Best Civil Rights Quotes

"Not amazing, but seeing as how eager the Supreme Court is to repeal civil rights at the moment, it's an important legislative victory."

"We need a strengthened Voting Rights Act. We need the John Lewis Voting Rights Act."

"The biggest social movement since civil rights in this country says it all about the utter contempt that the political establishment has for social movements."

"The defining fact of the United States is freedom of speech."

"I'm protected by the First Amendment and I'm represented by the number one civil rights attorney in the country."

"He won a court ruling that makes it legal to stand outside a federal courthouse and inform potential jurors about their right not just to find someone innocent but to nullify the charges."

"Martin Luther King would roll over in his grave."

"This isn't protest for George Floyd; these protests are for civil rights and actual equality."

"Martin Luther King's argument was very clear that he had a dream that one day people will be judged by the content of their character, not by the color of their skin."

"We demand accountability. We, the People, demand accountability not only from the security guard but from law enforcement who arrived as well."

"Women have been the backbone of the whole Civil Rights Movement."

"Free speech is the main right that you have without it you have no others."

"Title IX was a landmark civil rights law. It helped create the incredible breadth of women's sports and girls' sports that we see across the country."

"Being opposed to marriage equality and equal civil rights for everyone, that's a fringe idea."

"Our next move is to take the entire civil rights struggle problem into the United Nations and let the world see that Uncle Sam is guilty of violating the human rights of 22 million Afro-Americans."

"It is our right to have a general strike. Nothing can take that away from us."

"Mississippi finally voted to ratify the 13th Amendment, abolishing slavery. It was a new world, but old patterns of inequity and bigotry remained."

"Populism can be applied very well. For example, pretty much every revolution and every civil rights movement has had a heavily populist element to it."

"Rustin... tells the story of Bayard Rustin, the adviser to Martin Luther King Jr., and his battles against homophobia."

"The Civil Rights Act of 1964 guaranteed equal access to public accommodations."

"The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee...was a group that helped register blacks to vote [in] Mississippi."

"The Great Society...[had] a huge focus on civil rights and the elimination of poverty."

"Why We Can't Wait is a book written by Martin Luther King detailing the struggle of black people for civil rights and how non-violent protests was the best way to achieve their goals."

"It's one thing to put restrictions on what people can say... but it's a completely different thing to require people to espouse a particular political stance."

"Dr. Martin Luther King said in the 1963 March on Washington, 'We have come to remind America of the fierce urgency of now.'"

"The most effective civil rights activists, leaders, and movements in American history have always endorsed an attitude of pluralism, of coalition building, of shared identity."

"We have to return to a day when we have literally equal protection of the laws for all people."

"Civil equality is the belief that all people should be fairly and equally represented under the law."

"Freedom of speech isn't freedom from consequences."

"We stand here on the shoulders of the martyrs, Schwerner, Cheney, and Goodman... Fannie Lou Hamer... John Lewis."

"The Civil Rights Movement was very critical of white liberals but would not have succeeded without some level of unity with white people."

"Unity was necessary to get the Civil Rights Movement passed."

"It was the church and whites and blacks working together that started the NAACP. It was the church that led through in the civil rights movement."

"The life of every African-American is important, and there is no place for racism in this country."

"Health care is on the ballot, workers are on the ballot, voting rights are on the ballot, criminal justice reform is on the ballot."

"Martin Luther King Jr. was a world leader, not just a civil rights leader, who helped change the direction of civilization through non-violent measures."

"Let us not forget that in 1954, Betty White's show was canceled shortly after receiving backlash for her refusal to cancel Black tap dancer Arthur Duncan. She extended his airtime instead and responded to racists with 'I'm sorry, live with it.'"

"The majority cannot revoke the rights of the minority, or they weren't rights at all."

"The stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizens' Counselor or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to order than to justice."

"Comcast has made this about much more than Byron Allen, and now the civil rights of my children and my community are at stake."

"End slavery, end Jim Crow... achieve civil rights and... economic inclusion."

