no such thing as race. I just answer: I’m a member of the human race.

~ Amelia Boynton Robinson