DeRay Mckesson Quotes

I was - the last protest I was at was in Genoa, where I got tear gassed, and I hate tear gas, and I hate being in crowds.

On Tuesday 26 July 2011, I was arrested in front of the White House along with a dozen other pro-immigrant advocates and clergy. We sat down on the sidewalk in front of the White House with a banner that read 'One Million Deported Under President Obama' and refused to move when the police ordered us to.

I have been arrested several times protesting.

After the first International Days of Protest in October, 1965, Senator Mansfield criticized the 'sense of utter irresponsibility' shown by the demonstrators.

Bring on your tear gas, bring on your grenades, your new supplies of Mace, your state troopers and even your national guards. But let the record show we ain't going to be turned around.

I mean it's easier to be in a demonstration if it's a trip that's one of the reasons why the whole thing fell apart in 1971, because it wasn't a trip any longer.

Peaceful, lawful protest - if it is effective - is innately disruptive of 'business as usual.' That is why it is effective.

When 50 people come to a demonstration, they are faced by 1,000 soldiers. A demonstration of 5,000 people will be faced by 25,000 soldiers. I fear that blood be shed for no price. I want blood that is shed for a price.

Different people were complaining, and I remember saying, 'Why don't we just demonstrate?' The Whitney was the first.

We have the freedom of speech. We are able to hold hands in protest and stand up for what we believe in and have people hear what you have to say.

Players who take a knee during the national anthem do so to protest injustice across the country - fulfilling a patriotic duty to never accept injustice, but to call it out when we see it.

You know in democracy you can protest peacefully and I'm sure you know it will have at least some kind of impact. You need to raise your voice. If you can't do much, you know, but at least raise you voice. Raising your voice is something you need to do.

Peaceful protest is a hallmark of our democracy. It has been in impetus for social change throughout our history.

When I arrived in France aged 20, I marched against the death penalty, which was an unpopular thing to protest against at the time.

What if you threw a protest and no one showed up? The lack of angst and anger and emotion is a big positive.

I mean, there's a hell of a lot of grounds for protest, but you don't do it through music.

Western society has many flaws, and it is good for an educated person to have thought some of these through, even at the expense of losing a lecture or two to tear gas.

I didn't do the marching down the streets, jumping in front of the lines and holding hands... that wasn't me.

There are many ways of showing your protest and discontent without the actions of Kremlin.

When our mothers are alive and healthy, they do extraordinary things... like the mothers of Plaza de Mayo, who marched in Argentinean plazas, defying the military junta dictatorship and demanding the whereabouts of their abducted children... or the Liberian mothers who faced down civil war armed only with T-shirts and courage.

You must stand for free speech in the streets.

I can still smell the tear gas in the Hilton Hotel.

Ever since I took to the streets when I was 17 to protest at great personal risk against the communist dictatorship, I have been a passionate democrat.

Violent resistance and nonviolent resistance share one very important thing in common: They are both a form of theater seeking an audience to their cause.

I have watched Occupy Wall Street mostly from the sidelines.