Top 100 Quotes About Civil Rights
#1. 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.
Joan Halifax
#2. You could not be in the civil rights movement without having an appreciation for everybody's rights. That these rights are not divisible - not something men have and women don't and so on.
Julian Bond
#4. 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.
Frank Lautenberg
#5. Michael Jackson is an accidental civil rights leader - an accidental pioneer. He broke ground and barriers in so many different realms in artistry, in pictures, in movies, in music, you name it.
Don Lemon
#6. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 laid the foundation for the Voting Rights Act of 1965, but it also addressed nearly every other aspect of daily life in a would-be free democratic society.
Aberjhani
#7. The tragedy of the civil rights movement is that just as it achieved the beginning of the end of racial segregation, white educated elites became swept up in the glamour of the sexual revolution.
Maggie Gallagher
#8. 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.
Neale Donald Walsch
#9. The Civil Rights Movement also reaffirmed me as a singer. It taught me that singing was not entertainment, it was something else.
Bernice Johnson Reagon
#10. Any new legal measures, or cooperative arrangements between government and companies meant to keep people from organizing violence or criminal actions, must not be carried out in ways that erode due process, rule of law and the protection of innocent citizens' political and civil rights.
Rebecca MacKinnon
#11. Rejecting the fundamental provision of the Civil Rights Act is a rejection of the foundational promise of America that all men and women should be treated equally, a promise for which many Americans have lost their lives.
John Yarmuth
#12. Filibuster has long tradition, but used to harm civil rights.
Barack Obama
#13. When people are breaking the law, they don't get an invitation to the White House. They ought to be getting an invitation to the big house ... This is just an anathema to everything that the civil rights movement was truly all about and what it accomplished.
Mike Huckabee
#14. Civil rights was not an impossible dream. Thousands of brave African Americans stepped forward to make it happen.
Martin O'Malley
#15. In my lifetime, we have lost a President, a Civil Rights leader and a Presidential candidate - all to gun violence.
Marianne Williamson
#16. I'm often accused of hiring people with civil rights experience, and I do plead guilty to that.
Thomas Perez
#17. Race to race, the Republicans are putting up candidates that are quite far out of the mainstream in terms of should we have passed the Civil Rights Act or does Social Security need to exist.
Tim Kaine
#18. This is Not Another Revolution. This is a Civil Rights Movement
Hamid Dabashi
#19. The civil rights movement was based on faith. Many of us who were participants in this movement saw our involvement as an extension of our faith. We saw ourselves doing the work of the Almighty. Segregation and racial discrimination were not in keeping with our faith, so we had to do something.
John Lewis
#20. For the gay establishment, the death of right and wrong began when gaining civil rights ceased to be enough.
Tammy Bruce
#21. I took an interest in the Civil Rights Movement. I listened to Martin Luther King. The Vietnam War was raging. When I was 18, I was eligible for the draft, but when I went to be tested, I didn't qualify.
Radhanath Swami
#22. I was proud to march beside some of the most notable Civil Rights activists, such as the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Rev. Jesse Jackson, and Joseph L. Rauh, Jr., from Selma to Montgomery.
Charles B. Rangel
#23. The issue of civil rights was too much for the establishment to handle. One of the chapters of history that's least studied by historians is the 300 to 500 riots in the U.S. between 1965 and 1970.
Tom Hayden
#24. 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.
Terence McKenna
#25. We all have a stake - equally. Because if we do not save the environment and save the Earth, then whatever we do in civil rights or in a war against poverty will be of no meaning, because then we will have the equality of extinction and the brotherhood of the grave.
James Farmer
#27. I had very little exposure to business growing up. I also was very focused on the Civil Rights Movement. And I saw law as a vehicle to really bring about substantial change.
Kenneth Chenault
#28. In the time when my mother began standing up against prejudice and racism, the vast majority of white Americans rarely thought about civil rights.
Ezekiel Emanuel
#29. Our government just won't enforce civil rights laws. The laws will be ignored.
Major Owens
#30. Like civil-rights protesters who sang rousing hymns as they were carried off to jail, Twitterers are bearing witness to what's happening around them, and calling out into the darkness of cyberspace for confirmation. I'm here. You're here, too. We are present.
Douglas Rushkoff
#31. 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.
Martin Luther King Jr.
#32. You grow up with a heightened sense of the Civil Rights Movement, but I think it wasn't until I became of age that I really had a great appreciation for the struggle that took place.
Terri Sewell
#33. When Maricopa County Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio cracked down on illegal immigration without getting permission from Obama, they threatened to revoke his 287(g) status. When Sheriff Joe refused to balk, they filed suit against him with a frivolous civil rights claim.
