49 Inspiring Civil Rights Quotes

The struggle for civil rights has been a poignant and pivotal journey marked by perseverance, courage, and unwavering hope. Throughout history, countless voices have risen to champion equality, justice, and freedom, leaving behind a legacy of inspiration that continues to resonate today. In this blog post, we celebrate the power of words to inspire change by exploring a curated collection of 49 thought-provoking civil rights quotes. These timeless words of wisdom serve as a reminder of the relentless quest for justice and the enduring spirit of those who have fought tirelessly to pave the way for a more equitable world. Join us on this reflective journey through the powerful echoes of the past, as we honor the enduring impact of those who have dedicated their lives to the cause of civil rights.

1. “To cheapen the lives of any group of men, cheapens the lives of all men, even our own. This is a law of human psychology, or human nature. And it will not be repealed by our wishes, nor will it be merciful to our blindness.” - William Pickens

2. “The amount of money and of legal energy being given to prosecute hundreds of thousands of Americans who are caught with a few ounces of marijuana in their jeans simply makes no sense - the kindest way to put it. A sterner way to put it is that it is an outrage, an imposition on basic civil liberties and on the reasonable expenditure of social energy.” - William F. Buckley

3. “If the events of September 11, 2001, have proven anything, it's that the terrorists can attack us, but they can't take away what makes us American -- our freedom, our liberty, our civil rights. No, only Attorney General John Ashcroft can do that.” - Jon Stewart

4. “If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door.” - Harvey Milk

5. “Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding."[Olmstead v. U.S., 277 U.S. 438 (1928) (dissenting)]” - Louis D. Brandeis

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

7. “We've got to face the fact that some people say you fight fire best with fire, but we say you put fire out best with water. We say you don't fight racism with racism. We're gonna fight racism with solidarity.” - Fred Hampton

8. “Being an American is about having the right to be who you are. Sometimes that doesn't happen.” - Herb Ritts

9. “In the years since his murder, we have transformed King into a kind of innocuous black Santa Claus.” - Timothy B. Tyson

10. “President Eisenhower was a fine general and a good, decent man, but if he had fought World War II the way he fought for civil rights, we would all be speaking German now.” - Roy Wilkins

11. “I, too, sing America.I am the darker brother.They send me to eat in the kitchenWhen company comes,But I laugh,And eat well,And grow strong.Tomorrow,I'll be at the tableWhen company comes.Nobody'll dareSay to me,"Eat in the kitchen,"Then.Besides,They'll see how beautiful I amAnd be ashamed--I, too, am America.” - Langston Hughes

12. “...legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between Church & State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.” - Thomas Jefferson

13. “We have no right to prejudice another in his civil enjoyments because he is of another church.” - Thomas Jefferson

14. “The freedom to swing your fist ends at my nose.” - Mercedes Lackey

15. “The only real prison is fear, and the only real freedom is freedom from fear” - Aung San Suu Kyi

16. “I didn`t change. The Democratic Party slid to the Left from right under me.” - Charlton Heston

17. “The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was the most sweeping civil rights legislation of its day, and included women's rights as part of its reforms. Ironically, the section on women's rights was added by a senator from Virginia who opposed the whole thing and was said to be sure that if he stuck something about womens' rights into it, it would never pass. The bill passed anyway, though, much to the chagrin of a certain wiener from Virginia.” - Adam Selzer

18. “It is easy to be disgruntled if you are denied rights and freedoms to which you feel entitled. But if you are not coherent, if you cannot put into words what it is that displeases you and why it is unfair and should change, then you are dismissed as an unreasonable whiner. You may be lectured about perseverance and patience, life as a test, the need to accept the higher wisdom of others.” - Ayaan Hirsi Ali

19. “It was civil disobedience that won them their civil rights.” - Tariq Ali

20. “If not us, then who?If not now, then when?” - John Lewis

21. “For the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us to temporarily beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change. Racism and homophobia are real conditions of all our lives in this place and time. I urge each one of us here to reach down into that deep place of knowledge inside herself and touch that terror and loathing of any difference that lives here. See whose face it wears. Then the personal as the political can begin to illuminate all our choices.” - Audre Lorde

22. “I knew that, in a large degree, we were trying an experiment--that of testing whether or not it was possible for Negroes to build up and control the affairs of a large education institution. I knew that if we failed it wold injure the whole race.” - Booker T. Washington

23. “Slavery is a memory of something we cannot remember, and yet we cannot forget.” - Bill T. Jones

24. “You have to remember, rights don't come in groups we shouldn't have 'gay rights'; rights come as individuals, and we wouldn't have this major debate going on. It would be behavior that would count, not what person belongs to what group.” - Ron Paul

25. “Before God and high heaven, is there a law for one man which is not a law for every other man?” - Howard Zinn

26. “Jealousy clings to love's underside like bats to a bridge.” - Amy Waldman

27. “I was in the kitchen drinking coffee when I heard Coretta cry, "Martin, Martin, come quickly!" I put down my cup and ran toward the living room. As I approached the front window Coretta pointed joyfully to a slowly moving bus: "Darling, it's empty!” - Martin Luther King Jr.

