Quotes About Civil rights

Non-violent protests are signs of a healthy democracy, not an ailing one.

As Paretsky detailed in her short memoir Writing in an Age of Silence (2007), early optimism buoyed by the civil rights movement of the 1960s and early 1970s has, in her view, all but crumbled in the face of a bombardment of sadism and misogyny, the withholding of civil liberties, and the nation's move from proud speech into near-deafening silence.

The contributions of influential African Americans have frequently been ignored, underrepresented, and even silenced.

He didn't even have the satisfaction of being killed for civil rights. it had to be some silly little Communist.

I was lucky, as many of my generation was, in having a man like Dr. King in our lives. He came at a time that we needed to take a long look at each other and see how similar we were.

I knew that I could vote and that that wasn't a privilege; it was my right. Every time I tried I was shot, killed or jailed, beaten or economically deprived.

Barry Goldwater's opposition to the Civil Rights Act, which made Jim Crow voter-suppression laws illegal, was the defining moment for the modern Republican Party.

The modern Democratic Party has fought for civil rights and believes government has a moral role in helping to create racial equality in America. The modern Republican Party has fought civil rights and is very hesitant to assert government has a role in equality of any sort, including racial.

So what's the difference between Clinton's making a racial appeal in 1992 and Bush's doing the same in 1988 with the Willie Horton attack? The answer is simple and one African American voters seem to understand with great clarity: The modern Democratic Party has fought for civil rights and believes government has a moral role in helping to create

It has come as a great revelation to me that abolitionist is different from the desire for racial equality. Color prejudice is at the bottom of everything. If it's not fixed, the plight of the Negro will continue long after abolition.

If indeed there were a God, civil rights was surely his work.

Now. 1973. Exactly. He tipped back in his chair, his arms folded across his chest. So much changed in the sixties, the war, the rights of women, civil rights, the vote, protest against the war. On and on. I was getting my Ph.D. in Chicago and you were in college but that time was upheaval with a purpose. Now we've drawn back into our shells, wondering what we have done and what do we believe.? And is there any purpose to our lives?

In principle, it was easy to support the civil rights movement in Mississippi or Washington or on the streets of Detroit. Of course, it was right. But feeling- now, there's a war zone full of land mines which could blow to smithereens any right-thinking individual. And that of course is the territory of race.

They just started throwing these canisters. One of them hit me so I lobbed it back." "Nothing at all would have hit you if you'd been minding your business." "And nothing will change if nobody takes action against injustice. Remember when you and Mama took me to hear Dr. King speak? Remember what he said? 'We die when we refuse to stand up for justice.

We came up in a different time than you. Some nights these southern trees around here bore some strange fruit. You understand me? Now, I don't talk about that mess. Not with pretty little white girls whose foot never touched the earth until years after Dr. King got buried in it.

We charge the American Government with genocide. In clear, unequivocal terms, we charge the American government with genocide against the captive Black people in America who are perpetually under siege.

It does away with a lot of complaints that 'We Were Also Done Wrong,' from the Irish or other minorities, precisely because it recognizes the fundamental difference. African Americans were kept down by the force of law, not custom, and then every effort to lift the burden of the law was met with denial of due process.

Hooray," Cosby said, spitting it out bitterly. "Anybody see any sense in this? Systemic racism, they [black leaders] call it." Then Cosby pointed out the obvious issue—but one that the black civil rights leadership somehow missed or for some reason underplayed. Black leaders, he declared, should tell poor black people to stop smoking crack.

the strong focus on self-determination has faded, at the moment when its impact could have been the most powerful. In its place is a tired rant by civil rights leaders about the power of white people—what white people have done wrong, what white people didn't do, and what white people should do. This rant puts black people in the role of hapless victims waiting for only one thing—white guilt to bail them out.

Not one civil rights group took up Cosby's call for marches and protests against drug dealers, pregnant teens, deadbeat dads, and hate-filled rap music that celebrates violence.

No man's life, liberty or property are safe while the Legislature is in session.

You can't segregate and humiliate people decade after decade without creating long-lasting injuries.

Is America truly a democracy? Has America ever been a democracy with the institution of slavery?

Obviously a president can't rule as a king and ban all guns. But I think we need a president who is going to make sure that there is gun control and that people still feel like their freedoms are intact.