DeRay Mckesson Quotes

Public service and community organizing and movement building is such a part of my DNA that it's really hard to separate it.

It's about being a voice in the community. There's so many ways to be a voice, and that's what I'm figuring out.

I did not dedicate my life to making Baltimore a safer and more just place because it was easy.

I have been a lifelong community activist and frankly did not dream of being in public office.

I learned about community organizing from my parents. As a child, their stories were so instructive.

An activist is one who is actively involved in creating community, whether that is locally in their neighborhood or internationally. It is an admirable quality.

Activism has been very productive in our society.

It is the men who makes a city.

In every school, community center, city hall, and state capitol, there are women who are making their voices heard and standing up for the people they serve - women who aren't just demanding change but finding ways to create it. They are making an impact, and along the way, they're inspiring others to do the same.

I want our millennials and our young people to do what they started out doing with meet-ups, to talk about what is going on, and spread the education.

We have to take our democracy back. We cannot leave it to Facebook or Snapchat or anyone else. We have to take democracy back and renew it. Society is about people and not about technology.

Even though I grew up and I didn't always like getting dragged to the meetings or the rallies or the speeches, I developed a very strong respect for participating in a democratic process.

For me, governing starts with people. It doesn't start with bureaucracy. It doesn't start with policy. It starts with people and what people need to thrive.

There is nothing that says you can't be active and love your community and fight for your community and still do your job.

The most powerful thing we can do is get involved locally. Help our local community and become community activists in our own smaller circle.

Few cities have more skilled, experienced organizers and activists and grassroots organizations than St. Louis and Philadelphia.

You don't need role models to be part of a social movement as long as you care about the issues.

Politics lives in people, ideas live in people, they live in the concrete struggles that people have.

You have to decide to create the society you want to create, and that's done through politics.

Politics for me is not business but a movement of which I am happy to be a part.

When I look at our communities, our country, our justice system, those are things I want to change and I'm committed to changing, and that's going to take sacrifice. Laying the foundation is the hardest part and requires a lot of sacrifice and time.

My mother informed me that the way to be a change agent to create change, the first line of defense, or however you want to phrase that, is politics and government.

We spend more time talking about what's happening on Twitter than we do talking about what kind of organising people are doing in the cities we live in.

I thought my parents were always having card parties - and they were - but they were actually also having meetings to organize people. My older sister would be part of youth organizing, and she'd have dance parties. People would be dancing and talking about how to improve their neighborhood.

While everyone's purpose may be different, with social media we all have that platform to create the change we want to see in the world, and I spend a lot of time encouraging others to step up and use theirs.