Russell Pearce
#34. Justice is indivisible. You can't decide who gets civil rights and who doesn't.
Angela Davis
#35. I'm more than willing to go to places and talk to people who believe that I am an illegal alien who deserves to be jailed. I want to look them in the eye and say, 'What makes you think I'm any different from you?' I think for our generation, immigration rights is a civil rights issue.
Jose Antonio Vargas
#36. The evolution of national unity and equal rights is all about what America represents as a nation today: a manifestation of the historical episodes of Jefferson and Henry as well as the Civil War, the Women's Suffrage movement, and the Civil Rights struggles.
Patrick Mendis
#37. We've talked more about civil rights after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 than we talked about it before 1964.
Clarence Thomas
#38. It was a common tactic used by Southern politicians during civil rights protests: Sue national media outlets for defamation if they provide sympathetic coverage of activists or if they characterize Southern politicians and law enforcement officers unfavorably.
Bryan Stevenson
#39. In the '60s, when I was growing up, one of the great elements of American culture was the protest song. There were songs about the civil rights movement, the women's rights movement, the antiwar movement. It wasn't just Bob Dylan, it was everybody at the time.
George Clooney
#40. Yet civil rights issues are very much on the front burner in South Carolina between the Black Lives Matter movement and police shootings.
Ari Shapiro
#41. 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.
Yaya DaCosta
#42. A lot of people criticized me for speaking out, not long ago, about gay marriage. I could not remain silent any longer. It's the civil rights of our day. It's the issue of our day.
Joe Biden
#43. The Court today completes the process of converting Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 from a guarantee that race or sex will not be the basis for often will.
Antonin Scalia
#44. Judge Samuel Alito was born and raised in the great state of New Jersey. Our state has a legacy of producing outstanding jurists, most notably the late William J. Brennan, who ushered in our nation's recommitment to civil rights in the latter half of the 20th century.
Frank Lautenberg
#45. 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.
Bernice Johnson Reagon
#46. 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.
Luis Gutierrez
#47. 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.
Walter E. Williams
#48. 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.
Jim Costa
#49. It is impossible to struggle for civil rights, equal rights for blacks, without including whites. Because equal rights, fair play, justice, are all like the air: we all have it, or none of us has it. That is the truth of it.
Maya Angelou
#50. 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.
Aberjhani
#51. Historians and scholars have access to every issue of every newspaper and journal written during the civil rights struggle of the 1960s but can access only a comparative handful of papers covering the election of Barack Obama.
Jeffrey Zeldman
#52. I feel very strongly that the Democratic Party has, in the past, been the party of the future. I think when you look at Social Security and Medicare, when you look at the civil rights movement, the women's movement, I think the Democratic Party has always been in the forefront of change.
Richard Lamm
#53. The wearying battles of the civil rights movement have not cured everything.
Jon M. Dennis
#54. It was civil disobedience that won them their civil rights.
Tariq Ali
#55. Our involvement in the civil rights movement is what sent us into our involvement against apartheid.
Mary Jane Patterson
#56. During the 60's, I was, in fact, very concerned about the civil rights movement.
Joe Biden
#57. When I wrote 'The Secret Life of Bees,' I was writing about civil rights.
Sue Monk Kidd
#58. I maintain that every civil rights bill in this country was passed for white people, not for black people.
Stokely Carmichael
#59. For those who have envisioned the State of Israel to be a democracy, which although primarily a Jewish polity for Jews is one in which non-Jews can become citizens and enjoy equal civil rights with the Jewish majority, the question of natural law is the question of human rights.
David Novak
#60. She was a civil rights advocate. He was a feminist.
Gloria Steinem
#61. I see education in the U.K. as a civil rights struggle.
Michael Gove
#62. When I hear someone's in the civil rights business, I oil up my AR-25.
Michael Savage
#63. 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.
Norman Jewison
#64. If those civil rights groups are going into those orphanages and offering to look after those children, then they have every right to make a stink about it. But they're not. They're not offering a solution.
Madonna Ciccone
#65. 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
#66. German Emancipation Edict of 1822 guaranteed Jews in Germany all civil rights enjoyed by Germans.
Anonymous
#67. 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.
Ralph Nader
#68. Now liberals compare their every riot, every traffic blockage, every Starbucks-window-smashing street protest to the civil rights movement
which was only necessary because of them.
Ann Coulter
#69. The Republican Party supported the Equal Rights Amendment before the Democratic Party did. But what happened was that a lot of very right-wing Democrats, after the civil rights bill of 1964, left the Democratic Party and gradually have taken over the Republican Party.
Gloria Steinem
#70. Anyone who said he wasn't afraid during the civil rights movement was either a liar or without imagination. I was scared all the time. My hands didn't shake but inside I was shaking.
