Quotes about Civil rights

In the Catholic view of things, abortion is a justice issue, not an issue of sexual morality... it is a civil rights issue, arguably the greatest civil rights issue of our time.

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit together at the table of brotherhood.

We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths — that all of us are created equal — is the star that guides us still; just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall.

There were those who argued that government should not interject itself into civil society, that no law could force white people to associate with blacks. Upon hearing these arguments, Dr. King replied, "It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me but it can keep him from lynching me and I think that is pretty important, also.

We have some of the finest civil rights laws in the world, but they have not solved our racial problems. Why? Because we need a change of heart and attitude, Jesus said, "You must be born again" [John 3:7].

I think there are a whole host of things that are civil rights, and then there are other things - such as traditional marriage - that, I think, express a community's concern and regard for a particular institution.

There is a more excellent way, of love and nonviolent protest.

In all the relations of life and death, we are met by the color line.

We Negroes love our country. We fought for it. We ask only that we be treated as well as those who fought against it.

Unjust laws exist: shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once?

In the fifty years since the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, we have made tremendous strides in the fight for equality. We must continue to move forward, not backward.

Everybody has asked the question, and they learned to ask it early of the abolitionists, 'What shall we do with the Negro?' I have had but one answer from the beginning. Do nothing with us! Your doing with us has already played the mischief with us.