"I have been to the mountain top. I have seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But we as a people will get to the Promised Land."

"Free at last. Free at last. Thank God Almighty, I'm free at last."

"The government actually exists because that's what ensures the rights of people."

"They were fighting for us to have the right to our opinion, not the right to vote for whoever the white liberal said Black people are supposed to vote for."

"The 27th time I have been arrested, and I ain't going to jail no more. The only way we're going to stop them white men from whooping us is to take over. What we got to start saying now is Black Power."

"The philosophy was that we must go all out to use legal and nonviolent methods to gain full citizenship rights for the Negro people of our country."

"Non-violent protests for civil rights would ultimately be more effective than violence in arousing solidarity."

"Listen to Dr. Martin Luther King; give him what he's asking for and give it to him fast before some other factions come along and try to do it another way."

"If the non-violent efforts don't get support, then millions of black people will, out of frustration and despair, seek solace and security in black nationalist ideologies."

"It's a very special case because it's the original Civil Rights Act in America."

"Protect your civil rights, that's what I want us to do."

"The benefits of same-sex marriage had already been granted to same-sex couples under the law nearly everywhere across the country with things like civil unions."

"This case, which is already being taught in some law schools, is as relevant as Brown vs. Board of Education or Plessy vs. Ferguson because it goes right to the heart of our constitutional protections."

"It took somebody like Martin Luther King and people that were part of the civil rights movement to peacefully resist what was going on and then it caused the government to change because the people run the government, the government doesn't run the people."

"We're going to do everything in our power to stop this bill. There will be court challenges, and ultimately, like bills across the country, it will get defeated in these courts. We know that these bills are as unconstitutional as they are cruel."

"Those were Christian men dying, knowing that they were dying on behalf of people that didn't look like them so that they could have freedom."

"Do you want to be on the side of Dr. King or George Wallace? Do you want to be on the side of John Lewis or Bull Connor?"

"This time capsule contains the belongings of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., including his Bible, a robe he wore to preach in, and most importantly, the audio recordings of a number of his speeches."

"We as a nation have taken a wrong turn in our stride toward freedom. We've betrayed Dr. King's dream."

"Meaningful equality cannot be achieved through civil rights alone. Without basic human rights, civil rights are an empty promise."

"The errors committed by the FBI and abuse of authority should alarm every American."

"Iowa was one of the first states in the country to make gay marriage legal."

"It took the United States nearly a hundred and seventy years from the time that the Constitution was written for there to be equal rights."

"The creed 'We Shall Overcome' is a long-time mainstay of the civil rights movement."

"He believes voting rights is a fundamental right, it will be a fight of his presidency."

"Human Rights represents the right to be a human being. Whenever you are respected and recognized as a human being, your civil rights are automatic."

"Freedom to live without fear, to jog where we please, to wear a hoodie. The freedom to breathe."

"The freedom to live without fear, to jog where we please, to wear a hoodie. The freedom to breathe."

"Speak up, speak out, get in the way, get in good trouble, necessary trouble, and help redeem the soul of America." - John Lewis

"Americans tend to think that civil rights are paramount."

"Equal opportunity or equal rights for minorities is not the norm; it is unusual, and the United States even having something like the 14th Amendment makes it unique among nations in the history of the world."

"Like conservatives will do this, like it's so easy to get an ID. It doesn't matter how easy it is if there's no reason to have a voter ID law, which there isn't, then the effects of a voter ID law would be plainly discriminatory."

"It was a show that was steeped in civil rights that really helped make those issues salient for millions of kids across the world."

"If you want to know where you would have stood during the civil rights movement, don't ask yourself where you stand on slavery today, ask yourself where you stand on the animal rights movement."

"Ladies and gentlemen, Martin Luther King was shot and was killed tonight in Memphis."

"Over time, even the King family would begin to doubt Ray's guilt."

"European citizens have the right to receive and impart information without interference by public authorities."

"The ongoing shift towards authoritarianism is evident in actions like firing democratically elected officials and eroding rights, signifying a move towards autocracy."

