Zoe Kazan Quotes

The history of progress is written in the blood of men and women who have dared to espouse an unpopular cause, as, for instance, the black man's right to his body, or woman's right to her soul.

Is Justice to be established by subjecting half of mankind to the will of the other half? Justice, Sir, is blind to colors, and weighs in equal scales the rights of all men whether white or black…. An opportunity is now presented, if not to diminish, at least to prevent the growth of a sin that sits heavy on the soul of every one of us.

In our struggle against apartheid, the great supporters were Jewish people. They almost instinctively had to be on the side of the disenfranchised, of the voiceless ones, fighting injustice, oppression and evil.

Negro intellectuals have come to realize that they must carry on the fight, in concert with others, to make America true to her own ideals of equality and democracy.

So here comes this black guy from the Bay Area talking about peace, feminism, challenging racism, challenging the priorities of the country, and talking about preserving the fragile nature of our ecological system. People looked at me as if I was a freak.

It is hard for the old slave holding spirit to die. But die it must.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

One ought to be against racism and sexism because they are wrong, not because one is black or one is female.

We don't hate nobody because of their color. We hate oppression!

The day that the black man takes an uncompromising step and realizes that he's within his rights, when his own freedom is being jeopardized, to use any means necessary to bring about his freedom or put a halt to that injustice, I don't think he'll be by himself.

The ideals and principles for which Dr King fought have never been forgotten and are as relevant today as they were 40 years ago.

When I wrote 'The Secret Life of Bees,' I was writing about civil rights.

We cannot reform institutional racism or systemic policies if we are not actively engaged. It's not enough to simply complain about injustice; the only way to prevent future injustice is to create the society we would like to see, one where we are all equal under the law.

Feminism is rooted in racial rights and gender rights, and all of those things intersect, and to say that that's not something you can stand behind - it confuses me. I think it's a really great word.

In the time when my mother began standing up against prejudice and racism, the vast majority of white Americans rarely thought about civil rights.

All I demand for the black man is, that the white people shall take their heels off his neck, and let him have a chance to rise by his own efforts.

Facing sexism and racism and classism and transphobia, there are ways to choose to act in those situations, and there shouldn't be a prescriptive list of things that you have to say.

The caste systems of sex and race are interdependent and can only be uprooted together.

Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The yearning for freedom eventually manifests itself.

Abolitionists believe that, as all men are born free, so all who are now held as slaves in this country were born free, and that they are slaves now is the sin, not of those who introduced the race into this country, but of those, and those alone, who now hold them and have held them in slavery from their birth.

Even here in America, people are fighting for civil rights 45 years after the civil rights movement.

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.

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.

During the 60's, I was, in fact, very concerned about the civil rights movement.

I can't explain exactly why it lives within me for so long and passionately. But race matters to me; racial equality matters to me, as does gender. There is something about these kinds of social injustices that go to the deep of me.