Mike McCurry Quotes

From the beginning of church history, music, writing, literature, and the greatest works of art all came from the church. To change the culture and make it a force for good, you have to be in it and be a part of it.

When did we begin to lose faith in our ability to effect change?

As a young man, causes of one kind or another engaged me, and I thought the media is where you express yourself in that. I lived with the illusion, for quite a long time, that if you described something accurately, something would be done about it.

Developing compassion for Congress and politicians is a good way to begin practicing the new social activism if you want to make effective changes in the world. Perhaps the most startling new insight of all is that there is no other way to effectively change the world.

In Christian terms, evangelization and humanization are not alternatives. Nor are the 'vertical dimension' of faith and the 'horizontal dimension' of love for one's neighbor and political change.

I think the Sixties in some ways is a barrier to young people today. They think of it, you know, what we're doing is not that. But it's partly the myth of the Sixties. It always felt embattled and small. It always, almost always, was a small group of people relative to the opposition around.

The one thing I witnessed over and over were these pretty young people who would throw themselves into a cause larger than themselves and believe they could change the world.

Every major social movement in our history was fueled in large part by religion and faith. Abolitionism, women’s suffrage, child labor law, and most famously, civil rights.

I find that my upbringing in the Church and my relationship with God are huge benefits to me in helping me become the kind of person that I want to become.

The great thing about 2017 is that, because of the terrible political state that we're in and that America is in, young people are so vocal at the moment about so many issues, from racism to LGBT rights to beyond. I feel like - especially when I look at my fan-base - people are so vocal about their opinions and so vocal about spreading love. That's really important, and I think it's really amazing that people are talking about that. I just want that to keep happening.

There are good guys, and there are congressional people who are good guys, and I certainly vote in those elections. You know, my fondest dream would be if Obama, when he got out of office, decided he was going to go back and organize on the streets. He'd be the only person I could imagine who could really create a movement similar to what King did, and God knows we need that now.

To do peace, you must get up off your apathy.

I think the greatest legacy of the 1960s was the general feeling that not only can you fight the powers that be, but you can win.

One thing that I'd just remind young people of is that when John Lewis, who's a member of Congress today, defied George Wallace and led the march from Selma to Montgomery, he was 23 years old. Martin Luther King was the old man in the bunch, and he was 35, so young people need to know that they've always been an important part of our society, have always been at the forefront of pushing for a more just America, and we can't be successful without the impatience, the vigor that young people bring to the fight for social justice.

I came into public life during the 1960s when a whole bunch of us believed in our ability to change the world. And we did a lot of things.

It is important to keep protesting, to keep forcing a conversation in the public arena. In any case, when you know what the right thing to do is, or that something must be said, it can be immoral and dangerous not to act.

We cannot handle injustice by finding more ways to impose what is in fact "right" on people. It has to come from the inside. And that's where the church should be working.

I would say when I went to Michigan. It started. I got very very involved in civil rights in Ann Harbor right away. Picketing, something I never even knew existed.

I have great respect for people who are in the front lines and the trenches of trying to enact social change. I am far lazier than that.

I felt hopeful for the future because Obama is here. But nothing has changed. It's time for young kids to get serious again and really think about what their four fathers were like. As African-Americans, we are resilient, we are some bad mf-ers, and we are survivors. So get those i-pods out of their ears and become heroes again like the Freedom Riders.

Rock-and-roll was an example of change in the body of the culture. I think it's really what helped bring the anti-war movement to its peak and moved people into the streets to seize the day - the movement was the embodiment of what was happening in the music. This is what taught me that it was possible to bring art and activism together. Without that piece, that energetic embodiment piece, the rest is just intellectual construct.

It's important to teach students about the reality of the system, that it is in fact the case that they are being targeted unfairly, that the rules have been set up in a way that authorize unfair treatment of them, and how difficult it is to challenge these laws in the courts. We need to teach them how our politics have changed in recent years, how there has been, in fact, a backlash. But we need to couple that information with stories of how people in the past have challenged these kinds of injustices, and the role that youth have played historically in those struggles.

I feel I need to really think about whether there's a way to use what skill I have to address things that outrage me, like the 13 year old girl getting stoned to death. Because I don't think making a movie is going to help that, or change that.

Women and people of color and young people especially are about to have this amazing opportunity to shift the political conversation in this country for the good of all of us, toward more progressive policies, and it's a really amazing and important time to be part of that.

You must embrace the Word of God as the most effective instrument for change.