"In 1965, a brave and dedicated group of people were a part of one of the greatest non-violent Civil Rights demonstrations in U.S. history."

"The march’s organizers endured insults, threats, physical violence, self-doubt, internal division, and even death in the struggle to guarantee access to the ballot box."

"We want Federal legislation granting negroes the right to vote unencumbered."

"In Detroit, blacks who had been denied the vote in 1850 were voting in the 1880s, and in the eighteen nineties, blacks were being elected to public office by a predominantly white electorate."

"Between 1956 and 1971, the FBI ran a counterintelligence program named COINTELPRO that was initiated by J. Edgar Hoover. COINTELPRO mainly targeted civil rights leaders such as Martin Luther King, and it's commonly understood that this was an abuse of its surveillance power in a manner to suppress a peaceful movement."

"Martin Luther King's message was we all have to come around universal human rights that apply to black people as well as white people."

"50 years ago Dr. King was cruelly taken from this world by an assassin's bullet but the promise he fought for could never be taken away."

"Martin Luther King understood that he was standing with America's legacy not against America's legacy."

"The First Amendment doesn't exist to protect popular speech; it exists to protect unpopular speech."

"The right to vote is sacred to me; my father was arrested at the age of 14 helping to get black people registered to vote."

"Our democracy has become so fragile, the loss of one of the last guardians of common sense and decency in government less than two months before a pivotal election, has put our civil and reproductive rights in danger like never before."

"This is not just an abortion issue... The downstream, this is gay marriage, this is interracial marriage."

"People should be allowed to live their lives the way they want to, and they should certainly be free of harassment until their decisions and their choices start to actually infringe upon other people's right to be left alone."

"Reverend Billy Graham's fierce hatred of segregation meant churches had to integrate for his revivals as far back as 1953."

"America is one of the most progressive countries in the history of the planet, that has enacted more civil rights law to protect marginalized groups than any other country in the world."

"The great civil rights leaders recognized that the promises of the Declaration of Independence were universal."

"In 1968, Dr. King told advocates that the time had come to shift from a civil rights movement to a human rights movement."

"It doesn't matter what your politics are or who you voted for, everybody should have the right to express themselves freely."

"There are more African American adults under correctional control in prison or jail, on probation or parole, than were enslaved in 1850, a decade before the Civil War began."

"You have the right to be treated with equality, regardless of the color of your skin."

"In the 1960s, my grandfather was a student activist and civil rights leader. I feel that it is my generation's responsibility to continue his legacy."

"If you're going to give anybody anything, and not give it to black folks, you're violating the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendment and the civil rights laws. And that is unconstitutional."

"Under our constitution, the freedom to marry or not marry a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the state."

"We believe in a constitution that puts some issues off limits to majority rule."

"If Martin Luther King Jr. was around today, he would be despised by the Republicans. He did not stop with saying that the Civil Rights Act should be passed. He believed in reparations; he believed that whites needed to better educate themselves on racial issues."

"The Voting Rights Act of 1965 gave not just Black Americans but all non-white English-speaking U.S citizens the right to vote."

"Make the right to vote and the right to equal protection real for African Americans."

"Nope, you can't have a curfew. The night belongs to the rioters, to the people burning courthouses, not the people who'd like to be safe in their own homes."

"Event comics can sometimes be political, such as the massively popular Civil War, which had Iron Man and Captain America fighting over civil rights."

"You must understand that with this nomination, equal justice under law is at stake. Our voting rights are at stake. Workers' rights are at stake. Consumer rights are at stake. The right to a safe and legal abortion is at stake."

"When you stand up for your rights, you are simultaneously standing up for the rights of all living beings because you're saying all are equal; my rights are everyone's rights."

"Every person with a uterus seeing the Supreme Court deleting their bodily autonomy, every trans kid being kicked off their sports team or out of the bathroom, every gay kid being outed by homophobic teachers, and queer kids in general watching as their states again and again take away their rights, they know the battle is happening."

"It is good to have freedom of religion, it is good to have a free press, it is good to have the presumption of innocence."

