Quotes about Civil rights

It will be one of the tragedies of Christian history if future historians record that at the height of the twentieth century the church was one of the greatest bulwarks of white supremacy.

Even if our motives are presently misunderstood. We will reach the goal of freedom in Birmingham and all over the nation, because the goal of America is freedom.

To accept injustice or segregation passively is to say to the oppressor that his actions are morally right.

We had no alternative except that of preparing for direct action, whereby we would present our very bodies as a means of laying our case before the conscience of the local and national community.

My friends, I must say to you that we have not made a single gain in civil rights without determined legal and nonviolent pressure.

Through nonviolent resistance the Negro will be able to rise to the noble height of opposing the unjust system while loving the perpetrators of the system.

Bias against the Negro is the worst disease from which the society of our nation suffers.

In many ways, history is marked as 'before' and 'after' Rosa Parks. She sat down in order that we all might stand up, and the walls of segregation came down.

When I marched with Martin Luther King in Selma, I felt my legs were praying.

Neither Pagan nor Mahamedan nor Jew ought to be excluded from the civil rights of the Commonwealth because of his religion. -quoting John Locke's argument.

The March on Washington was a defining moment in the history of this country and a great example of our nation truly living up to its creed.

I think many of the ideas that opened up in the '60s got implemented in the '70s and that certain minority voices that were not being heard in the '60s, like women and gay people, were being heard in the '70s. Black Civil Rights had also found its foothold, and those ideas were also very pertinent.