28. “Even with a Democratic president behind the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a far larger percentage of Republicans than Democrats voted for it. Eminent Democratic luminaries voted against it, including Senators Ernest Hollings, Richard Russell, Sam Ervin, Albert Gore Sr., J. William Fulbright (Bill Clinton’s mentor) and of course, Robert Byrd. Overall, 82 percent of Senate Republicans supported the Civil Rights Act of 1964, compared to only 66 percent of Democrats. In the House, 80 percent of Republicans voted for it, while only 63 percent of Democrats did.Crediting Democrats for finally coming on board with Republicans civil rights policies by supporting the 1964 act would be nearly as absurd as giving the Democrats all the glory for Regan’s 1981 tax cuts - which passed with the support of 99 percent of Republicans but only 29 percent of Democrats.” - Ann Coulter

29. “In the end we will remember not the words of our enemies...but the silence of our friends.- Martin Luther King, Jr.” - Mark Long

30. “In our glorious fight for civil rights, we must guard against being fooled by false slogans, such as 'right-to-work.' It provides no 'rights' and no 'works.' Its purpose is to destroy labor unions and the freedom of collective bargaining…. We demand this fraud be stopped.” - Martin Luther King Jr.

31. “Initially, the purveyors of racism need no more than the silent acquiescence of the public ... [I]t is never too soon to confront bigotry and racism whenever, wherever, and in whatever form it raises its ugly head. It is incumbent upon all people to confront even the slightest hint of racist thought or action with zero tolerance.” - Hans J. Massaquoi

32. “Wir sind das Volk!"Dieser Satz hat uns gelehrt, dass wir, wenn wir unserer Sehnsucht glauben und ihr vertrauen, die Angst verlieren können. Eine Angst, die willfährige Dienerin jeder Art von nicht legitimierter Herrschaft ist, die uns ohnmächtig macht, die uns bindet. In dem Augenblick aber, in dem wir unsere Angst als Angst benennen und Anpassung und Angst als Geschwisterkinder erkennen, sind wir möglicherweise bereit zu erproben: Können wir auch ohne sie leben? In genau diesem Augenblick wachsen uns jene Kräfte zu, die eine ganze Gesellschaft verändern können.” - Joachim Gauck

33. “Between George W. Bush and Barack Obama, the US Constitution is no longer worth the paper it's written on.” - Michel Templet

34. “Your right to swing your arm leaves off where my right not to have my nose struck begins.” - John B. Finch

35. “...the majority in a democracy has no more right to tyrannize over a minority than, under a different system, the latter would to oppress the former.” - Theodore Roosevelt

36. “If there is no final place for civil disobedience, then the government has been made autonomous, and as such, it has been put in the place of the living God.” - Francis A. Schaeffer

37. “Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon. It is a weapon unique in history, which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it. It is a sword that heals.” - Martin Luther King Jr.

38. “the underlying struggle - between worlds of plenty and worlds of want; between the modern and the ancient; between those who embrace our teeming, colliding, irksome diversity, while still insisting on a set of values that binds us together, and those who would seek, under whatever flag or slogan or sacred text, a certainty and simplification that justifies cruelty toward those not like us...” - Barack Obama

39. “However much history may be invoked in support of these policies (affirmative action), no policy can apply to history but can only apply to the present or the future. The past may be many things, but it is clearly irrevocable. Its sins can no more be purged than its achievements can be expunged. Those who suffered in centuries past are as much beyond our help as those who sinned are beyond our retribution.” - Thomas Sowell

40. “When asked what gave her the strength and commitment to refuse segregation, (Rosa) Parks credited her mother and grandfather "for giving me the spirit of freedom... that I should not feel because of my race or color, inferior to any person. That I should do my very best to be a respectable person, to respect myself, to expect respect from others.” - Jeanne Theoharis

41. “Although the principle of equality has always been self-evident, it has never been self-executing.” - Barack Obama

42. “It must be remembered that in those great days I was considered to be an "integrationist" - this was never, quite, my own idea of myself - and Malcolm was considered to be a "racist in reverse." This formulation, in terms of power - and power is the arena in which racism is acted out - means absolutely nothing: it may even be described as a cowardly formulation. The powerless, by definition, can never be "racists," for they can never make the world pay for what they feel or fear except by the suicidal endeavor which makes them fanatics or revolutionaries, or both.” - James Baldwin

43. “Last time I was down South I walked into this restaurant, and this white waitress came up to me and said: 'We don't serve colored people here.' "I said: 'that's all right, I don't eat colored people. Bring me a whole fried chicken.” - Dick Gregory

44. “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

45. “Before, the woods had always done so much for me. Once I could actually go out into the woods and communicate with God, or Nature or something. Now that something didn’t come through. It was just not there anymore. More than ever I began to wonder whether God actually existed. Maybe God changed as the individual changed, or perhaps grew as one grew.” - Anne Moody

46. “You cannot stand for civil rights + not support gay marriage. You cannot stand for human rights + not support gay marriage. It's that simple.Everywhere, the voice of the oppressed must echo + ring out or else it will be crushed by the tyranny of wickedness.” - Bernard Schaffer

47. “Justice is what love sounds like when it speaks in public.” - Michael Eric Dyson

48. “The revolution had come too late for him. He was in his midforties when the Civil Rights Act was signed and close to fifty when its effects were truly felt.He did not begrudge the younger generation their opportunities. He only wished that more of them, his own children, in particular, recognized their good fortune, the price that had been paid for it, and made the most of it. He was proud to have lived to see the change take place.He wasn't judging anyone and accepted the fact that history had come too late for him to make much use of all the things that were now opening up. But he couldn't understand why some of the young people couldn't see it. Maybe you had to live through the worst of times to recognize the best of times when they came to you. Maybe that was just the way it was with people.” - Isabel Wilkerson

49. “[Martin Luther King] said that little black boys and little black girls would be able to join hands with little white boys and little white girls as sisters and brothers. Then he reminded both those spectators before him and all Americans that this hope of his, this faith, was rooted in the promise of America.” - Keith Ellison