"The Emancipation Proclamation was issued: In January, all slaves held in the Confederate States would be, as far as the US government was concerned, officially free."

"I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its Creed: we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."

"The civil rights movement was a grand and glorious movement... it presented itself and was understood by the American people as consistent with the principles of the founding."

"Ordinary everyday people learning their rights, asserting their rights, defending their rights not only helps them but also helps others by establishing worthy precedence."

"Citizens have the First Amendment right to openly record the police."

"Freedom of speech is the principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal action."

"A country where free speech is restricted more than a lot of totalitarian governments would be a terrible thing."

"The Honorable Elijah Muhammad wants freedom, justice, and equality for every one of the 20 million so-called Negroes."

"To Roddenberry, television was more than just a way to tell stories. He could comment on the civil rights movement, sometimes indirectly by showing an integrated crew working together with few, if any, references to any tension among them."

"Black Lives Matter. I spent 50 years of my life fighting for civil rights and dignity."

"Instead of being repressed, the right of people to assemble together must now be fully respected."

"When the police protect the rights of the people, this country functions properly."

"Civil rights is about sacrifice. People who have privilege have to sacrifice some of what they have for other people to come up."

"It's not a privilege that I don't get killed by the cops. That's the bare minimum."

"Firearms are really, really important. It's one of the things, in my opinion, that distinguishes subjects from citizens."

"Martin Luther King died for this, so I think that we really, really have to understand it's not about guns, it's about one slip of paper and one hour out of your life per year."

"The political engagement of so many people around civil rights and civil liberties today is deeply hopeful."

"Martin Luther King Jr. was killed tonight in Memphis, Tennessee, shot in the face as he stood alone on the balcony of his hotel room."

"If you're in favor of freedom of speech, that means you're in favor of freedom of speech precisely for views you despise."

"The president put an end to the Muslim ban, a policy rooted in religious animus and xenophobia."

"The president views this issue broadly as one where we need to continue to use every lever at our disposal, whether that is actions taken by the Department of Justice that the Attorney General has already announced...or it is efforts that we have underway led by our Vice President to engage with civil rights groups, state legislators, and the American people to push back on anti-voter laws at the state level."

"Property ownership rights are one of the most important rights that we have in this country."

"Protecting free speech is vital, even if you don't agree with what some people say."

"When you immediately respond with riot gear and the show of force, you immediately say to these people, this is not about you expressing your rights, this is about us telling you where your place is."

"Peaceful protest in New York City will be honored by the NYPD."

"The notion of freedom of speech is not so trivial."

"Progress that was made through struggle... was the only way we could do that was through protest and through civil rights moves that were made."

"The Civil Rights Movement had its great moments, in the sense of the Voting Rights Act, the Civil Rights Act. It was great."

"When we say that yes, a statute may have not been violated... but when you look at the totality of circumstance, it is very clear that several different amendments of the Constitution... have been violated on a massive and unprecedented scale."

"The key is freedom: freedom of thought, freedom of information, freedom of communication."

"The burden is on them. Denial of First Amendment freedoms, even for minimal periods of time, is black letter irreparable injury."

"We must refuse to live in a country where black families going to the store or black students going to school have to fear being gunned down because of the color of their skin."

"It should be a right for every American in a country as wealthy as ours."

"You can't just praise Martin Luther King on Martin Luther King Day, you have to live the values that Martin Luther King fought for." —Ari Berman

"Strom Thurman voted to extend the voting rights act... The man who led the longest filibusters in history against the voting rights act... Even Strom Thurmond came to support voting rights, but Republicans today can't, it won't." —President Biden

"Americans should not kneel. I don't respect a man who kneels to men literally or figuratively."

"We have to do something called civil disobedience."

"I think there are a number of things we can do to protect voting rights."

"We all came out of civil rights movement where then you see loud black and I'm proud."

"If you answered no to any of those then you must acknowledge that the threat to free expression is real."

"One's right to speak or to be must never be based on skin color."

"In the earliest centuries, there was a lot of diversity within early Christianity."

