Quotes About Activism

When the Israelis pick up guns, or the Poles, or the Irish, or any white man in the world says give me liberty, or give me death, the entire white world applauds. When a black man says exactly the same thing, word for word, he is judged a criminal and treated like one and everything possible is done to make an example of this bad n*****, so there won't be any more like him.

Some of us, white and black, know how great a price has already been paid to bring into existence a new consciousness, a new people, an unprecedented nation. If we know, and do nothing, we are worse than the murderers hired in our name. If we know, then we must fight for your life as though it were our own - which it is - and render impassable with our bodies the corridor to the gas chamber. For, if they take you in the morning, they will be coming for us that night.

The tragedy of this country now is that most of the people who say they care about it do not care. What they care about is their safety and their profits. What they care about is not rocking the boat. What they care about is the continuation of white supremacy, so that white liberals who are with you in principle will move out when you move in.

I had first been in San Francisco at the height of the civil rights movement, first on an Esquire junket, then on a lecture tour. There had been no flower children here then, only earnest, eager students anxious to know what they could "do.

If we know, and do nothing, we are worse that the murderers hired in our name. If we know, then we must fight for your life as though it were our own - which it is - and render impasssable with our bodies the corridor the the gas chamber. For, if they take you in the morning, they will be coming for us that night.

At the house of bricks, the wolf again banged on the door and shouted, Little pigs, little pigs, let me in! This time in response, the pigs sang songs of solidarity and wrote letters of protest to the United Nations.

Maybe it's because my uncle and my parents were always very involved with the civil rights movement, so I just grew up and I was raised that you have to speak out and look out for your fellow man, woman, and child.

You just need to be a flea against injustice. Enough committed fleas biting strategically can make even the biggest dog uncomfortable and transform even the biggest nation.

I used to go to some Harvard parties with my athlete friends, and they would introduce me as 'Winona, the Indian activist.' It made me uncomfortable. I felt like a novelty.

Even though I believe in mass social movements, I'm uncomfortable in crowds.

Our city finds itself in an uncomfortable place: on the frontline between freedom and auto_cracy.

I thought what the military was doing was unconstitutional.

For some reason, when Colin Kaepernick took a knee, people remained undecided about the side of history that he was on - which was clearly short-sighted on their part, because he was always right. Because there was no public momentum or approval behind what he did, people found it easier to say things like 'stick to sports.'

I grew up in Sydney in a very political household, where we were all for the underdog.

I've always been passionate about the concept of helping the underdog. It just doesn't make sense to me as to what kind of person would take a huge platform and not use it to do something, to change something, to help people.

People are underestimating the force of angry kids.

Oftentimes, a history book in school will talk about the Underground Railroad as if it's one sentence. But thousands of people decided to run, and they single-handedly changed the trajectory of our nation. By running to the North, they put a face to slavery, which recruited a lot of abolitionists.

The Underground Railroad, which was the first integrated civil rights movement, is a part of our history that not a lot of us know about. And it's actually a very empowering side of our history.

Everything I do has an underlying political question.

My coverage of Antifa has been critical: not just critical of the hooliganism and the street violence because violence, of course, is easy to condemn. I am critical of the underlying ideology as well.

We learned that kicking down doors to free children from carpet factories isn't enough to stop child labour - we had to tackle the underlying poverty in which their families lived, through education.

Judge Afiuni has suffered enough. She has been subject to acts of violence and humiliations to undermine her human dignity. I am convinced that she must be set free.

Let's demonstrate, illustrate, the ways in which our communities are being undermined time and time again, and make sure that the broader public and those in power choose to stand with us.

There are few people who define the word, 'rock star' better than U2's Bono. He's revered the world over not just for leading one of the biggest bands ever, but for his very public work on behalf of the underprivileged in Africa.