30 Civil Rights Quotes Fighting Against Inequality

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.
- Martin Luther King Jr.

The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them.
- Ida B. Wells

You can’t separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom.
- Malcolm X

You cannot kill the truth. You cannot kill justice. You cannot kill what we are fighting for.
- Jean Dominique

I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.
- Martin Luther King Jr.

We are way more powerful when we turn to each other and not on each other, when we celebrate our diversity, focus on our commonality, and together tear down the mighty walls of injustice.
- Cynthia McKinney

We shall overcome because the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.
- Martin Luther King Jr.

We must have courage—determination—to go on with the task of becoming free—not only for ourselves, but for the nation and the world—cooperate with each other. Have faith in God and ourselves.
- Rosa Parks

Where you see wrong or inequality or injustice, speak out, because this is your country. This is your democracy. Make it. Protect it. Pass it on.
- Thurgood Marshall

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
- Martin Luther King Jr.

Stand for something or you will fall for anything. Today's mighty oak is yesterday's nut that held its ground.
- Rosa Parks

If one really wishes to know how justice is administered in a country, one does not question the policemen, the lawyers, the judges, or the protected members of the middle class. One goes to the unprotected — those, precisely, who need the law’s protection most! — and listens to their testimony.
- James Baldwin

To deny people their human rights is to challenge their very humanity.
- Nelson Mandela

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.
- Martin Luther King Jr.

It means a great deal to those who are oppressed to know that they are not alone. Never let anyone tell you that what you are doing is insignificant.
- Desmond Tutu

The cost of liberty is less than the price of repression.
- W.E.B. Du Bois

Freedom is never granted; it is won. Justice is never given; it is exacted.
- A. Philip Randolph

A democracy cannot thrive where power remains unchecked and justice is reserved for a select few. Ignoring these cries and failing to respond to this movement is simply not an option — for peace cannot exist where justice is not served.
- John Lewis

Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The yearning for freedom eventually manifests itself.
- Martin Luther King Jr.

People always say that I didn't give up my seat because I was tired, but that isn't true. I was not tired physically, or no more tired than I usually was at the end of a working day. I was not old, although some people have an image of me as being old then. I was forty-two. No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.
- Rosa Parks

O, let America be America again – The land that never has been yet – And yet must be – the land where every man is free.
- Langston Hughes

Half a century ago, the amazing courage of Rosa Parks, the visionary leadership of Martin Luther King, and the inspirational actions of the civil rights movement led politicians to write equality into the law and make real the promise of America for all her citizens.
- David Cameron

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

Wherever there is a human being, I see God-given rights inherent in that being, whatever may be the sex or complexion.
- William Lloyd Garrison

When I liberate myself, I liberate others. If you don’t speak out ain’t nobody going to speak out for you.
- Fannie Lou Hamer

I looked at my hands to see if I was the same person now I was free. There was such glory over everything. The sun came up like gold through the trees and I felt like I was in heaven.
- Harriet Tubman

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

Although slavery may have been abolished, the crippling poison of racism still persists, and the struggle still continues.
- Harry Belafonte

I learned that racism, like most systems of oppression, isn’t about bad people doing terrible things to people who are different from them but instead is a way of maintaining power for certain groups at the expense of others.
- Alicia Garza

The very serious function of racism is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining, over and over again, your reason for being.
- Toni Morrison