"Our right to protest and assemble is a human right."

"Your rights aren't given to you by government, they're given to you by God."

"The argument for same-sex marriage... is about two people of the same sex who love each other and want to live in a monogamous relationship."

"We're rolling back civil rights as we speak across the country."

"This is a car built for people who know what they're doing behind the wheel on track. It seems like that's been baked into the chassis."

"if it wasn't a racist country then the biden administration wouldn't be opening these pattern and practice investigation civil rights investigations."

"Where's the room for dissent? Because if you don't have dissent, you don't have free speech."

"Nobody should be prejudiced because of the color of their skin."

"We have the responsibility to stand up for people's individual rights and individual freedom."

"These officers need remedial civil rights training, and yet they still have a job."

"Did you see the way that they freaked out in there? Did you see the way that I was unlawfully trespassed from city hall?"

"I'll defend Colin Kaepernick's right to say whatever the hell he wants in any public area."

"THE STORY OF HELEN KELLER HAS OFTEN FOCUSED MORE ON HER DISABILITIES RATHER THAN HER FIGHT FOR DISABILITY RIGHTS AND RACIAL JUSTICE."

"Freedom of assembly and speech - the basis of democracy."

"Civil rights violations are not just crimes, they're breaches of trust – and we're here to make it right."

"The big threats, the revocation of our democracy, the tyranny, the massive attack on trans rights."

"If the police continue to pick on and beat up innocent citizens that are peacefully voicing their objections it must be met with equal force."

"I want them to shape history just as Rosa Parks did, Ida B. Wells did in 1883."

"I think India should legalize civil unions for LGB as for the T group I hope we never get that stuff here in India too crazy."

"Why should I have to live in a white supremacist system? If you have no rights that I'm bound to respect, why do I even have to lie?"

"It needs to end now, not just for the protection of Donald Trump but for the protection of every American."

"Kim Davis has absolutely no interest in equality, these people don't want equality."

"I don't know why anything about gay rights would be on a ballot because they already have them."

"There's no reason why I would ever vote to restrict actual constitutional rights from gay people, that's silly."

"All the constitutional violations going on here, this is crazy."

"The implications of the conclusions of the study were so astounding that the decision was made that they could not release this information because it would be terror disruptive to the populations of Europe in the United States."

"Julian Assange was the canary in the coal mine; we need to protest these infringements on rights early."

"If you really want voter ID then just send everybody an ID."

"The ongoing struggle for African-American rights and representation in America is a complex and multi-faceted issue that has been ongoing since the earliest days of the nation's history."

"Despite facing significant challenges and obstacles, African Americans have continued to fight for their rights and for justice both for themselves and for future generations."

"By recognizing the complexity and intersectionality of the struggle for African-American rights and representation, we can better understand the challenges facing this community and work to address them more effectively."

"Show me where it says that protests are supposed to be polite and peaceful."

"This cause isn't even about that. This cause is just giving black people the right to live."

"Gay people across America just got a huge win."

"These are American rights that we cherish. Yeah, I mean, this is about rights."

"The government has an obligation to prioritize the Civil Right over that person's religious conviction."

"Believing in free speech means you believe in the free speech of people that disagree with you."

"It's just great to have those principles that we grew up understanding were a fundamental right of ours as American citizens as humans and then protected by our government would be there for us."

"He told us I think I might have integrated my people into a burning house."

"Safeguarding freedom of speech is critical right now."

"Just throwing cash even mlk he's wrongly pinned as the guy who wanted ubi martin luther king jr wanted a federal job guarantee and he wanted a guaranteed minimum income for people that could not work for whatever reason could not work."

"Martin Luther King said he wanted his kids to grow up in a world where they are judged by the contents of their character, not their skin."

"Just to give you one illustrative example, Edward Snowden... on Joe Rogan's YouTube program and already within five days more than five million people have watched that program."

"If you like freedom then at a certain point we should probably stand up for it."

"We have to stop this insanity and protect these sacred freedoms."

"You're the modern day Martin Luther King. You're just about there."