Quotes About Civil rights

Mrs. Parks' act of brave defiance rocked the foundation of American society and inspired generations of civil rights leaders and created a sense of hope for every American facing legal discrimination in this country.

The other was that all the major civil rights organizations, new as well as old, were committed to the philosophy of non-violence, the doctrine preached by the most conspicuous leader in the Negro movement, Martin Luther King. 'We will soon wear you down by our capacity to suffer,' he told the whites, 'and in winning our freedom we will so appeal to your heart and conscience that we will win you in the process.

Despite its professed radicalism, the Republican party had obviously become the conservative party, spokesman of vested interests and big business, defender of an elaborate system of tariffs, subsidies, currency laws, privileged banks, railroads, and corporations, a system entrenched in the law by Republicans while the voters were diverted by oratory about Reconstruction, civil rights, and Southern atrocities.

Eight days later he sent to Congress the most sweeping bill for civil rights up to that time, and urged it 'not merely for reasons of economic efficiency, world diplomacy and domestic tranquility—but above all because it is right.

In the early sixties, the notion that racism was not acceptable even in certain regions or certain clubs or certain circumstances—the notion that it could not be treated with moderation—was a notion largely confined to black people.

autograph for a fan, he mused, "You know, I was reading the Gettysburg Address the other day, and that guy was really onto something.

were suddenly up for discussion. In all sorts of ways, the American society of the 1950s was in a state of fermentation: black citizens wanted equal rights; students and artists were experimenting in a bid to find alternatives to the consumer society; conservatives were carrying out experiments of their own in an attempt to hold on to their religion and traditions; and women had begun to realise they were suffocating in the pretty-pretty life of the suburbs.

At some point in our lifetime, gay marriage won't be an issue, and everyone who stood against this civil right will look as outdated as George Wallace standing on the school steps keeping James Hood from entering the University of Alabama because he was black.

What's at the root of this explosive mixture of desire for and hatred of women? Why are aggression and harassment not civil rights or human rights concerns? Why are women silenced? Why isn't there a declared war against such violence, like the war against drugs, terrorism, or crime? The answer is obvious: Violence and fear are instruments of control.

He proposed a socialist system that respected civil rights, an experiment that no one had attempted before.

The days of the heavyweight champion as civil rights leader are long gone. You think you'd see Ali rolling around on the floor of an ESPN Zone? I don't think so.

All of them turned their backs on me at that time because they thought I was a troublemaker.

The successes of the LGBT civil rights movement and the more prominent role openly gay people are playing in the public eye has actually turned up the temperature in middle schools and high schools for queer kids.

I believe this system of mass incarceration would have Dr. King turning in his grave. There's no doubt in my mind that Dr. King would be doing everything in his power to build a movement to end mass incarceration in the United States; a movement for education, not incarceration.

There are severe limitations on civil rights. In the international arena, Iran is turning into an isolated country, and the international community is becoming more hostile toward it.

Selma was the turning point.

The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line: the relation of the darker to the lighter races of men in Asia and Africa, in America and the islands of the sea.

The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line.

Should a community... be free to enact legislation to say they don't want blacks? Now that's illegal. Fifty years ago it was legal. Is that progress or is that regress?

There are more African Americans under correctional control, in prison or jail, on probation or parole, than were enslaved in 1850 a decade before the civil war began.

I went to jail for 11 days for disturbing the peace; I was trying to disturb the war.

Its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery . . . is his natural and normal condition.

You dislike the emancipation proclamation; and, perhaps, would have it retracted. You say it is unconstitutional - I think differently.

John Brown first swam into my vision in the 1960s when I was a political activist in the civil rights movement and the anti-war movement at Chapel Hill, where I went to university.