James L. Farmer Jr.
#71. We grew up as kids watching those movies and we were exposed to themes of civil rights, unfairness, bigotry and fathers struggling against the kind of mob of the town, so you remember how you felt as a kid being taken seriously, that you are part of the human drama.
Rachel Griffiths
#72. The sad and tragic fact is that the civil rights movement, despite its honorable and courageous past, has over the years degenerated into a demagogic hustle, promoting the mindless racism they once fought against.
Thomas Sowell
#73. Well, I was always a bit of a political junkie. Even as a kid I would read biographies of presidents and of civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King and Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington.
John Legend
#74. Nay, if we may openly speak the truth, and as becomes one man to another, neither Pagan nor Mahometan, nor Jew, ought to be excluded from the civil rights of the commonwealth because of his religion.
John Locke
#75. I was always a politician from the day the civil rights people chose me as their protest singer.
Nina Simone
#76. At the same time the folk boom was happening, the civil rights movement was happening, the anti-war movement was happening, the ban the bomb movement was happening, the environmental movement was happening. There was suddenly a generation ready to change the course of history.
Arlo Guthrie
#77. Some folks in the office said I should explain in my complaint that I was a civil rights attorney working on police misconduct cases. It seemed to me that no one should need those kinds of credentials to complain about misconduct by police officers.
Bryan Stevenson
#78. 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.
Rod Blagojevich
#79. On July 2, 1964, President Johnson signed into law the Civil Rights Act. Its enactment, following the longest continuous debate in the history of the U.S. Senate, enshrined into law the basic principle upon which our country was founded - that all people are created equal.
Thomas Perez
#80. There's a great book about John Kennedy and his relationship to civil rights called 'The Bystander.' The title alone suggests that he did as little as possible, any minimal critical effort, to really facilitate civil rights in the White House.
Michael Eric Dyson
#81. I had thought about becoming a civil rights lawyer, but I gave it up.
Kate Thompson
#82. It was the Democrats who were against civil rights legislation
Allen West
#83. You go through the Civil Rights struggle, everybody knew the songs - 'We shall overcome.' Everybody would sing it. Music helped us. James Brown, 'Say It Loud - I'm Black and I'm Proud.' They helped black people figure out how to navigate what was a very treacherous place in America for them.
Geoffrey Canada
#84. 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
#85. I am very proud of the fact that I led the arts contingent on the civil rights march in the summer of '63. In many ways, I think it was the high-water mark of the civil rights movement.
Charlton Heston
#86. National security trumps a lot. It can trampke civil rights. It can denude personal liberties. But it cannot and never will triumph over political gamesmanship. - Kelly Paul
David Baldacci
#87. You reached your level, you don't want any more. We asked ten years ago, we were askin' with the Panthers, we were askin' in the Civil Rights Movement. Now those who were askin' are all dead or in jail, wo what are we gonna do? And we shouldn't be angry!?
Tupac Shakur
#88. Are you kidding me? It's insane that civil rights are being denied people in this day and age. It's embarrassing, and it's heartbreaking. It goes without saying that I'm completely in support of gay marriage. In 10 years we'll be ashamed that this was an issue.
Chris Evans
#89. 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
#90. The Civil Rights movement should thank God for Bull Connor. He's helped it as much as Abraham Lincoln.
John F. Kennedy
#91. The rise of the antiwar and civil rights movements, along with the emergence of radical groups such as the Black Panthers, the Black Liberation Army, the Puerto Rican independence movement, and the American Indian movement, saw a return to systematized abuse within the prison system.
Chris Hedges
#92. 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.
Bruce Springsteen
#93. In the summer of 1966, I went to Mississippi to be in the heart of the civil-rights movement, helping people who had been thrown off the farms or taken off the welfare roles for registering to vote. While working there, I met the civil-rights lawyer I later married - we became an interracial couple.
Alice Walker
#94. 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.
Bernice Johnson Reagon
#95. Today's secular libertarians, who want to remove biblical religion from public life, have trouble making sense of the civil rights movement because it was so clearly a religiously inspired movement that entered the public arena and made a major difference in American life.
Bruce L. Shelley
#96. There has been only a civil rights movement, whose tone of voice was adapted to an audience of liberal whites.
Stokely Carmichael
#97. When I started graduate school I was interested in the culture of the Civil Rights Movement.
Bernice Johnson Reagon
#98. 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.
Emanuel Celler
#99. If only women are talking about women's rights, then the issue has failed from the start. If you think about the Holocaust, that wasn't just a Jewish issue. Civil rights weren't just a black issue.
Nicholas D. Kristof
#100. In a typical history book, black Americans are mentioned in the context of slavery or civil rights. There's so much more to the story.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
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