Wishy-washy equivocations – and not just on abortion, but on immigration, on civil rights, on income inequality – weaken all of us.
Some of the most moving experiences I’ve had are just in black churches in the South, during the Civil Rights Movement, where people were getting beaten, killed, really struggling for the most elementary rights.
When poor people get involved in a long conflict, such as a strike or a civil rights drive, and the pressure increases each day, there is a deep need for spiritual advice. Without it, we see families crumble, leadership weaken, and hard workers grow tired.
Like most Americans of my age, I was very impressed by the dynamic capacities of the law, demonstrated by the Civil Rights Movement and then Watergate, animated by Sam Ervin’s mantra that no person is above the law.
Since the ousting and capture of Saddam Hussein by U.S. forces, civil rights and personal freedoms have been restored in Iraq, as well as equal rights to all, not just to Saddam’s entourage of terrorists.
I’ve fixed hard problems of all kinds, civil rights and business problems. It’s the stuff I like to do, and I’m good at it, as a matter of fact… and I never left my conscience at the door.
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.
That’s what he was saying, the civil rights movement – judge me for my character, not how black my skin is, not how yellow my skin is, how short I am, how tall or fat or thin; It’s by my character.
Gay marriage will be universally accepted in time. But if I may be so bold as to say to gays and lesbians, don’t wait for that time to arrive. Just as my father and his generation did not ‘wait’ for their civil rights, nor should you. The toothpaste ain’t going back in the tube. The tide has turned.
In fifth grade, we did 10 minutes on slavery and 40 minutes on Abraham Lincoln, and in 10th grade you might do 10 minutes on the civil rights era and 40 minutes on Martin Luther King, and that’s it.
You can’t put civil rights on the ballot.
I’ve done a lot of research about the Civil Rights movement, and I’m fascinated with how difficult it would have been for a black man to show feelings toward a white woman in that time period.
Without prayer, without faith in the Almighty, the civil rights movement would have been like a bird without wings.
In a lot of ways, civil rights division is the conscience of the Justice Department. You can almost measure what kind of Justice Department you have by what kind of civil rights division that you have.
In the 1950s, the black men and women and their white allies who fought for civil rights and basic human dignity could look to the federal government. If the racist sheriff and his troops beat them with batons or sprayed them and their children with water cannons, the attorney general would act.
My father told me about American democracy. And he said you have to be actively engaged in the political process to make our democracy work. So I’ve been doing that my entire life. Civil rights movement. The peace movement during the Vietnam conflict. The movement to get an apology and redress for Japanese-Americans.
Home to some of our nation’s civil rights leaders, Harvard Law is not a bigoted hub of racism but a place where men and women of all races peacefully co-exist in pursuit of higher education.
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.
The rise of African nations concurrent with the spread of the Nation of Islam and the civil rights movement gave black America a burst of pride over and above anything they had had since the decline of the movement of Marcus Garvey.
Throughout my years championing for civil rights, analyzing politics and advocating on behalf of the voiceless, I am disturbed the most when harmless children suffer because of politics or detrimental policies.
At my direction, the Department’s Office for Civil Rights remains committed to investigating all claims of discrimination, bullying, and harassment against those who are most vulnerable in our schools.
The notion of women being written out of history is as old as the Bible, but it always seems more galling when it is the history of progressive movements – such as the abolitionist campaign in Britain or the fight for African-American civil rights – in which the role of women has been diminished.
Nothing could be more insulting to me than the concept of civil rights. It means perpetual second-class citizenship for me and my kind.
I’m a child of the Civil Rights Movement.
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.
Alabama’s Black Belt region played a central role in both the history of our great state and our country. We cannot lose sight of the Black Belt’s significant impact in the civil rights movement and the fact that this area is home to some of our state’s most celebrated cultural figures.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was vigorously and vociferously opposed by the Southern states. President Lyndon B. Johnson signed it into law nonetheless.
Let me go over this again on the reclaiming the civil rights movement. People of faith that believe that you have an equal right to justice – that is the essence. And if it’s not the essence, then we’ve been sold a pack of lies. The essence is everyone deserves a shot – the content of character, not the color of skin.
I was lucky I had a mom who had seen it all. From seeing my grandfather march in the Civil Rights era, she understood the depth, character, and stability you need to go through racism. She taught me not to accept it to but deal with it and be better than it.
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.
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.
Civil rights leaders are involved in helping poor people. That’s what I’ve been doing all my life.
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.
My father’s approach to the most brutal and unambiguous social injustices during the civil rights struggle was rooted in nonviolence as a morally and tactically correct response.
I grew up in Illinois in an environment where my parents were very politically active in the civil rights movement.
For the gay establishment, the death of right and wrong began when gaining civil rights ceased to be enough.
There is no contradiction between effective law enforcement and respect for civil and human rights. Dr. King did not stir us to move for our civil rights to have them taken away in these kinds of fashions.
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.
There’s a long bipartisan tradition of civil rights enforcement.
What gets lost is that the Republican Party has always been the party of civil rights and voting rights.
I remember as a boy when the conversation on civil rights was won in the South. I remember a time when one of my friends made a racist joke and another said, ‘Hey man, we don’t go for that anymore.’
Martin Luther King Jr. is remembered as our prince of peace, of civil rights. We owe him something major that will keep his memory alive.
If I’m president, there are going to be government vans that drive around and pick up people who shouldn’t be wearing certain clothing. Talk about lack of civil rights – I’m sorry, I’m pulling you right off the street, and we’re giving you clothes that you’re going to be O.K. in.
I’m trying to be a singer, not a civil rights leader.
I was born in a ghetto on the North Side of Pittsburgh. I was born as Emmett Till was dying and the civil rights era was being born.
By the early 1960s, there was a moral consensus on what needed to be done on civil rights.
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.
Stop and frisk – whether done while walking down the street or while driving a car – is a civil rights violation.
Age discrimination is illegal. But when compared with discrimination against racial minorities and women, it is a second-class civil rights issue.
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.
