Jack Conroy Quotes

If Occupy Wall Street can see their way to more collaboration with the union movement, then there will be a great deal of political action possible.

Stand in back of me and we will make this town union free. You are either with me or against me.

The picket line is the best place to train organizers. One day on the picket line is where a man makes his commitment. The longer on the picket line, the stronger the commitment. A lot of workers think they make their commitment by walking off the job when nobody sees them. But you get a guy to walk off the field when his boss is watching and, in front of the other guys, throw down his tools and march right to the picket line, that is the guy who makes our strike. The picket line is a beautiful thing because it makes a man more human.

Solidarity was the movement that turned the direction of history, I think.

And the spirit of revolution will not die while the hearts of these workers continue to beat.

The walls, the bars, the guns and the guards can never encircle or hold down the idea of the people.

I can't talk fellowship to you who are gathered here. Too much blood has been spilled. I know from my experience it is up to the working people to save themselves. The only way they can save themselves is by a strong working-class movement.

I have known the fruits of strikes. The bitter and the sweet. Hunger and music.

You want to shut up every Negro who has the courage to stand up and fight for the rights of his people, for the rights of workers, and I have been on many a picket line for the steelworkers too.

Social paralysis is strong and stands firmly in the way of change on the ground level. As allies, we have to prepare ourselves to step into the fire when necessary, even - and especially - when said fire is merely a still-lit cigarette tossed carelessly onto the street.

Nothing counts but pressure, pressure, more pressure, and still more pressure through broad organized aggressive mass action.

The hospital strikers have demonstrated that you don't get a job done unless you show the Man you're not afraid...If you're not willing to pay that price, then you don't deserve the rewards or benefits that go along with it.

The strike is the weapon of the oppressed, of men capable of appreciating justice and having the courage to resist wrong and contend for principle. The nation had for its cornerstone a strike.

The toilers have awakened to the new found power of organized effort.

Heed this cry that comes from the hearts of men. Organize the Unorganized.

The formation of the smallest worker’s organization will for the history writers of the future be more important than the battle of Sadova

We are at the point where we can mobilize all of this righteous indignation into a powerful mass movement.

The consumer boycott is the only open door in the dark corridor of nothingness down which farm workers have had to walk for many years. It is a gate of hope through which they expect to find the sunlight of a better life for themselves and their families.

We will continue to organize. You have seen consistent organizing since the Women's March on Washington in every corner of this country.

The difference between a mob and a movement is follow-through.

Injustice has exhausted people but also pushed them to organize and fight back in very sophisticated ways.

If what you want is actual change, then what has to be built is a mass movement that is militant and can use direct action to slow or stop profit. A movement that can do that can demand whatever it wants.

Whether you want to do a letter-writing campaign or a march or start a social media hashtag - whatever it is - know that there are people out there that are thinking exactly like you're thinking and are also afraid to take that next and very important step.

Activism in the street is truth-telling, and organizing is talking to people for a specific goal.

When a man or woman, young, or old, takes a place on the picket line for even a day or two, he will never be the same again.