A. Philip Randolph Quotes

The bottom line is that you only have the rights you fight for.

Freedom must be demanded and defended, by those who have been denied it and by those who are already free.

For as long as I can remember, I've always been interested in issues of social justice, political freedom, and civil rights.

Where I come from, if you see your family and friends' civil rights being taken away, you speak up and do everything you can to keep that from happening!

Rights are won only by those who make their voices heard.

If there is no struggle, there is no progress....This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.

The answer to injustice is not to silence the critic but to end the injustice.

So keep fighting for freedom and justice, beloveds.

Lost rights are never regained by appeals to the conscience of the usurpers, but by relentless struggle....goa ts are used for sacrificial offerings and not lions.

Human rights are not things that are put on the table for people to enjoy. These are things you fight for and then you protect.

Since being in India, I am more convinced than ever before that the method of nonviolent resistance is the most potent weapon available to oppressed people in their struggle for justice and human dignity.

I am not interested in picking up crumbs of compassion thrown from the table of someone who considers himself my master. I want the full menu of rights.

My fellow revolutionaries, liberation is a noble cause. We must fight to obtain it.

Don't be a marshmallow. Walk the street with us into history. Get off the sidewalk. Stop being vegetables. Work for Justice. Viva the boycott!

The rights of all of us are diminished when the rights of any one of us are threatened.

We are not satisfied and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.

I live in the United States, but I do not know exactly where. My address is wherever there is a fight against oppression. My address is like my shoes; it travels with me. I abide where there is a fight against wrong.

Rights did not just fall out of the sky. They were the result of struggle.

No right dies so long as someone demands it.

This is not a question of expediency, but of right. In antebellum days the proposition was not, “Are the blacks good enough to be free?” but, “Have they the right?” So today the question is not, “Will outrages result from freeing humanity?” but, “Has it the right to life, the means of life, the opportunities of happiness?”

MLK, Jr. taught me how to say no to segregation, and I can hear him saying now... when you straighten up your back, no man can ride you. He said stand up straight and say no to racial discrimination.

As the daughter of a civil rights leader, I believe in the power that compels people to stand up for their freedoms, for justice and opportunity. I know that marching inspires people to take an active role in creating positive change for a better America.

Justice, particularly for the oppressed and marginalized in our society, never comes without great effort and sacrifice.

You never completely have your rights, one person, until you all have your rights.

I know we have to have people of good conscience who stand up against oppression. I know we have to have people who understand that social justice belongs to us all. And that wakes me up every morning, and that makes me fight even harder.