Quotes about Activism

We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people. We must come to see that human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability. It comes through the tireless efforts and persistent work of men willing to be coworkers with God, and without this hard work time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation.

Freedom is not won by a passive acceptance of suffering. Freedom is won by a struggle against suffering.

Nonviolence, the answer to the Negroes' need, may become the answer to the most desperate need of all humanity.

Their objectives included the elimination of Birmingham's rigid segregation. They wanted the right to vote. They wanted jobs and the ability to try on clothes in all the places where they shopped. They wanted public schools opened to all children without regard to the color of their skin.

That's Black Power in a real sense. We have achieved some very significant gains and victories as a result of this program, because the black man collectively now has enough buying power to make the difference between profit and loss in any major industry or concern of our country. Withdrawing economic support from those who will not be just and fair in their dealings is a very potent weapon.

I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action.

He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it. When oppressed people willingly accept their oppression they only serve to give the oppressor a convenient justification for his acts.

In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society.

Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon. It is a weapon unique in history, which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it

I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own. And I am not free as long as one person of Color remains chained.

As Kalamu ya Salaam, a Black male writer points out, "As long as male domination exists, rape will exist. Only women revolting and men made conscious of their responsibility to fight sexism can collectively stop rape.

The subject of revolution is ourselves, is our lives.