Civil Rights Quotes

As long as hope remains and meaning is preserved, the possibility of overcoming oppression stays alive.

The civil rights movement in the United States was about the same thing, about equality of treatment for all sections of the people, and that is precisely what our movement was about

If Willie Nelson had been Rosa Parks, there never would have been a civil rights movement in this country, because he refuses to leave the back of the bus.

If Martin Luther King came back, he'd say we need another civil rights movement built on class not race.

The next step has to be the necessary step. It's always to put the immigrant community and the civil rights movement ahead of partisan politics.

The most ironic outcome of the black Civil Rights movement has been the creation of a new black middle class which is increasingly separate from the black underclass.

When I wrote the song, The Way It Is, I wanted to move people to take a stand on civil rights in this country.

I had advocated the establishment of a Negro industrial commission. I had gestured against the growth of monopoly power. I had introduced a few civil rights bills.

Planned Parenthood has been far more lethal to black lives than the KKK ever was. And the Democrat Party and the black civil rights allies are partners in this genocide.

There was no miracle that night.

Im a child of the Civil Rights Movement.

We've talked more about civil rights after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 than we talked about it before 1964.

I think that the thing that we learned back in the day of the Civil Rights Movement is that you do have to keep on keeping on.

My parents were very active in the Civil Rights Movement. My father was a Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) worker; my mother was a secretary with the Panthers.

I came out of the Civil Rights Movement, and I had a different kind of focus than most people who have just the academic background as their primary training experience

I would have voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Health care is not a privilege. It's a right. It's a right as fundamental as civil rights. It's a right as fundamental as giving every child a chance to get a public education.

What is needed in the world today is a Civil Rights Movement for the Soul, freeing humanity at last from the oppression of its belief in a violent, angry, and vindictive God.

The failures of the past must not be an excuse for the inaction of the present and the future.

I don't say that the supposed Civil Rights development is a myth, but it's a matter of dealing with reality. It's purely peripheral and, in many cases, it's just a facade.

Obviously, In The Heat Of The Night was a landmark movie because the timing was perfect. It was in the middle of the Civil Rights Movement.

It was civil disobedience that won them their civil rights.

In the years since his murder, we have transformed King into a kind of innocuous black Santa Claus.

What drew me to both study and activism was the formative experience of the civil rights movement.

Rosa Parks was a woman of strength, conviction, and morality. Her action on December 1, 1955, to defy the law made her a leading figure in our nation's civil rights history.

The civil rights movement wasn't easy for anybody.

When the civil rights battle was won, all the Jews and hippies and artists were middle class white people and all the blacks were still poor. Materially, not much changed.

Well, it's the last step of the Civil Rights Movement: you know, wrap your hands around some money.

I... [am] convinced [man] has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.

Mrs. Parks was a shy, soft spoken woman who was uncomfortable being revered as a symbol of the civil rights movement. She only hoped to inspire young people to achieve great things.

The civil rights movement would experience many important victories, but Rosa Parks will always be remembered as its catalyst.

I favor the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and it must be enforced at gunpoint if necessary.

We are fighting for the right to live as free humans in this society. In fact, we are actually fighting for rights that are even greater than civil rights and that is human rights.

I have very mixed feelings about Jesse Jackson. He's very good about labor, and human and civil rights issues, but not so good on cultural issues.

The human rights community has focused very narrowly on political and civil rights for many decades, and with reason, but now we have to ask how can we broaden the view.

Confirming John Roberts would endanger much of the progress made by the nation in civil rights over the past half century.

People are very comfortable when race relations get looked at retrospectively. Slavery, the civil rights movement, etc.

Never, never be afraid to do what's right.

If I were an Arab-American, I would insist on being profiled. This is not the time for civil rights. There are larger issues for Americans.

Had it not been for the ministry of my good friend Dr. Billy Graham, my work in the civil rights movement would not have been as successful as it has been.

It was to carry the American democratic journey beyond these failings that Black citizens and civil rights workers risked unemployment, violence and death.

Where I come from, if you see your family and friends' civil rights being taken away, you speak up and do everything you can to keep that from happening!

By 1962, King had become, by the media's reckoning, the new civil rights leader.

When I went to law school, nobody heard of civil rights.

I think that civil rights issues take a lot of time to develop.

At the same time all this was happening, there was a folk song revival movement goingon, so the commercial music industry was actually changed by the Civil Rights Movement.

Rarely in my 45 years as a civil rights lawyer have I been so angry about an injustice as I am about what happened to Billy Ray Johnson

Education is the civil rights issue of our generation.

I'm trying to be a singer, not a civil rights leader.

This thing called Patriot Act, through which we abdicated a lot of our civil rights to defend the country against terrorism, it's a four-year story.