Ward Churchill Quotes

'Unlikely Brothers' talks about the importance of citizen action and shows why and how we can make a difference.

The power to shape Oregon's future remains where it has always been - in our collective hands.

People say that the government should be doing this Yeah, but the government is not doing this. So we do.

The center of gravity has shifted from the courts to community action.

The way to change the world is through individual responsibility and taking local action in your own community.

You keep plugging away--that's the way social change takes place. That's the way every social change in history has taken place: by a lot of people, who nobody ever heard of, doing work.

I hope people become inspired to become active in their community. That's the important thing.

The little grassroots people can change this world.

It's a good time for black people to be alive.

There is nothing beyond the reach of ordinary citizens doing the daily work of democracy, and no problem too great to tackle with the power of active citizenship.

I hope what we can talk about is something that happened, you know, within the last 25 years, the things that are relevant to our country right here, right now, including all people, fighting for the rights of working people, fighting for the rights of people struggling for dignity and respect in our society.

Politics didn't lead me to working people. Working people led me into politics.

In the U.S., African- Americans, no matter what we do - when we sit in, when we freedom ride, when we kneel in, whatever it is, the initial response from the public tends to be overwhelmingly negative, because basically we're kind of raining on folks' parades. As time goes on, the Muhammad Ali's and all the people that raised those issues, they then become heroes later when people reflect on the courage they showed and the issues that they raised. And Donald Trump is in danger of being a more and more reviled figure as the years go on.

You see Martin Luther King is dead and Huey Newton is not. And Malcolm X is dead and Bobby Seale is not. And Vernon Jordan was shot. The thing that revolutionaries, or even people who want to claim they're revolutionaries, often forget is that it doesn't make no difference what kind of wardrobe you wear, and if you speak up about Black people doing better you just risked your life.

To change history is very slow. The first two times I came to the States - black people didn't have the right to vote.

I try to tell each group that it is not alone, and that the very people who are disheartened by the absence of a national movement are themselves proof of the potential for such a movement.

If we can create a climate among people that says that any serious candidate for president, Senate, governor, [the] House is going to have to talk about income inequality, raising wages in America, trade policy - that's a huge success. It's not putting pressure on a candidate. It's mobilizing people.

I admire young people who are concerned with the affairs of their community and nation perhaps because I also became involved in struggle whist I was still at school.

We are the people and America is really nothing without the people. We have to take control and we have realize as young people that this is our future. We have to live here and this where we'll one day raise our own children.

For business to survive over a long period, it needs to be contributing to society and people's well-being. Otherwise, who's going to want it? Otherwise you end up like Enron or some of these other companies.

The mountain of history books under which we all stand leans so heavily in the other direction-so tremblingly respectful of states and statesmen and so disrespectful, by inattention, to people's movements-that we need some counterforce to avoid being crushed into submission.

You'd have to give people free rein to attack the local councils or to destroy the school authorities, like the students who break up the repression in the universities. It's already happening, though people have got to get together more.

One of the things that's very important, when you're an activist and an organizer like me, is to understand that when things happen of that nature, some people become immobilized and other people begin to find solutions. And Detroit is the kind of city where we begin to find solutions.

When real substantive change happens it's the people who watch your show, they're the ones that make it happen. It's people whose names are not highlighted in history books. They're the ones that stand up in their place and time to make change.

What we all have to know is the struggle is long. It's long. It may not end in our lifetimes. But the struggle is what gives our lives meaning and purpose. I tell people to take time out of activism every day to take care of their bodies, to take care of their souls and spirits.