Kiersey Clemons Quotes

My activism always existed. My art gave me the platform to do something about the activism.

I consider myself an 'actorvist.' When I say that, what I mean is that I use my art to inform my activism and to be my activism sometimes, but I also use my activism in my art.

I see so many activists... who are artists because they feel that they have the power of communication.

People like Dick Gregory, Paul Robeson, Harry Belafonte and Nina Simone show me what the definition of an artist is - it isn't just to make art but to speak truth to what's happening, speak beauty into the world, speak love into the world and also... get involved.

Art is activism.

All good art should be political, I think, and inevitably it all becomes political really, in one way or another.

Each of us contributes our own piece to the whole, each in our own way, each in our own time with the gifts and talents that are ours. You ask about possible vehicles for change: question, stand, speak, act. Engage in unruly behavior. Disturb the status quo. Take direct action. Commit civil disobedience. Make art. Build community. Dance. Sing. Farm. Cook. Create something beautiful and then give it away. Find your own monkey wrench and use it with the force of love. Sharpen your pencil. Vote.

Jesus was a community organizer, Pontius Pilate was a governor. And perhaps they should understand the role of a community organizer is to help people in distress.

Artists have a responsibility to speak and to act when governments fail, and if we don't do that, we really deserve the world we get.

I hadn't planned on being an activist.

I am an activist. I have a really big pulpit with my fiction and I love knowing that I can make people think.

I'm not quite sure precisely when social and political activism became a visible brand of my DNA, but it seems to me that I was born into it. It is hard to be born into the experience in the world of poverty and not develop some instinct for survival and resistance to those things that oppress you.

If you have the opportunity for your art to meet activism, you shouldn't pass that up when it comes your way.

If my work is on the stage, you can be rested assured I'm going to make use of it as a platform for activism as much as possible.

If I wanted to change the world, the last thing I would do is write a play.

As an organizer, I start from where the world is, as it is, not as I would like it to be. That we accept the world as it is does not in any sense weaken our desire to change it into what we believe it should be - it is necessary to begin where the world is if we are going to change it to what we think it should be. That means working in the system.

No matter what political cause compels us, we should always feel as though it's being threatened. We should use these causes, whatever they are, to bring people together and get each other excited about our role, so we feel like we can't stop and won't stop.

Given this platform of being an Olympic athlete, I think it's really important that we stand up for what we believe in, and we speak out against things that we think are wrong and injust.

Though I do believe that when you live in political times it is inevitable that your art be political, I also think we need to start making activists celebrities rather than trying to make celebrities to be activists.

When I was 19 or 20, the way I was an activist was by regularly meeting with groups, going to protests, and being there on the ground.

My acting and activism go hand-in-hand, and they really support one another.

We're seeing young people find their own voices and find their activism.

I firstly don't think of myself as an activist, I never have. I always say that, I think this word "activist" is relatively recent one. I don't remember when people started being called that or what it means. It reduces both writers and activists, it makes it seem as though a writer's job is to just keep people entertained with best-selling books and the activist's job to keep on repeating the same thing without a great deal of subtlety and intelligence. I don't think either is the case.

Use your art to fight.

I have a great deal of hope. I think that change is here, it's happening. But I know that if we think it's just going to happen on its own, that's not the way it works. We need people to keep talking about women of color writing comics and living the charge. Not just talking but doing. Making art, putting it out there.