Quotes About Activism

In 1985, I joined my mother in a protest against apartheid in which we were arrested at the South African embassy in Washington, D.C. And she was at President-elect Mandela's side in Johannesburg when he claimed victory in South Africa's first free elections.

It took 15 years and a Labour government to finally see Section 28 taken off the statute books. But this victory belongs to the LGBT+ activists who campaigned for so many years, fighting for change from the ground up.

Let me appeal to the consciences of many silent, responsible citizens of the white community who know that a victory for democracy in Jackson will be a victory for democracy everywhere.

We played video games and read books, and we went to public school. And yeah, we went to amusement parks. We did all of those things, but we also - that was all sort of organized around this nationwide picketing campaign.

Rodney King is a progenitor of all these cell phone videos that we have. It was unusual that a person had a video camera to take a picture of the Rodney King beating. Now, of course, everybody has a phone, and that has been one of the key factors in all the new attention to the issue.

When I see someone wearing fur, I just want to sit them down in front of one of PETA's videos and show them just how badly animals suffer for this supposed fabric that no one needs.

My father told me about American democracy. And he said you have to be actively engaged in the political process to make our democracy work. So I've been doing that my entire life. Civil rights movement. The peace movement during the Vietnam conflict. The movement to get an apology and redress for Japanese-Americans.

I got interested in politics during the civil rights movement and then Vietnam.

The civil rights movement was very important in my house, and then Vietnam was very important 'cause there were two boys, so I came of age during a very heated political climate.

Don't underlook the Sixties; we started eating more vegetables, respecting women, and we shut down Vietnam. We did a lot of good stuff. But it shouldn't shut you down from the moment.

It is unconscionable that 10,000 boys have died in Vietnam. If 10,000 American women had mind enough they could end the war, if they were committed to the task, even if it meant going to jail.

I was arrested in 1965 for opposing the war in Vietnam. There were 39 of us arrested that day. But thousands opposed us. And the majority of the people in the country supported the war then.

Those who had demanded no more than an end to the bombing of North Vietnam and a commitment to negotiations saw their demands being realized, and lapsed into silence.

Historically, mass demonstrations have worked best at shifting public opinion and pressuring the powers-that-be when organizers highlighted one concrete demand: 'Bring Our Boys Home from Vietnam'; 'End Segregation Now'; 'Support Women's Right to Choose.'

My dad was a civil rights lawyer, and he was actually defending conscientious objectors to the Vietnam War.

I was the guy who was constantly speaking out against the Vietnam War. I have no regrets about that.

When the women's liberation movement began, when people began protesting against the Vietnam War, civil rights movement, at the beginning of those movements, the majority of the country was not with them, did not believe in the basic principles of any of those philosophies.

My first professional acting job was in 'Hair' during the Vietnam War. So I think I've always been drawn to projects with a social conscience.

I took an interest in the Civil Rights Movement. I listened to Martin Luther King. The Vietnam War was raging. When I was 18, I was eligible for the draft, but when I went to be tested, I didn't qualify.

I got involved in the political arena in college, protesting the Vietnam War, and became friends with some of the activists at the University of Hawaii.

Whatever happens to us, however unjustified, will be slight compared to what has happened already to the Vietnamese people, to the Black people in this country, to the criminals with whom we are now spending our days in the Cook County jail.

I think the NAACP isn't recognized enough for all of the work it does, especially in the field of law. They may have faded from view over the last couple of decades, but they are fighting the good fight.

The systematic dismantling of reproductive rights, much like the takedown of collective bargaining, has been taking place in full view.

One thing that Chairman Mao did was to end the appalling foot binding of women. That alone justifies the Mao Tse-tung era.