Van Jones Quotes

Anybody who takes Martin Luther King seriously has got to go beyond the standard understanding of who he was, has to connect those dots.

I wished the president [Barack Obama] were more "Martin Luther King-like."

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is one of my personal heroes.

Martin Luther King, Jr. was a revolutionary, simple and plain.

Every community has a Martin Luther King Boulevard. It's the cornerstone we all know. It's not just a street or boulevard, but a place where Walmart stands together with your community to make every day better.

My father and I marched with Martin Luther King Jr. through the streets of Detroit.

[Martin Luther] King subpoened the nation's conscience. He was killed for it.

Martin Luther King was never an up close and personal figure in the United States.

Rosa Parks will be remembered for her lasting contributions to society. Her legacy lives on in the continued struggle for civil rights around the world. She will be missed.

I think that I'll always remember the bust of Dr. [Martin Luther] King. I thought having an American here who represented rhat civic spirit that got me into this [president] office was useful.

I ran because I became convinced after King was shot and killed, and Martin Luther King was one of the great heroes of my life, that politics is not perfect but it's the best available nonviolent means of changing how we live. If we don't like how we live, we can participate in the perfect most revolutionary act in a democracy, it's called voting.

We live in a world where people are fearful of extremism, but Martin Luther King would say he was always trying to keep the flow of love in place. In that sense, he turned the world on its head.

I heard of Martin Luther King Jr. when I was 15 years old. I heard of Rosa Parks. And I met Dr. King in 1958 at the age of 18. I met Rosa Parks ... But to pick up a fun comic book - some people used to call them "funny books" - to pick this little book up, it sold for 10 cents, 12 pages or 14 pages? 14 pages I digested. And it inspired me. And I said to myself, "If the people of Montgomery can do this, maybe I can do something. Maybe I can make a contribution."

[Martin Luther King] King was a socialist and King was an activist who was really a radical by the end.

I used read about Dr. King a lot as a kid. Independently, from being assigned it or being told by my parents or anything, I was just really excited about him. So I just started reading about him very young and was inspired by his legacy and looked to him as a role model.

Either Malcolm X or Martin [Luther King] could have played the role of a unifier, but it was - Malcolm as long as he remained within the Nation of Islam, talking to the converted, he did not represent a fundamental threat to the American government.

That's where Dr. [Martin Luther] King is mixed up. His goals should be the solution of the problem of the black man in America.

His [Martin Luther King] last book, Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community, is a direct reference to angles, barbarism or socialism.

Martin [Luther King] wasn't one to buck forces too much.

A decade passed between King's assassination and my birth, but the older I get, the more acutely aware I become that 10 years is nothing.

I'm not Martin Luther King. I can't be Martin Luther King. The only thing I can do is present what I feel the essence of Martin Luther King is.

Martin [Luther King] wasn't, basically, the kind of person - certainly at the stage that I knew him closest - wasn't the kind of person you could engage in dialogue with, certainly, if the dialogue questioned the almost exclusive rightness of his position.

When I marched with Martin Luther King in Selma, I felt my legs were praying.

One thing of the many things that I know about Jesse Jackson, he is persistent.

As a civil rights leader, Mrs. King's vision of racial peace and nonviolent social change was a fortifying staple in advancing the civil rights movement.