Civil Rights Quotes

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

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

The civil rights movement wasn't easy for anybody.

Racism has always been able to come up with a scientific veneer.

Racial prejudices are indication of a disturbed and potentially unstable society.

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

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

Three hundred years of humiliation, abuse and deprivation cannot be expected to find voice in a whisper.

You cannot understand the politics of today without understanding the Civil Rights Movement and the role it played in our society.

You know, civil rights is great and everything, but a lot of people don't realize that plumbers in the South make less money than when they used to install separate drinking fountains.

Martin Luther King (Jr.) during the civil rights movement used to exclaim that he looked forward to heaven where he would be "Free at last." That is the inscription on his tomb in Atlanta.

Our mandate is to be a nation of laws. And the Supreme Court is the place where we look to safeguard our civil rights and our individual liberties.

I don't think the riots derailed the civil rights movement.

My parents both were doing the Civil Rights Movement, were very involved with the civil rights to Congress. And my friends' parents were as well.

I've supported civil rights activity in my state. I have done my job with integrity, equality and fairness for all.

My work has been in the field of engaged Buddhism. That is my own practice, which began in 1965 that formed the base for the work I was doing in the civil rights and anti-war movement.

Senator John Stennis: The civil rights movement did more to free the white man that the black man. ... It freed my soul.

My friends in the Congress, I have known Coretta King since I went south during the civil rights movement as a lawyer. She was a vibrant, consistent, totally dedicated partner with her husband.

Even as we continue to carry the banner of civil rights and environmental justice, we've also got to focus on many, many people - for them, life starts with a good job.

We cannot sit around and talk about the beloved community.

Psychologically, I'm a Roman Baptist.

Justice needs money; it always has . . . whether for abolition of slavery and early women's rights movements or the civil rights and environmental drives of our generation.

The passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 represented precisely such a hope - that America had learned from its past and acted to secure a better tomorrow.

It was the Democrats who were against civil rights legislation

The marriage-equality issue should be recognized for what it truly is - a civil rights issue that must be approved to assure that every citizen is treated equally under the law.

The black power movement was not a separation from the civil rights movement, but a continuation of this whole process of democratization.

The leadership for civil rights has to take place in the White House or it is going to take place in the streets.

As a civil rights activist of the past 40 years, I cannot support a show that disrespects those beliefs and practices.

Selfish men were...trying to make capital for themselves out of the sacred cause of civil rights

We know of no more crucial civil rights issue facing Congress today than the need to increase the federal minimum wage and extend its coverage.

Liberalism isn't quite as liberal as it pretends to be. And it goes through my adventures with the FBI during the anti-war period and the civil rights period.

Ever since the civil rights movement, the black church has always encouraged people to utilize their voting right, which is a right that was fought for.

What gets lost is that the Republican Party has always been the party of civil rights and voting rights.

Yes. My mother was and still is a Folk Singer. She was very involved in the political movements for Unions and Civil rights. She sang with Pete Seeger among others. My father was an Actor.

The black revolt is as palpable in letters as it is in the streets.

Funny, for all surveillance, Osama bin Laden is still free—and we're not. Guess who's winning the "war on terror?

Before God and high heaven, is there a law for one man which is not a law for every other man?

The freedom to swing your fist ends at my nose.

Jealousy clings to love's underside like bats to a bridge.

The first duty of government is to protect the citizen from assault. Unless it does this, all the civil rights and civil liberties in the world aren't worth a dime.

The psychedelic issue is a civil rights and civil liberties issue. It is an issue concerned with the most basic of human freedoms: religious practice and the privacy of the individual mind.

In the women's movement, women needed men to stand up and say, 'This isn't right.' In the civil rights of the '60s, it took people of all color to demand equal rights.

If we buy into the notion that somehow property rights are less important, or are in conflict with, human or civil rights, we give the socialists a freer hand to attack our property.

Rosa Parks was primed, she had the Civil Rights Movement behind her, she didn't just decide to sit on the bus, it was strategic.

I got interested in politics during the civil rights movement and then Vietnam.

The civil rights movement was very important in my house, and then Vietnam was very important 'cause there were two boys, so I came of age during a very heated political climate.

I became a part of the Civil Rights movement early on and that has really shaped a great deal of my thinking.

Missing from the national conversation are voices of pro-immigration reformers and civil rights leaders, who can speak on behalf of those who have no voice.

The unsung heroes of the civil rights movement were always the wives and the mothers.

Yet civil rights issues are very much on the front burner in South Carolina between the Black Lives Matter movement and police shootings.