Saul Alinsky Quotes

No politician can sit on a hot issue if you make it hot enough.

You can't do progressive government from the inside. You have to rally those outsiders and make them a force.

I have always believed that on important issues, the leaders must lead. Where the leaders fail to lead, and people are really concerned about it, the people will take the lead and make the leaders follow.

I think voting is the lowest form of political action that you can do. A lot of times, it keeps people from doing stronger things.

People are not going to change because an activist goes around shouting.

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

I was always a politician from the day the civil rights people chose me as their protest singer.

By themselves, they are not enough; we also need to engage in political action.

A grievance is a political action. It's not just African-Americans.

Any protester knows that the only way activism works is to get the people on your side.

Ours is a country where anything can be accomplished if enough people get angry... because, in America, we act on our collective anger.

I've never been involved in any kind of political movement.

I was a sports fan, but I also went to peace marches.

The electronic media introduced this idea to the larger audience very, very quickly. We spent years and years and years meeting with activists all over Europe to lay the groundwork for a political response, as we did here.

Don't count on Congress. Laws come into being because people on the ground demand it.

Activists are generally doers - rather than watching television and thinking about the world they will put there energies into doing something 'active' to change the (political) situation.

I learned more complex ways to manipulate the manipulators, to bring attention to issues about which I felt passionate.

Wake up America.

View talk radio not as entertainment but as a tool for organizing and action.

Change never comes from the White House. It comes from your house and my house.

People don't stay mobilized.

Silence never won rights. They are not handed down from above; they are forced from pressures from below.

Social change comes not only from the courtroom, but from talking to the media.

Being part of social movements like Black Lives Matter or organizations like NAACP, or any group representing a cause, gives you more resources, knowledge, and power. They can help you use your voice.

The organizer dedicated to changing the life of a particular community must first rub raw the resentments of the people of the community.