225 Civil Rights Quotes for You to Enjoy

It was clear to me as a civil rights leader in the '60s that unless we put the social and economic underpinnings beneath the political and the civil rights, we wouldn't go anywhere. Marian Wright Edelman

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Abolition didn't just happen - people made it happen. Women's suffrage didn't just happen - people made it happen. Civil Rights legislation didn't just happen - people made it happen. And marriage equality didn't just happen, either - people made it happen. Marianne Williamson

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We need a modern people's lobby that empowers all of us to choose our leaders and set our agenda. Imagine voting for a president we're truly excited about. Imagine a government that promotes capitalism and civil rights. Mark Pincus

Black History Month could focus less on slavery and civil rights and more on the Harlem Renaissance and everything we have achieved. I want to know about the whole black experience. Marley Dias

When Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, declaring that all men were created equal, he owned slaves. Women couldn't vote. But, throughout history, our abolitionists, suffragettes, and civil rights leaders called on our nation, in reality, to live up to the nation's professed ideals in that Declaration. Marvin Ammori

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Civil Rights opened the windows. When you open the windows, it does not mean that everybody will get through. We must create our own opportunities. Mary Frances Berry

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When the women's liberation movement began, when people began protesting against the Vietnam War, civil rights movement, at the beginning of those movements, the majority of the country was not with them, did not believe in the basic principles of any of those philosophies. Michael Moore

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Maya Angelou, the famous African American poet, historian, and civil rights activist who is hailed be many as one of the great voices of contemporary literature, believes a struggle only makes a person stronger. Michael N. Castle

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After years as a civil rights lawyer, I rarely find myself speechless. Michelle Alexander

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The very rights that we supposedly won for African Americans in the civil rights movement no longer exist for those labeled felons. That's why I say we have not ended racial caste in America; we've merely redesigned it. Michelle Alexander

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Civil rights cases are hard to win. Mike Cernovich

Rights Win Civil Civil Rights Cases Hard

If a police officer is looking for a criminal, he or she might stop a number of people in that particular area and ask to see their driver's license. No one bellyaches about civil rights or privacy issues. We're just happy the cops are trying to find the bad guy. Mike Gallagher

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We've seen it again and again. From civil rights to women's rights to marriage rights, this country has reinvented itself in the quest to make real the transcendent values that Lincoln proclaimed in his historic address - that all men are created equal in a nation conceived in liberty. Mike Quigley

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On the court, Jason Collins is not a huge basketball star, but he has already claimed his place in civil rights history as the first openly gay athlete to play in one of the four major U.S. sports leagues. Nancy Gibbs

After the Civil War, when blacks fought along whites to secure freedom for all, southern states enacted Black Codes, laws that restricted the civil rights and liberties of blacks. Central to the enforcement of these laws were the stiff penalties for blacks possessing firearms. Niger Innis

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The fact that women are very young in obtaining their civil rights and African-Americans are young in obtaining their civil rights, I think it's about time that we extend that to all Americans, whether straight, gay, purple, green, black, brown. Octavia Spencer

Many thought that the abolition of slavery, the end of Jim Crow, and the legislative progress of the Civil Rights Era, among other watershed moments, would have fundamentally done away with the racist structures that have long oppressed black people. However, we know that has been far from the case. Opal Tometi

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Can anyone seriously contend that whether a 14-year-old boy, who thinks he is a girl, gets to use the girls' bathroom is a civil rights issue comparable to whether African-Americans get the right to vote? Pat Buchanan

I have a big passion about civil rights for everyone - whoever is being downtrodden at the moment, it doesn't matter: racial discrimination or sexual orientation or gender. Whatever it is, I'm there. I think I was a born civil rights activist. I can't stand the smashing of a community. It's not fair and it's not right. Pauley Perrette

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I believe that what is legislated bleeds down into everything. So if the legislation continues to uphold anything that doesn't support equal rights and civil rights, that bleeds down into Matthew Shepard being murdered. Pauley Perrette

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The first thing I said to myself on 9/11 was, 'There go our civil rights.' I found out by comparing notes later that George Carlin and I both said that at the exact same time. That's the first thing that popped into our head. Penn Jillette

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I think that some of the greatest muckrakers and some of the greatest investigative journalists of all time had strong feelings about civil rights. There is a role for the journalist-advocate. And as long as you play your cards on the table, I think that's a role that we should allow. Pete Earley

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There's a very big gulf between the black civil rights leadership in America and the black middle class in America. The black middle class are conservative. Many of those minorities can be persuaded to be members of the Republican Party. Pete du Pont

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In 1962, the smallest things were upsetting to authority. It wasn't the Civil Rights Movement. It wasn't the Anti-war Movement. It was something else, but it was a harbinger of what was to come. Peter Riegert

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