Quotes about Activism

And when Mother Teresa was asked why she didn't participate in anti-war demonstrations, she said, "I will never do that, but as soon as you have a pro-peace rally, I'll be there." These great leaders knew that to be against something—to focus on your opposition to it—just creates more of it.

What the champions of suffrage understood was that the vote is not just a symbol of our equality, but that it can be, if used, a guarantee of results.

I wouldn't be surprised if in our lifetime dogs and firehoses are released or opened on us. I wouldn't be surprised if a few of us get a billy club to the head. I wouldn't be surprised if, you know, some of us go to jail just like Martin Luther King did on trumped up charges. Tough times are coming.

My civil rights will not be trampled, and I say this not for me but for my children, and all those who yearn to breathe free. Those who make your Apple products at Foxxcon, those who languish in prisons in Cuba, North Korea and Venezuela. Those homosexuals who are stoned to death in the streets of Egypt or Iran, while our so-called civil rights leaders hold coffee klatches with third graders in the White House.

No one ever got radicalized by being grateful.

The personal is political.

As King ended his speech, I heard Mahalia Jackson call out, "Tell them about the dream, Martin!" And he did begin the "I have a dream" litany from memory, with the crowd calling out to him after each image—Tell it! What would be most remembered had been least planned. I hoped Mrs. Greene heard a woman speak up—and make all the difference.

As women, we must stand up for ourselves. We must stand up for each other. We must stand up for justice for all.

Activism is something that no one can fake. You get angry. You cry. But you never throw in your towel, because that anger is what is propelling you to further action.

The story of women's struggle for equality belongs to no single feminist nor to any one organization but to the collective efforts of all who care about human rights.

It is by standing up for the rights of girls and women that we truly measure up as men.

Get up. Stand up. Speak up. Do something.